The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

You know those pesky phone calls you sometimes get from people trying to sell you something you absolutely don't need? You don't want that to be your strategy.

Luckily, there are other options. Sales outreach has come a long way from pure cold calling. And as the field continues developing, you need to keep up with it. With the help of modern technology and new tactics, you can improve your sales outreach strategy and make it more effective.

A rise in engagement, conversion rates, and profits is likely to follow. So don't hesitate because better outreach gives better results.

Improving your staff's productivity and efficiency is difficult when there are so few of you. That doesn’t mean it isn’t impossible to delegate work in a way that compensates for being short-staffed, but sooner or later, you’ll need to find the right sales structure for balance or hire more employees, or you risk burnout.

Hiring employees may be the best option if you’re experiencing a sudden influx of work. There's also the option for leased employees, who can be placed as temporary workers and don’t require you to handle their HR or payroll employment duties.

First, let’s take a look at how your company can stay productive without hiring more employees. Then, we’ll show you the telltale signs of when it’s time to take the outsourcing plunge.

If you think cold emailing is dead, you're wrong.

59% of B2B companies say email is the most effective channel for generating revenue. It's one of the most cost-effective forms of outreach that there is.

At the same time, you need to realize that you're not the only one sending emails. HBR reports that on average, professionals have more than 200 emails in their inbox and receive 120 new ones each day but respond to only 25% of them.

If you want to get a response to your emails, you'll need to employ the magic of etiquette, one of the best ways to create a human connection with the reader.

In this post, we talk about a few common mistakes people make writing cold emails, and some advice on how to improve these areas.

Building trust virtually, finding qualified leads, getting in front of the decision-makers — these are all challenges that salespeople face. And as a sales manager, you’re finding innovative ways to address these issues.

However, to become more effective in your role and provide a better overall direction for the entire team, it’s important to know the current challenges that sales managers face as well.

To help narrow down the current sales challenges facing sales managers, we asked our experts to weigh in. Here's what they said.

The prospecting challenge is real.

Sellers face it every day when making the choice to go after prospects that appear to be low-hanging fruit or quick sales — or pursue prospects with greater spending potential that will take longer to close.

You've met with a prospect several times — and this person also happens to be the CEO of the business. Score!

You've built a great rapport, they've shared challenges with you, and you've developed the perfect solution. You're really getting excited about the opportunities that are unfolding!

It's all going perfect, until you hear...

- MOTIVATION -

"Always Deliver More Than Expected."

- Larry Page

- AROUND THE WEB -

<< If you only read one thing >>

Customers aren't going to want to do business with a company that doesn't offer a great buying experience.

No matter the type of business you run, you need to treat your clients right if you want them to remain in business with you and spread the word about your good reputation.

Below are a few ways that you can improve the way your company interacts with prospects and clients.

For years, we've heard the phrase — make lemonade out of lemons. How do you make lemonade out of lemons?

In this episode of the Sales Leadership Series, Tom Morris, Author of over 30 books, including his latest, "Plato’s Lemonade Stand," joins the show to talk about challenge, change, difficulty and delight. This discussion took concepts from his books and applied them to sales leadership and tips for sales leaders.

Tune in now or keep reading for a brief overview.

Are you running out of ideas for how to find new prospects for your sales funnel?

It can be demoralizing when you feel like you’ve exhausted every avenue to find potential prospects for your B2B sales pipeline, but there are always more avenues to explore.

One such avenue is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is actually one of the best tools for finding B2B sales prospects thanks to the platform’s sophisticated search functions and ease of use.

The war for talent is particularly brutal right now, so once you find and hire the right person, you might be tempted to pat yourself on the back and relax.

Unfortunately, while you may have won a single battle, the war is still on. It's vital to plan out your strategy and then apply it.

How? By creating a strong onboarding plan that impresses your new hire and sets them on the path to being a top performer. Let’s discuss the 3 phases of our battle plan.

- MOTIVATION -

"The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers."

- Ralph Nader

- AROUND THE WEB -

<< If you only read one thing >>

Throughout the entire fourth season of the Improving Sales Performance series, host Matt Sunshine will talk to leaders, CEOs, Executives, and authors about their businesses and how they improve revenue performance. 

The series kicks off a Sales Leadership Series where Matt Sunshine discusses sales and executive leadership tips with Jason Randall, CEO of Questco and author of, "Beyond The Superhero: Executive Leadership For The Rest Of Us."

Tune in now or keep reading for a brief overview!

You know the feeling of an ah-ha moment…

When you're talking about something you passionately believe in and then—BAM—you can practically see the light bulb go off for the other person.

It's a highlight for anyone who passionately loves what they do.

Client retention is and will always be pivotal for the success of businesses.

In fact, client retention is a true measure of the experiences an organization delivers to its clients. Based on these experiences, clients or customers decide if they want to continue business with a given firm or not.

In other words, a company’s ability to retain its customers has a huge impact on revenue generation and profitability.

If new employee onboarding procedures are insufficient, it can take up to 12 months for new hires to reach max productivity. In a world where employees don't stay at jobs for the entire duration of their career, this is horrific.

New employee onboarding has always been an issue. There are always holes in an onboarding process, and some companies seem better at it than others. Throwing new hires in and expecting them to swim no longer works.

This is especially true in our new hybrid working world. New employees are required to coexist in a virtual and real world, and be able to seamlessly toggle between the two.

To counteract these struggles, it's important to stick to a consistent employee onboarding checklist. To help you do that, we've assembled steps that will consolidate your processes and make new employees feel informed, safe, and ready to start being productive!

- MOTIVATION -

"Focus on being productive instead of busy."

- Tim Ferris

- AROUND THE WEB -

<< If you only read one thing >>

A large study by Flexjobs recently showed that 27% of employees would be willing to take up to a 20% pay cut just to continue working from home, and 81% reported that an employee who offers flexible work options would get significantly of their loyalty.

Supporting studies from Gartner also show that 82% of company leaders intend to support a hybrid workplace.

This is a candidate’s market, and it will become increasingly so.

Having a great company culture in today’s economy is not just a luxury, it’s a necessity.

The Center for Sales Strategy (CSS) is known both internally and externally for our incredible culture — especially as a fully remote company. How do we do it? How did we build our company culture?

This LIVE broadcast is from our annual staff meeting in Dallas, TX. Host Matt Sunshine discusses topics with a few team members from The Center for Sales Strategy, LeadG2, and Up Your Culture, around how we built our company culture and how we now help others improve employee engagement and company culture.

Tune in now or keep reading for a brief overview.

Although lowering, unemployment rates are still much higher than we’ve seen in recent years. However, don’t let that fool you; as you can see, it’s still a very competitive job market out there.

Why? In part, because smart companies are examining their talent and prioritizing their top performers. When they know it’s time to let someone go, you can guarantee it’s not going to be their top people. However, while unemployment is higher, top talent is still scarce.

How can you structure your interview process to let top talent shine through? And beyond that, how can you change your traditional interviewing process to show top talent you have an adaptable, strong company culture?

Every manager or business leader has their own style of managing their teams. While some managers believe in empowering their subordinates with autonomy, others like to keep the discretion to themselves.

However, the smartest of managers are those who keep modifying their management styles with the latest workplace trends. Speaking of workplace trends, you already know that a lot about workplaces are changing at a swift pace. Now when remote working and hybrid offices are the new working dimensions, a lot is bound to get overhauled.

Are the positive effects of micromanagement enough to outweigh the downsides, or is it the other way around? Every manager should mull over this when they consider the significance or the relevance of micromanagement.