The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

We are very excited to announce that LeadG2, The Center for Sales Strategy's inbound marketing division, has acquired Vitberg, LLC, a HubSpot Gold Partner. Vitberg, LLC specializes in serving the professional services industry, and they're bringing valuable expertise to LeadG2. Here is the official press release.

This acquisition is going to help us serve our current clients better and help expand our services as well. Traditionally, LeadG2 has been known as the expert in lead generation for the media industry, but with the addition of Vitberg, LLC we will be able to focus on a new industry—professional services.

Our knowledge and work on developing the 7 Step Lead Generation process can be modified and applied to professional services marketing, and we are excited to bring this expertise to a new industry.

The holidays are the perfect time to show your team how much you appreciate them. But sometimes it's hard to think of meaningful gift ideas. We've got you covered this year! We collected ideas from our sales consulting staff here at The Center for Sales Strategy (each of whom was once a salesperson and a sales manager) to share with you. Here are 12 gift ideas you can't go wrong with.

More and more, I am hearing from our clients that the single toughest thing for salespeople to do these days is to secure quality appointments. Just so we are all on the same page, a quality appointment meets the following criteria:

• It's scheduled in advance
• It's with the decision maker(s)
• The main purpose of the meeting is to discover needs, get an assignment, or present ideas

Having salespeople cold call for hours upon hours is not efficient—it's expensive and it's very 1990’s.

I just got off the phone with Debbie. I had to pass along the story she related to me.

It seems somehow intuitively appealing for a manager to spend more time with those salespeople who need more help. People are almost invariably amazed when we explain to them that the opposite is true. To really see ROI on your sales team, you must spend more time with your top performers.

Earning that first appointment with a big prospect can be difficult. But you persevered. You were smart enough, creative enough, prepared enough, and persistent enough to nail it. He said yes. The date, time, and location are on your calendar and his. Getting this appointment was especially sweet because the guy has a reputation of being tough and demanding.

If you think the most difficult phase of the selling cycle is now behind you, I have some bad news. Now you need to measure up—to your claims and his expectations. I can’t tell you how often I see salespeople work hard and smart to get the meeting and then saunter in to his office, largely unprepared.

You “sold” the appointment.  Now you need to deliver.  Here are six things you can do to ensure that your first meeting with that big prospect goes well.  There are no second chances with prospects like this.