The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

We hope you've had a great week! It's Friday, and today we're sharing what we've been reading online this week! Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. The Secrets To Keeping Your New Year's Resolutions— FastCompany

If you’re like the majority of Americans, you’re probably thinking about making a New Year’s resolution. From losing weight to getting organized, spending less/saving more, and enjoying life to the fullest (last year's top four resolutions), we often make grand plans every January. Unfortunately, just 8% of us will be successful, according to Statistic Brain. But your odds don’t have to be so disheartening. Here are some proven tips that can put you in the 8% that make it happen. 

Today we have a guest post from Rachel Davidson. Rachel is a content specialist for Highspot, the sales enablement industry’s leading platform for content management, customer engagement, and analytics.

As sales teams grow, it can be challenging to make sure each team member has quick access to resources needed to do the job: case studies, email templates, product sell sheets, whitepapers, etc.

When huge amounts of content are fragmented and spread throughout multiple systems and platforms, reps can spend more time searching than selling. This is where sales enablement technology comes into play. By using a smart sales enablement tools that allow reps to access content and automate tasks, sales teams put themselves in better position to save time and engage customers more effectively.

At its heart, sales enablement creates more opportunities for reps to do what they do best: sell. Today we’re going to share ideas on improving the bottom line of your business by achieving faster conversions and higher sales via sales enablement.

We publish a lot of posts on our blog in our effort to help sales managers and salespeople get better results. Every so often, we look back at our analytics to see which posts were the most popular, so we know what's of interest to people (and what we need to focus on with upcoming posts). 

We hope you've had a great week! It's Friday, and today we're sharing what we've been reading online this week! Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. Four Easy Ways To Make A Memorable First Impression— FastCompany

That firm handshake is great, but it's what you say next—and how you say it—that matters more. Here are four ways to make a great impression.

When a fad reaches saturation, it’s often ready to start dying out, or at least transition into something else. Since it seems that everywhere you turn, someone is talking about the mistakes and must-haves for your personal brand, has this fad run its course? Are you a skeptic or fanatic for personal branding?

Where do you stand on personal branding?

• Do you read the hype about a personal brand and roll your eyes?
• Or are you an established thought leader in your industry?

In an article in Time Magazine describing the new generation of workers, many summarizations were made. Here are a few quotes from that article: “They are thought of as the entitlement, me, me, me generation,” “Want to postpone growing up,” “Overly sensitive at best and lazy at worst.”

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Which generation do you think this article was about? You may be quick to jump on Millennials for your answer, but you would be wrong! This article was written about 16-year-olds and is dated from a 1990 Time issue on Generation X!

Every older generation views the younger ones with that “What is up with the kids these days?” mindset. Scary to say, but you have become your parents! Millennials are the new YOU!

We hear that word often, but who exactly are Millennials? Let’s look at a quick breakout of your workforce by category:

We hope you've had a great week! It's Friday, and today we're sharing what we've been reading online this week! Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. How to Use Psychological Biases to Sell Better and Faster— HubSpot

Psychological biases are part of us, so those whose job it is to persuade can benefit from learning how to spot and play to them. This article digs into a few biases that relate to decision making and helps sales reps use these brain quirks to sell better.

Every sales manager has been there. You spend time and effort selecting just the right candidate. You get your “perfect” AE hired and trained, and they’re doing well. But then you get their two-week notice. Your heart sinks. You have invested time, energy, and most importantly money into this person, only to have them take their talent to another company. What happened?!

We have all heard the phrase, an employee joins a company but leaves a manager. So how can you keep your top talent? How can you become a manager whose people stay?

Blogging is no longer just for personal use. Businesses, including B2B companies, use blogs as a platform to connect with their target audience and increase awareness about their brands. If you are running or managing the sales department of a B2B company and you don’t have a blog for your business yet, you may want to consider starting one due to its various benefits.

We hope you've had a great week! It's Friday, and today we're sharing what we've been reading online this week! Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. Attention Marketers and Sales People: Take No for an Answer + More — Medium

Every time a salesperson contacts a potential lead, the salesperson is at an automatic disadvantage. The prospect always starts out on the defense. It’s not because they hate being sold to. They’re defensive because, in their experience, it’s going to take an enormous effort to make the salesperson accept a simple “No.” Here are five reasons why the best response is to actually take "no" for an answer.

A leader’s success or failure is dependent on the actions of those they lead. Good sales mangers understand that actions begin with attitude and motivate their team to direct their talents to selling and delivering effective solutions for their clients. The insights of military leaders often apply in business, which is why Sun Tzu’s Art of War is popular reading within the ranks of management.

Success or failure is a result of what people think, feel, and then do. Xenophon was an ancient Greek warrior and philosopher who observed that what soldiers think and feel will affect their actions.

Let’s look closer at three observations he made and how they apply to sales management:

You may have heard it said that the best way to approach selling is to make buying easier for the buyer. That saying has been around a long time. But a new twist on that is the notion of helping buyers navigate their journey. The journey in B2B buying has greatly changed over the last several years.  

Smart salespeople think about the “things” along the buyer journey—and consider how they can help the buyer navigate that journey.  

We hope you've had a great week! It's Friday, and today we're sharing what we've been reading online this week! Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. 5 Highly Effective Email Time Management Hacks — HubSpot

Most salespeople spend hours in their inbox every day: Writing emails, scheduling them, reading them, and organizing them. If you could save just 10% of this time, you’d have more time for actual selling. To shrink your email investment by 10% (or more), try these five effective email time management hacks.