The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

You want to get the most out of your people… so how do you really inspire them? 

Most of the managers immediately respond, “Pay them more!” Believe it or not, that’s not going to cut it. 

Most employees are not coin-operated, and more money does not lead to more engagement.

Wonderfully stated in a Harvard Business Review article, authors Eric Garton and Michael C. Mankins explained there are four levels of employee engagement: Dissatisfied, Satisfied, Engaged, and Inspired, and they pointed to recent productivity research related to each level. 

Here’s what they learned.

Exceeding revenue goals is linked to developing new customers as well as increasing revenue from existing clients, today we are bringing you a recap of the most popular posts we've published in 2020 on key accounts and account list management.

Providing quality content that helps our clients and visitors improve their sales performance is a goal of ours, and we hope this blog has brought you insight, education, and tips to get you on the path to success. We've searched for the most popular blogs of 2020, and we've curated these lists that will publish each day this week to bring you some of the most informative content from the year. Check out these top blog posts on key accounts and account list management from 2020, and let them kickstart your 2021 sales strategy.

We believe that talent + training + tactics = performance, and today we are bringing you a recap of the most popular blog posts we've published in 2020 on all things talent.

Providing quality content that helps our clients and visitors improve their sales performance is a goal of ours, and we hope this blog has brought you insight, education, and tips to get you on the path to success. We've searched for the most popular blog posts of 2020, and we've curated these lists that will publish each day this week to bring you some of the most informative content from the year. Check out these top articles on talent from 2020, and let them kickstart your 2021 sales strategy.

It's hard to keep up with every article we publish throughout the year! So, today, we're making it easy by recapping the most popular sales process posts we've published in 2020.

Providing quality content that helps our clients and visitors improve their sales performance is a goal of ours, and we hope this blog has brought you insight, education, and tips to get you on the path to success. We've searched for the most popular blogs of 2020, and we've curated these lists to bring you some of the most informative content from the year. Check out these top blogs on the sales process from 2020, and let them kickstart your 2021 sales strategy.

"Silence is golden"—usually this is said right after your children leave the room and you finally have a moment of peace.

Providing quality content that helps our clients and visitors improve their sales performance is a goal of ours, and we hope this blog has brought you insight, education, and tips to get you on the path to success.

We've searched for the most popular blog posts of 2020, and we've curated these lists to bring you some of the most informative content from the year. Check out these top blogs on the sales culture and company culture from 2020, and let them kickstart your 2021 sales strategy.

As we get closer to the New Year, we're taking some time to reflect on 2020 and the success we've seen our clients achieve. While many are enjoying this special holiday with family and friends, we're bringing you a recap of the most popular posts we've published in 2020. 

Providing quality content that helps our clients and visitors improve their sales performance is a goal of ours, and we hope this blog has brought you insight, education, and tips to get you on the path to success. We've searched for the most popular blogs of 2020, and we've curated these lists that will publish each day this week to bring you some of the most informative content from the year. Check out these top blogs on sales management from 2020.

So many things have changed this year in response to the pandemic we may not fully appreciate how different our lives really are. Most of the changes have not been positive, but certain outcomes have proven to be beneficial now and are likely to continue into future.

For example, if pre-pandemic shutdown I would have advised you not to bother meeting with a prospect in their office, but rather simply visit them at their home — you might have thought I had lost my mind. 

But, that's what many of you are doing right now because most of our clients are working from home in the new Zoom video world. We’ve all been “inside” someone’s home, at their kitchen table, den, basement office, or spare bedroom via live video connection, and if you think about it, it’s startling. We could never have accomplished this pre-pandemic!

- MOTIVATION -

"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if only one remembers to turn on the light."

-Albus Dumbledore

- AROUND THE WEB -

<< If you only read one thing >>

What do American crime dramas, musical fantasies, and a Canadian sitcom have in common? They can all help you practice social distancing and make you a better person. It’s true! Research provided by Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts found that watching high-quality TV dramas can actually increase our emotional intelligence and make us more empathetic people.

Our team at The Center for Sales Strategy (CSS) and LeadG2 survived 2020, but not without the help of streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+. Here are some of the binge-worthy movies and shows that all of us have been watching while staying home and social distancing.

What are your most effective recruiting tools and strategies?

As a hiring manager, you’ve witnessed first-hand that simply posting a job listing is not enough to attract top talent to your organization. You may have tried to throw-out company statistics and numbers while interviewing, but even those impressive numbers didn’t set you apart from the competition.

So, how do you stand out and sell candidates on your company? The answer is surprisingly simple: storytelling.

These days you can never get enough information on work from home best practices, how to use video to help manage and sell, and how to manage a remote sales team.

In episode 7 of the Improving Sales Performance series, Matt Sunshine hosts a roundtable discussion with Jim Hopes, Stephanie Downs, and Kurt Sima — all consultants at The Center for Sales Strategy (CSS). This is a rare opportunity for listeners to see what an internal meeting is like at CSS and to truly learn from a team of sales experts that offer different points of view.

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.

- MOTIVATION -

"People are influenced to change by people they trust."

-Mike Bosworth

- AROUND THE WEB -

<< If you only read one thing >>

At The Center for Sales Strategy (CSS), we’re big believers in talent. And nothing confirms our trust in talent more than when we witness a direct connection between the talent level of a given salesperson and the success they achieve.

When highly talented, that success happens more quickly and it lasts over the long haul — and when talent is softer, success is modest at best. Same is true for highly talented sales staffs versus those less talented. 

But our confidence in the predictable relationship between strong sales talent and strong sales performance has confirmed something else — talent is rare and precious. Talented salespeople are worth their weight in gold not only because they produce prodigious returns on the investment employers make in them, but also because they’re so darn hard to find.

And a staff full of such salespeople? A sales manager should count themselves an unusually outstanding recruiter and manager if half the staff is highly talented. 

With most of the workforce now working from home, sales managers are figuring out what the new normal is when it comes to their team’s workflow. 

While there are numerous benefits to an at-home, flexible work schedule (like lower stress and a higher employee retention rate), sales teams still need all the help they can get for constant communication, effective project management, goal setting, and team building. 

Thankfully, there is an arsenal of apps, integrations, and platforms that will not only help teams to stay motivated and productive, but will also help to crush quotas as well. Keep reading to find out which tech is right for your team.

The Impact Leadership System is both a training curriculum and an ongoing guidebook for sales leaders of all organizations and levels of experience. This system ensures sales leaders make the right People decisions, follow the best Processes, and engage in effective Planning to deliver top Performance.

In episode 6 of the Improving Sales Performance series, Managing Partner at The Center for Sales Strategy (CSS) John Henley uncovers details about the new Impact Leadership System and how sales leaders can use all four stages in various ways.

To start something at the beginning and complete it (in order) to the very end is seen as a virtue. Linear thinking is logical, and experts say that most of us in the western world rely on it 90% of the time. But don’t let that limit you into believing there's always just one path to the best result.

What result do you want from sales training? To say the team completed all the courses or learn to sell smarter or faster?

- MOTIVATION -

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."

-John F. Kennedy

- AROUND THE WEB -

<< If you only read one thing >>

Is it possible to drive sales performance and keep an amazing company culture during these challenging times? Yes! And Taja Graham, Vice President of Sales for Emmis Communications Indianapolis, provides the proof in her interview with Matt Sunshine.

Episode 5 of the Improving Sales Performance series deep dives into things Graham is doing in her market to drive performance, as well as what she’s doing to keep her team engaged. Plus, she touches on how they’ve modified planning for next year to drive performance.

2020 has been a strange year for everyone. Successful teams who are used to winning find themselves struggling. And managers, who are used to leading successful teams, are trying to coach and help reps who aren’t used to struggling.

If this sounds like a situation you’re experiencing, how can you identify where your team needs help and get them back on track?