Alina McComas, on October 4, 2022
It's always surprising to me how few sellers conduct an audit of a prospect's website and social media presence prior to meeting with a prospect.
This simple step doesn’t need to take a lot of time, but it will go a long way to help prepare you to ask better, more knowledgeable questions about the prospect, their business, and what might be important to them.
Alina McComas, on July 19, 2022
You scheduled a meeting with a strong Target account. You're excited about the meeting as this has the potential to be a big prospect, but when you arrive, the first thing you hear is “You have 10 minutes. What are you pitching me today?”
If you're in sales, this is something you have likely heard before… and it's frustrating to hear. Basically, the decision maker is saying “I’m busy and I don’t believe you will benefit me or my business in any way. So, I will give you 10 minutes to pitch me whatever package or product it is you are pushing… so you will go away.”
Alina McComas, on June 30, 2022
I often hear from salespeople that getting an appointment with a quality prospect is one of the hardest parts of the sales process and getting them to give your 30-45 minutes is almost impossible.
It is certainly true that decision makers have more requests for their time today than ever before, which makes breaking through the clutter harder. It is easy to get lost in the sea of salespeople who are contacting them and asking for their time if you simply communicate why you want to meet with them because that is what everyone else is doing too.
Alina McComas, on June 8, 2021
Improving the performance of a sales team, or a specific seller on the team, is a top focus for any sales leader.
Often, we hear sales managers say they just need more activity or need to add more into pending, but the answer is rarely that simple. To know what is needed to improve performance, you need start by diagnosing where the problem is and what is causing the problem.
Simply said, you need to identify the bottlenecks in your sales process because adding more into pending doesn’t do you any good if your sellers aren’t closing what they propose.
Alina McComas, on January 25, 2021
When it comes to digital marketing, there's a heightened focus on analytics to determine success.
Many businesses continue to place a heavy reliance on last click attribution models to determine which of their digital marketing tools are driving results. Last click attribution gives 100% of the credit for a conversion or a sale to the last click a visitor made before he or she arrived on the website to complete that action.
It's a model that has been used for years, but can be flawed if it's solely used to determine which digital marketing efforts are really driving results.
Alina McComas, on September 2, 2020
Before we get into the how to use a Sales Playbook, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page when it comes to answering what is a Sales Playbook.
In its simplest terms, a Sales Playbook is a key piece to a winning sales enablement strategy that outlines your sales process and aligns it with the buyer’s journey. It provides salespeople with a collection of resources like best practices, insights into their buyers, how to approach specific sales scenarios, talk tracks, email templates, ways to handle objections, competitive intel, and more.
Alina McComas, on August 12, 2020
Google search data shows that in 2019 searches for “sales enablement” increased by 61.1% year over year, up from 51.2% in 2018.
What’s the reason behind the steady increase in interest around sales enablement? When implemented correctly, sales enablement moves the sales process faster and more efficently. It's the long-term solution that addresses each of the key priorities for sales productivity — to shorten the sales cycle, decrease onboarding time, and streamline the opportunity management process. Simply put, sales enablement provides a big impact on the bottom line.
Still, there are several questions sales managers and salespeople want answered before investing in sales enablement. Let us help answer some of those questions.
Alina McComas, on June 18, 2020
Once you have an appointment with a strong prospect, it’s time to prepare for a successful needs analysis so all the effort you spent getting the appointment isn’t wasted. You want to make sure that you have a strong and thorough needs analysis—because understanding your prospect's desired business results, challenges, and expectations is essential for developing a solution that will achieve results.
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.
Alina McComas, on October 16, 2019
Senior Consultants at The Center for Sales Strategy are known for helping organizations grow their sales through training, the development of customized strategy plans, and coaching.
By facilitating digital training in many workshops, there are several conversations around Google Analytics and how it can be used to sell the results of a campaign – some are more in-depth and hands-on, while others are more introductory based on the workshop.
Keep reading for answers to the five most frequently asked questions and objections heard when discussing Google Analytics.
