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. LinkedIn's Major Makeover Is Designed To Make You Want To Actually Use LinkedIn — Fast Company

This cleaner, faster desktop version of LinkedIn makes it easier to read news, connect with people, and spruce up your profile. Check out the details.

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. Nailing the First Five Minutes of a Business Conversation— Salesforce

If your sales organization is not prepared to sell into the C-Suite, you need to get there. Middle managers are no longer the only people you need to sell to—top-level executives are being brought into sales conversations more and more in today's B2B sales. This article offers insight straight from a corporate COO, who says that he gives a vendor less than five minutes to establish relevance and credibility. In those five minutes, he looks for three things.

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. 6 Creative Sales Prospecting Ideas You've Never Tried Before — HubSpot

Sales success largely depends on routines. There are only so many hours in a day to sell -- the more practiced salespeople are at completing everyday tasks, the more time they can allocate to high-value activities like meeting with prospects or learning new skills. But sticking to the same process isn’t always a good thing. If you rely on the same prospecting methods and never try anything new, you’ll miss out on valuable opportunities. Use these six ideas as inspiration.

You probably have some ambitious sales goals for Q1 of 2017. And to reach those goals, you've got to get more high-quality appointments. If you aren't sure how you're going to get there, check out these free resources.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.