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The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

B2B Sales Teams Number One Complaint (And What To Do About It)

B2B Sales Teams Number One Complaint

"I spend all day making cold calls, and I'm getting very little to show for my efforts. Getting the first appointment is harder than ever. If I could just get my foot in the door..."

It's a common complaint from B2B sales reps nowadays. Traditional prospecting approaches like cold calling have become less and less effective over the years. Decision makers simply don't answer unsolicited sales calls like they used to.

What can you do about it?

Topics: Inbound Marketing prospecting

3 Sales Coaching Steps to Recruit Quality vs. Quantity

Three Sales Coaching Steps to Recruit Quality vs. Quantity

Finding and attracting top sales talent is a perpetual challenge for sales managers. With countless responsibilities already overflowing your plate, dedicating time to recruiting often falls by the wayside. However, taking a strategic approach to recruiting through inbound marketing techniques can attract qualified, eager candidates, so you spend time interviewing the right people.

Inbound marketing is proven to generate sales leads, and these same principles can be applied to enhance your employer brand and recruiting efforts. By developing engaging content and social media profiles, you position yourself as a manager invested in the success of your team.

Let's dive into how to get started with an inbound strategy to recruit the sales talent you want on your team.

Topics: Inbound Marketing recruitment

Inbound Marketing 101: The Seven Steps to Lead Generation [Infographic]

Inbound Marketing Infographic

Inbound marketing is all about providing personalized, relevant content to your target audience.

Instead of pushing out interruptive messages that can easily be ignored, you should be providing educational and entertaining content that they are already searching for online. The power behind an effective inbound marketing program is that prospects and customers alike can opt to give you their contact information in exchange for the most premium content you provide.

Topics: digital marketing Inbound Marketing

What Lessons Have We Learned in 2020?

lessons learned in 2020-1

None of us fathomed that a year ago we could do business without traveling. No one imagined that we would exclusively have online events, online trainings, online meetings, online calls, and so on. Lessons learned in 2020 boil down to three words — Accept, Adapt, Accelerate.

  • We’ve accepted that there’s a new reality for the way we do business
  • We’ve adapted to the way we sell and talk to clients based on our new reality
  • We’ve accelerated the sales process (and more) in order to improve

Although conducting business during a pandemic has been challenging, are all the changes we’ve made really that bad? Here are some lessons learned in 2020, straight from the mouths of experts at The Center of Sales Strategy (CSS), LeadG2, and Up Your Culture.

Topics: sales performance Inbound Marketing company culture

6 Ways Inbound Lead Generation Provides ROI + 6 Key Metrics to Track

6 Ways Inbound Lead Generation Provides ROI

There’s no doubt — lead generation that is clear-cut, clean, and specific is ideal. When we picture lead generation working at peak performance, most of us envision the salesperson being handed a lead that is pre-qualified and only a small step from closing. Smooth and easy!

But don’t fool yourself into thinking that every lead generated by inbound marketing will be so straightforward. That’s not reality, and if you allow tunnel vision to influence your ability to measure your inbound marketing ROI, you'll miss out on a lot of critical information.

Topics: Lead Generation Inbound Marketing

Are You a Thought Leader? 6 Ways to Tell

Are You a Thought Leader? In every industry, there are people or businesses we think of as being thought leaders. These people and organizations are the ones that you check on regularly with regard to innovation, market challenges, and new initiatives.

Being considered a thought leader in your industry is certainly an advantageous position to have, as it helps with lead generation, sales, recruitment and retention, new business opportunities, and more.

Topics: content strategy thought leadership sales strategy Inbound Marketing

What is a Target Persona and Why Do I Need One?

what is a target personaResearch reveals that 47% of buyers view at least three to five pieces of content before deciding to speak with a sales rep. In today's digital age, sales teams must rely on inbound marketing strategies (the process of attracting prospects to you) to convert leads. Why? In order to be successful, you must generate amazing content that speaks to your prospects’ various needs, pain points, and buying cycle stages.

Developing a target persona* is critical for success. If you don't have a clearly defined persona, who's all your content targeted to? A target persona is absolutely necessary for a successful lead generation strategy. If you don't have this information, how do you create valuable content?

Topics: Inbound Marketing target persona

5 Metrics to Measure the Success of Your Digital Marketing Efforts

content marketing metrics

As websites continue to become more important in the consumer journey, the need to measure the efficiency of digital marketing also increases. This is a shared burden between those selling digital media and business owners and marketers who are looking to maximize their ROI. We know that “clicks” provide an incomplete picture into the impact of digital advertising, as most users do not click on ads but still find their way to a business's website after being exposed to ads.  

So what should we look at? Here are five metrics to help give a more in-depth insight into the effectiveness of your digital marketing efforts.

Topics: digital marketing SEO Inbound Marketing

How Inbound Marketing Can Create Raving Fans for Your Business

How Inbound Marketing Can Create Raving Fans for Your Business

Every business wants raving fans; consumers that are so overwhelmed with great customer service that they can't stop talking about your brand. This is particularly important if your business has a relatively long sales cycle. If prospects take their time to research different offerings, building brand awareness and trust is big.

And, businesses are catching on. Those using effective inbound marketing initiatives are producing sales leads and, at the same time, establishing expertise and thought leadership in their specific industry. Those experiencing this success will tell you that it's contagious, but requires the constant sharing of quality content, which attracts interested prospects to their companies.  

So how do you get consumers to not only know about your brand, but like your products and services enough to engage with your company frequently, and rave to others about you?

Topics: content marketing content strategy Digital Inbound Marketing

NOW AVAILABLE: The 2019 Media Sales Report

The State of Media Sales 2019

The Center for Sales Strategy conducted two online surveys during the second quarter of 2019 with sample groups representing sales managers and salespeople in the media industry. With the data from these surveys, our team researched, analyzed, and compiled The 2019 Media Sales Report to deliver key findings and insights from the surveys to help drive sales performance in the year ahead. This report studies the landscape over the past year, including the expectations for sales managers and the strategies employed by media sales professionals to assess their impact across five key topics: Compensation and Sales Team Size, Training and Development, Number of Appointments and Sales Process, Sales Enablement, and Culture and Industry.

Read on to check out our key findings, and download the full report for more insight from these surveys!

Topics: Inbound Marketing state of media sales media sales report