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The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

All Clients are NOT Created Equal

client meeting handshakeMy favorite book in high school was George Orwell's Animal Farm. If you haven't read it, it is an allegorical novel that tells the story of how Communism took over Russia and ultimately ruined their economy. I loved this book because a) it's brilliant, and b) it's a great defender of capitalism, which I LOVE!

Topics: sales performance account list analytics account list management

3 Things You Can Do Today to Engage Candidates on Glassdoor

thumbs up happy employee recruitment

Glassdoor was initially founded with the intent to improve transparency, which is part of the foundation for increasing employee engagement, but the benefit of being transparent doesn’t stop there. According to a recent Glassdoor.com study, positive online employee reviews not only enhance your overall employer brand, they directly correlate to a higher volume of candidate resumes for open positions and lower salary increases for the same job.    

Whether you're new to Glassdoor, or you've been using it to boost your employer brand for a while, make sure you do (or are doing) these three things to engage with more candidates and improve your sales team recruitment efforts.

Topics: recruitment

The 5-Point Poor Performance Analyzer

poor sales performance analyzerIf you are a manager with a struggling seller, this blog post is for you!

Too often, managers place the blame of a struggling seller at the feet of the struggling seller. This is usually a mistake. There is a better way to find out what is causing the seller’s lack of performance, and it involves an analysis of the following five things:

  • Talent and Fit
  • Relationship
  • Expectations
  • Feedback
  • Compensation
Topics: sales performance

Weekly Roundup: 4 Field Sales Best Practices of High-Performing Teams + More

achievement-team-performance

- MOTIVATION -

"DON'T BE AFRAID TO GIVE UP THE GOOD TO GO FOR THE GREAT."

-JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER

 

- AROUND THE WEB -

<< If you only read one thing >>

4 Field Sales Best Practices of High-Performing Teams — CloserIQ

Though the lines are sometimes blurred, inside sales and outside sales are generally separate functions within an organization that require distinctly different skill sets. Outside or field sales teams spend the majority of their workday on the road meeting with clients and prospects face-to-face, often performing hands-on activities like product demonstrations or account setup.

Field sales managers have unique considerations to keep in mind to empower their teams to be successful. We’ll outline some of the best practices that high-performing field sales teams have adopted, talk about why they work, and discuss how to incorporate them into your own business.
>>> READ MORE

Topics: Wrap-up

Do You Have These 6 Characteristics of an Industry Thought Leader?

salesperson_at_laptop.jpgIn almost every industry, there are a few people or businesses that watch trends, see where the industry is headed, and share unique insights—thought leaders. These people and organizations are the ones that you check on regularly for innovation, market challenges, new initiatives, etc.

The thought leadership position is certainly an advantageous position to have, as it can help with generating sales, lead generation, recruitment and retention, and new business opportunities. While sometimes this thought leadership position will come about completely organically, many times it is part of an overall sales strategy and much time and consideration has been put in to developing the plan to make this happen. 

Topics: thought leadership Sales

What is the One, Next, Right Step to Sales Success?

steps to sales successSales tend to stall. Every salesperson with a pending list realizes that this week looks too much like last week. As does every sales manager who's listened through the excuses about why this or that prospect is still pending.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,”  ~ Lao Tzu 

We know that to accomplish big things, we need to break them down into smaller tasks. But, we’re often too busy to actually slow down and apply what we already know. Many companies have a defined sales process, some more structured than others, and it’s the lack of following that process that is stalling most sales.

Topics: sales process

Weekly Roundup: Living in an Age of the Empowered Buyer + More

prospecting-in-the-age-of-the-empowered-buyer

- MOTIVATION -

"THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SUCCESSFUL PERSON AND OTHERS IS NOT A LACK OF STRENGTH, NOT A LACK OF KNOWLEDGE, BUT RATHER A LACK OF WILL."

-VINCE LOMBARDI

 

- AROUND THE WEB -

<< If you only read one thing >>

Living in an Age of the Empowered Buyer Requires a Fresh Approach to Prospecting — LeadG2

Outbound prospecting for new business has always been a bit of a numbers game. Years ago, when I first started as a Sales Development Rep, the formula was simple. If you made 100 phone calls, you could expect 10 appointments, and at least 1 of those prospects would turn into a client. The numbers would vary from industry to industry and market to market, but that was the standard everyone was shooting for.

Outbound prospecting is still a numbers game today. Unfortunately, the numbers are just a lot bigger. It requires more phone calls and more emails than ever before to get fewer responses, fewer appointments, and fewer clients. Why is it so hard? What’s changed?
>>> READ MORE

Topics: Wrap-up

What are the Benefits of Sales Enablement and a Sales Playbook?

Editor's Note: This post was originally published on the LeadG2 blog.

sales-enablement-sales-playbook

Most managers and sellers have experienced this:

  • A seller is moving a new business prospect through the sales process.
  • All signs are positive.
  • The prospect goes silent, and will not respond to email, phone calls, letters, or stop-ins.
  • The seller goes to his/her manager and asks for advice.
  • The manager spends time listening to the seller, conducting diagnostic work, and providing advice to the seller (what to do to restart the stalled sale).

On the surface, this sounds like a good system, but in reality, it is not. Here’s why:

  • Managers work with multiple sellers—doing this for many sellers takes up a great deal of time and is often redundant (same problem… same solution).
  • Sellers might not have easy or timely access to their managers—this delays the sales process and allows the sale to get further off track.
Topics: sales enablement sales playbook

10 Tips to Help You Find Superstar Sales Talent (VIDEO)

When sales managers are working to build their talent bank with qualified candidates, it's not easy. Couple that with your desire to have the very best sales talent in there, it gets quite a bit harder. 

Topics: recruitment

What You Can Learn From Losing The Sale

what you can learn from losing the saleOver the last couple of months, I have had a number of clients share with me that they lost out on a couple of large deals that they had felt pretty strongly about. In each of those scenarios, my first question was, "Do you know why?" More often than not, the answer to my question was, “I’m not sure.”

Anyone who has ever been in a sales position has received a “no” in their career – most likely more than they would like – it comes with the job. But, it is what you do with the “no” that separates the best from the rest. Diagnosing where you may have gone wrong in the sales process can help to minimize making the same mistake in the future.

Topics: Proposal sales process