The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Referrals are the lifeblood of sales success. They are the ultimate "social proof" because people trust friends and influencers more than any advertisement delivered by the brand.

A referral is someone who has a personal reason to check out your brand and who approaches your products or services with a positive-leaning curiosity. They may even be a pre-qualified lead if the referral itself was based on personal knowledge.

Therefore, inspiring and rewarding referrals is a process that every brand should master. In this post, we'll break down a five-step plan to consistently generate a high volume of quality referrals. Here's how to create a smooth-running referral machine.

A good salesperson knows that success starts with making connections, building rapport, and creating a positive space.

Short and irritable prospects make it difficult to have any meaningful conversation and make your job much harder than it needs to be. 

Building rapport and making connections doesn't have to take long, and it's well worth the investment. Let's look at some simple techniques that you can use to improve a prospect's mindset so they're more comfortable and open to hearing what you have to offer.

As a leader, your time is precious. You're pulled in a million different directions, trying to drive your organization forward while also striving for some semblance of work-life balance.

The national bestseller "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Tim Ferriss has captivated readers with its bold promise of escaping the daily 9-5 grind. While some of the book's ideas around minimal work may be controversial, it contains several productivity gems that every successful executive should embrace.

The best way to fall flat on your face in a business conversation is to start the conversation talking about business.

Cultivate the art of small talk, and chances are good that once you do get around to bantering about business, the conversation will be meaningful.

How much more productive would you be if you focussed on your inputs? This means avoiding all distractions and only working on planning, pitching, and following up—all the factors that budge the needle, not those that don't. 

A lot of valuable time is wasted focusing on things we cannot control. For example, we have zero control over the economy, competitors, pricing, inventory, or customers' attitudes. Improving sales performance often requires changing focus from things that are out of our control to things we can control.

So, what exactly should you focus on? Here are several things within your control.

Spending time observing salespeople is something all leaders should do occasionally. You can learn so much more by observing first-hand how your salespeople interact with clients and customers.

This can work by physically accompanying a salesperson in the field or translating to online sales by listening to sales calls or observing emails and chats.  

Salespeople fill a fundamental role in society, so why do they get a bad rep?

In a HubSpot’s Research study, Buyers Speak Out: How Sales Needs to Evolve, respondents were asked to submit the word they most associated with salespeople.

The number one response was “pushy."

Persistence is part of being a salesperson, but there’s a difference between consistently adding value with each check-in and rambling about the benefits of what you’re selling. It’s decades and decades of the “pushy” kind of sales tactic that has made the average salesperson somewhat unpopular. We’re here to help change that with an updated look at the customer-focused sales process.

Top-performing sales managers are on top because they are continually finding ways to encourage their team to be more productive.

Constructive feedback is vital to ongoing development. In fact, 91% of salespeople said they want more learning and development opportunities.

Almost every sales organization has various types of sellers. There are the highest performers, who are needed even more after they reach their goals, their average performers that are “make or break,” depending on the month, and the low performers, who are a drag on achievement. There is an important technique that can give you a big boost with all of the above: Feedback. 

As businesses focus on attracting new customers, they often overlook the importance of nurturing existing relationships to boost their bottom line.

Don't let your hard-earned customers slip away. Read on to discover five powerful ways to elevate your organization and achieve a higher renewal rate.

Too many sales organizations don't have an Account List Management Strategy (ALMS) or they have one that provides little strategic value. In mature businesses, the lack of a priority-based ALMS is often tied to the following:

• High levels of account attrition
• Limited new business development
• Marginal productivity and missed revenue goals