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The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

How to Avoid Hiring Out of Desperation

How to Avoid Hiring Out of Desperation

From reduced revenue to poor employee morale, there’s one situation that creates heightened anxiety among sales managers and CEOs, and that’s an open position that goes unfilled for too long.

“Somebody is better than nobody”—we’ve all said it when it comes to our sales team. There’s pressure to fill open jobs quickly, and with good reason, but what brings us to this point of desperation? Hiring quickly and rushing through the recruiting process often leads to a bad hire, and a bad hire leads to costly damages.

So that you’re not hiring out of desperation, you need to learn how to build a strong talent bank. Here’s how you can start today.

Topics: hiring salespeople recruitment talent bank

10 Ways to Increase a B2B Salesperson's Productivity

10 Ways to Increase a B2B Salesperson's Productivity

The job of a sales manager is a challenging one. One of the biggest challenges they face is how to keep their salespeople motivated and producing quality results.

Some of the best ways to help salespeople become more productive doesn't include spending a fortune or sending them through another training class. A few of the best ideas are ones that help to reduce administrative burdens and increase time in the field or on the phone. 

Topics: developing strengths sales performance

Sales Leadership: Are You a Boss or a Leader?

Sales Leadership Are You a Boss or a Leader

“People don’t leave jobs; they leave managers.”

“I quit.” It’s what a record-breaking 4,478,000 workers told their employers in August 2019. The reasons for quitting varied from compensation to lack of engagement, but one in two employees left their job to get away from their manager.

At one point in our life, we’ve all worked under a superior that could make or break our day. When it comes to sales leadership, there’s a big different between being a boss and a leader. Which one are you?

Topics: Leadership sales talent

6 Ways Sellers Can Improve Engagement When Utilizing LinkedIn for Social Selling

LinkedIn is the most popular professional social networking site out there, which means if you have a B2B business or cater to other professionals in a specific industry, it could be the ideal platform for growing your business.

By now, you’ve updated your LinkedIn profile using the Ultimate LinkedIn Profile Checklist. Now you want more engagement, you want your LinkedIn posts to attract more viewers and increase shares—but where do you even start?

Topics: Social Media sales strategy prospecting social selling

Weekly Roundup: Benefits of AI in Sales, What is Sales Enablement+ More

Benefits of AI in Sales, What is Sales Enablement

- MOTIVATION -

"I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday."

-Eleanor Roosevelt

- AROUND THE WEB -

<< If you only read one thing >>

The Benefits of AI in Sales (& AI-Based Tools You Didn't Know You Need)–Sales Hacker

AI for sales is nothing new. But what are the real benefits of AI? Is it a lot of buzz or does it deliver real value?

Sales tools using machine learning and deep learning are already widespread in the market today. And while the scope of AI’s impact may still be limited to certain types of activities, the power and scope of AI will continue to grow.>>> READ MORE

Topics: Wrap-up

Leadership: More Teaching, Less Telling [VIDEO]

As a sales manager, how can you do more teaching and less telling?

It's not uncommon for salespeople to get frustrated when the only thing they hear from their sales manager is that they need to have more activity, increase the number of asks they have, and boost the dollar amount of the asks they have. Salespeople know this. They want to be taught how to do that. They want training and teaching, and not just telling.

Topics: sales training

4 Reasons Salespeople Should Always Leave a Voicemail

4 Reasons Salespeople Should Always Leave a Voicemail

While recently chatting with a new salesperson about setting appointments with new business target accounts, the seller said, “I never leave a message if my call goes into voicemail. I don’t want to waste time leaving a message.”

It’s no secret that leaving a good sales voicemail is hard. Even the most well-crafted messages often get ignored by prospects. However, leaving a voicemail is a wise investment and a critical part of the sales process that enables sellers to stand out and connect with prospects, and here are four reasons why.

Topics: sales process prospecting

What New Hires Want During Onboarding

What New Hires Want During Onboarding

Fortune Magazine reports that 46% of new sales employees leave or get fired within 18 months. Additionally, the average ramp-up time for salespeople is between six and nine months. Both alarming statistics that cost your company a lot of revenue.

What are new hires looking for to make their first days and weeks successful in sales? When talking with several new hires, there are interesting commonalities that resonate across multiple companies. Take a look at how you can help minimize the risk of an early departure, accelerate ramp-up time, and maximize the investment you’re making in sales new hires by giving them what they want.

Topics: sales process onboarding

Weekly Roundup: Coaching Underperforming Sales Reps, Guide to Sales Management + More

Coaching Underperforming Sales Reps, Guide to Sales Management + More

- MOTIVATION -

"Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it."

-Harper Lee

 

- AROUND THE WEB -

<< If you only read one thing >>

How to Coach Underperforming Sales Reps–CloserIQ

Coaching underperforming sales reps is one of the biggest challenges that managers face. Too often, managers focus on the symptoms of a representative’s underperformance rather than the root causes. For example, a manager might tell a rep: “you need to prospect more,” when the rep’s problem is not knowing how to prospect effectively in the first place.

Is it possible to coach underperforming sales reps to average or even above-average performance? Yes—but that requires intentionality. To help your team succeed, you need to approach your coaching with an intentional strategy.>>> READ MORE

Topics: Wrap-up

6 Steps to Stop Your Leaking Sales Bucket

6 Steps to Stop Your Leaking Sales Bucket

We can all agree that it's easier to fill a bucket when it’s not leaking from the bottom. Seems like a pretty good rule of thumb.

In the context of managing sales revenue and keeping that bucket completely full, things can become pretty difficult when you spring a leak! We need to spend more and more time dumping new business in just to keep a minimum level insideand that is exhausting.

Topics: sales strategy sales performance Sales