The Center for Sales Strategy, on July 3, 2019
Tomorrow is the 4th of July, or Independence Day. It's a day that we as Americans reflect on our freedom, our heritage, and our history. In honor of this, we asked a few of the CSS team to chime in for this post. We asked, "If you could pick one historic American leader that would make a great sales leader today because of their strengths and talents, who would it be?" Here's what they said.
Shaye Smith, on June 28, 2019
-LES BROWN
The reality is not all salespeople are created equal (and neither are startups). Just because a rep has amazing sales numbers doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a good hire. What they had to do to achieve those numbers may be totally different than what they’ll have to do to be successful with you!
So how do you know which salesperson is the right hire for your business? >>> READ MORE
Matt Sunshine, on June 27, 2019
Some say that the holy grail of sales is consistent and predictable revenue. Many are on this seemingly never-ending quest, but find it both elusive and always just out of reach. A strategic sales process is the only thing that will help you reach your goals.
Shaye Smith, on June 21, 2019
-TONY ROBBINS
Sometimes when you generate leads via inbound marketing, you can get a lot of information about your prospects and leads when they fill out a lead capture form. It really depends, though, on what you're willing to ask. You can ask things like name, phone number, email, company name, industry, revenue, and more. There's a lot of different variables you can ask for.
The tricky part is, when you ask for too much information, you might limit the number of people that are willing to provide all of that to you. Consequently, this might limit the number of leads you could generate. >>> READ MORE
Steve Marx, on June 20, 2019
EDITOR’S NOTE: This post is by the late Steve Marx, and was written and published in 2015. To keep it current, we’ve updated the content to be relevant, but preserved the knowledge that Steve shared.
There are countless lists of what the most successful salespeople actually do. It’s time for a list of what they don’t do.
Let’s call it "The Un-Checklist"—the list you review when no one is looking over your shoulder (so you can be entirely honest), and where you hope that your honesty doesn’t force you to check off any of the items.
Get out your pen, ink, or virtual notes. I hope you won’t need to use them.
In a previous post, A Step by Step Guide to Coaching Salespeople, I provided a guide on how to coach sellers. Some sellers find it a challenge to schedule quality appointments during their scheduled coaching days. Here are some things you can do to fix this problem.
Shaye Smith, on June 14, 2019
-JIM ROHN
An empty sales funnel is a relatively straightforward (albeit not necessarily easy) problem to solve: enhance your prospecting efforts to produce more qualified leads.
A leaky sales funnel is another beast entirely. When we’re driving sufficient leads, but too few are reaching the finish line, the causes aren’t always obvious. This can lead to wasted prospecting efforts, seller frustration, and organizational discord. >>> READ MORE
Recently, I spoke to a sales management group on four things that they can do to improve sales performance, and this is what I shared with them.
Always be recruiting. 24/7. 365. The battle for top sales talent these days has never been harder. You always have to be recruiting. Not just when you have an opening.
Kurt Sima, on June 11, 2019
The best managers know spending time in the field coaching sellers is an important part of developing salespeople (and improving sales performance). Here’s a step-by-step guide to use the next day you are in coaching mode.
Shaye Smith, on June 7, 2019
-THOMAS EDISON
Every time we think we've gotten a grip on the weird, wonderful world of sales, we learn something new that forces us to change our perspective and question our beliefs. Like just 17% of salespeople think they're pushy -- compared to 50% of prospects.
And along similar lines, only 3% of buyers trust reps. The only professions with less credibility include car sales, politics, and lobbying. Ouch. Luckily, not all sales-related data will bum you out. This list of sales statistics has invaluable nuggets of wisdom on everything from which words to avoid in your email subject line to the optimal number of questions to ask during a discovery call. >>> READ MORE
