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The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Are You Wasting Your Time on Social Media?

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There was a time when business people needed to be persuaded to get active online. Most of you are already active on social media. The big question now is how to use social media to build your business.

Topics: Social Media Sales

Sales Enablement Software Pairs With Training to Boost Productivity

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We recently spoke with Karen McCandless, market researcher at GetApp (a sales management software review company) about her latest study, which sampled 250 sales professionals and 200 consumers. The study sought to uncover today's key challenges for salespeople as well as what successful salespeople are doing to overcome those problems.

Topics: Sales sales enablement

Dramatically Improve Your Listening Skills in 5 Simple Steps + More

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We hope you've had a great week! It's Friday, so today we're sharing what we've been reading online this week! Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. Dramatically Improve Your Listening Skills in 5 Simple Steps — Inc.

Every successful salesperson knows how important listening is. But how can you improve your listening skills? The same way you get better at anything! First, acknowledge the problem. And then use these techniques to train yourself to become a better listener.

Topics: Inbound Marketing Sales Wrap-up

Referrals—Just Try Them!

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The other day I was talking with a sales manager who was lamenting that his people were having a very tough time getting appointments with quality prospects. We talked about all the ways we recommend salespeople warm up otherwise cold calls, but we ended up focusing on perhaps the most powerful way to get a warm reception — a referral from a current, satisfied client. The problem is, most salespeople simply do not ask for referrals because they are not accustomed to doing it. So we decided we would instruct everyone to ask five clients for a referral in the next week. Simple, yet new! You know what is going to happen here.  

Topics: referrals Sales

Dealing with Price Competition

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Price competition is a reality, and it can become pretty intense at times! You can’t avoid it altogether, but you can greatly minimize the haggling over price. The key to dealing with price competition is creating specific value for each of your customers.

Topics: Proposal sales strategy Sales

13 Intriguing Email Subject Lines That Prospects Won't Be Able to Resist Opening + More

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We hope you've had a great week! It's Friday, so today we're sharing what we've been reading online this week! Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. 13 Intriguing Email Subject Lines That Prospects Won't Be Able to Resist Opening — HubSpot

The goal of the subject line is to get someone to check out the rest of your email. So you’ll want to intrigue and generate interest without saying too much. This post shows you how to use principles of human psychology to craft subject lines that will get your emails opened.

Topics: Inbound Marketing Sales Wrap-up

Relationships Versus Pirate Ships: How to Build Trust and Win the Business

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One of my colleagues at The Center For Sales Strategy described a conversation she had with her three young boys about relationships. They asked what a relationship was, and she responded, “There are friendships, business relationships, and…,” before she could get another word out her 6 year old blurted out “and there are pirate ships, and potato ships. . . .”

Topics: sales performance Sales

5 Simple Steps to a Killer Prospect List

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One of the hardest parts of being in sales is creating a list of people to sell to. Finding prospects and creating that list may seem tedious and hard, but in reality it doesn’t have to be! Here's a simple 5-step process that will walk you through the steps to creating an amazing prospect list in no time.

Topics: Sales prospecting

A Little Pat on the Back

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We have to give ourselves a little pat on the back, because last week we were featured in a prominent list of recommended sales blogs!

This is exciting for us to see, since our consultants and sales trainers are so dedicated to sharing their expertise and tips here. It's encouraging to see that we are making a difference! If you want to check it out, here are the details:

Topics: Sales blog strategy

3 Steps to Hiring the Right Salespeople

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“We need to hire more salespeople!”

“We need to hire better salespeople!”

These are the cries that I hear day every day from the managers and executives that I coach.

While the strategy to hire more and better salespeople might be a good one, you and I know it’s just not that easy. If you are the one responsible for the hiring process and the on-boarding of these new salespeople, you are probably left wondering how you are going to get that accomplished. You are not alone!

Here are 3 things you can do today to jump-start your hiring process and begin hiring more—and better—salespeople right now:

Topics: hiring salespeople