The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

- MOTIVATION -

"WELL DONE IS BETTER THAN WELL SAID."

-BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

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Strengthen Your Sales Management Techniques for 2019 — LinkedIn

Which of the following will generate the highest return?

• More customers
• Keeping customers longer
• More revenue per customer

Any one of these can grow revenue. But one has been shown to consistently bring in a higher return on your investment. Most businesses say they are focused on these in the order of the list: adding more customers, than keeping them longer, and finally getting more revenue per customer.

The problem is that the research shows that a focus on more customers is the wrong path to maximize your return. And that it leads you to build the wrong solutions.

Well, you wouldn’t be alone — I hear this from sales managers all the time. Here are the reasons I see that salespeople too often select the wrong companies to pursue:

• They are opportunistic and therefore look for low-hanging fruit where getting access to decision makers is relatively easy. Sometimes that works out, but too often it translates into prospects that do not have the resources to be a key customer in your organization.
  
  
• They let their own preferences dictate who they pursue. There might be particular categories they are comfortable with, or types of individuals they like to deal with that prejudice their thinking about who they should pursue as a prospect.

The advertising game for traditional media is changing and evolving. In this case, change is not a good thing. It’s time for a revolution on your sales team. Are you ready? 

This sounds kind of dramatic, perhaps over-dramatic, but it is true. Some type of revolution needs to take place on your sales team in order for traditional media companies to stay in the game. 

Need proof? Here are some samples of reality:

- MOTIVATION -

"DON'T WATCH THE CLOCK; DO WHAT IT DOES. KEEP GOING."

-SAM LEVENSON

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How to Develop Empathy with Your Prospects and Close More Sales — Hubspot

This post was originally published on the LeadG2 blog.

Recently, LeadG2 shared a post explaining how to send videos via email. Due to spam, security, and email hosting features, many email clients do not allow video embeds directly into emails, so with a few easy steps, marketers and salespeople can send video via email, just not with an actual embed. If you are a Hubspot Sales user at the Professional or Enterprise level, I have good news! Not long ago, Hubspot announced a feature that enables salespeople (or any Hubspot user communicating with a contact through the CRM) to embed videos directly into their 1:1 emails! 

Here are just a few reasons this exciting feature is valuable and vital to the sales process:

1. Video creates a more personal and humanized sales experience.
2. Sales reps that use video in prospecting, relationship-building, and sales emails see 5x higher open rates and 8x higher open-to-reply rates.
3. Video can help to establish and build trust with a prospect that doesn't yet know you.

- WHAT'S MOTIVATING US THIS WEEK -

"IT'S NOT YOUR CUSTOMER'S JOB TO REMEMBER YOU. IT'S YOUR OBLIGATION AND RESPONSIBILITY TO MAKE SURE THEY DON'T HAVE A CHANCE TO FORGET YOU."

-PATRICIA FRIPP

- WHAT WE'VE BEEN READING THIS WEEK -

Today, we're changing things up to bring you content only focused on video and how it relates to the sales process and sales performance. Enjoy!

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Can I Embed a Video in an Email? — LeadG2

In fact, it’s better than OK. The reality is, in the course of any business relationship, something is going to go wrong at some time and it’s smart to get out front of it and to be very transparent.

Here’s a recent example of a problem we encountered in our own company we had to deal with, and an email we sent to the affected clients shortly following the incident as an apology: 

- WHAT'S MOTIVATING US THIS WEEK -

"THE ONLY LIMIT TO OUR REALIZATION OF TOMORROW WILL BE OUR DOUBTS OF TODAY."

-FRANLIN D. ROOSEVELT

- WHAT WE'VE BEEN READING THIS WEEK -

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The Sobering Truth: Why You Can’t Sell to C-Suite Executives — Hubspot

Sales superpowers? Yes, really. To understand what I mean, please take a step back from the world of selling and focus instead on the process of buying.

The easiest way to wrap your mind around this is to consider a few common business-to-consumer (B2C) purchasing processes like buying a car, remodeling a kitchen, or selecting a college. Looking through that lens, it is easy to see how different the process of buying is today than it was only 10 years ago. I’m sure you would agree that the most notable difference is the amount of time the consumer spends researching in advance.

This sort of pre-purchase work is just as prevalent in the B2B world! Whether an individual is shopping for office space or office supplies, or selecting a bank, an accountant, a lawyer, or an insurance agent, chances are they will do a lot of pre-work before they ever engage in a significant conversation with a representative from any company. And when they do finally begin that conversation, they will come loaded with information and expectations.

We're partially through the 4th quarter of the year, and as planning is in the works for the following year, it’s a great time to do an account review with your team. After all, their success equals your success, so it’s vital that you help them set a strategy that helps them meet their goals.  

How many decisions does a sales manager make in day? 10? 25? 50? That number probably varies, but most people would agree sales managers make a lot of decisions each day as they navigate changing conditions, corporate demands, and plenty of persuasion from their salespeople about doing what they want them to do. Better sales managers make good decisions more often than mediocre sales managers. So, how do they do that?

Campaign recaps have become an expectation of doing business in the digital marketing era, but they often become a delivery report instead of reporting on the performance of a campaign. The goal of any recap should be to sell the results of that campaign in an effort to retain and grow the business. Over the years, I’ve seen some really good recaps, and I’ve seen some bad ones.

- WHAT'S MOTIVATING US THIS WEEK -

"THE HARDER THE CONFLICT, THE MORE GLORIOUS  THE TRIUMPH" 

-THOMAS PAINE

- WHAT WE'VE BEEN READING THIS WEEK -

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Inbound Marketing Data: An Often-Overlooked Intellectual Asset of a Business — LeadG2