The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Here we are at the end of another week! It's Friday, and it's time for us to share what we've been reading online this week. Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. Stop! Read This Before You Send Another Cold Email! — SalesForce

When you send cold emails, you’re a stranger to your audience. They don’t know anything about your company and how awesome it is, nor do they care. If you want to connect with them and receive a response, you have to tap into their emotions, and play on their existing fears and desires. These three steps will help you start many more warm conversations through cold email.

Here’s why. When you have a passion or burden for something, there are fears that come with it. You can only be a fearless leader if you are leading in an area that you don’t have a passion for or don’t really care that much about. So rest assured the fears are normal. The real question is, what do you do with the fears you have? I have a two-step plan that I think will help.

We're at the end of another week! It's Friday, and it's time for us to share what we've been reading online this week. Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. When Was the Last Time You Asked, “Why Are We Doing It This Way?” — HBR

When stakes are high, it can be difficult for leaders to pause before acting. We all tend to take the safe route of doing things the way we've always done them. Here’s some good advice for how to give yourself time to reflect and lead with questions, to make sure you're taking the best route, not just the one most familiar.

There was a post on LinkedIn recently about the importance of making a good first impression. The post focused on professional men in beautiful, well-tailored suits, smiling, making excellent eye contact, and shaking hands. Surely there must be more than that.

First impressions are frequently discussed in the context of business meetings. Is it an important first meeting for a job interview? Or is it the first meeting with a client to conduct a needs analysis? It doesn’t matter what the situation, since memorable impressions are critical to both.

We're at the end of another week! It's Friday, and it's time for us to share what we've been reading online this week. Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. 7 Smart Strategies to Speed Up Your Sales Cycle — HubSpot

To figure out the perfect, predictable sales cycle would be like discovering the holy grail of sales. That’s not to say that there aren’t ways to make sales cycles more predictable. Here are seven ways to speed up the sales cycle and do just that.

In 1996 Motorola introduced a cellular phone you could wear, email surpassed snail mail for the first time, and a computer named “Deep Blue” defeated the world chess champion. In the midst of this technological change, Al Ries published a marketing book entitled Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends On It.

Reis was already considered a marketing thought-leader, having coined the word “positioning” along with Jack Trout. Positioning was used to describe the perception of your brand relative to that of your competitors. 

Whether you’re positioning your company, your department, or just yourself, the wisdom of focus is important to revisit.