The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

This was another great week in terms of engaging content. We found a lot that made us think.

Here are the five articles that piqued our interest:

1. 10 habits to completely eliminate in order to be more productive {Entrepreneur}

With the great religious holidays about redemption—Easter and Passover—both happening this weekend, we thought it would be fun to think about what redemption might be like for an earnest, hard-working sales manager. This is the manager who works his or her butt off to get it right, but life being what it is, still has plenty of near-misses and disappointing outcomes.

When that redemption day finally arrives at the sales manager’s office, it might look like this:

1. Staff turnover is reduced to zero for one full year. No one quit, and no one needed to be sacked.
2. An entire week goes by with no emergency emails after 6pm that “absolutely have to be dealt with right now.”
3. A year of bliss in which the sales team makes budget in every category and on every line the company measures.
   

A couple weeks ago, we were talking internally about the sales process. The topic of proposals came up, and the conversation became spirited.

I asked several colleagues,

What's the one thing you should always include in a winning proposal?

and they came back with amazing answers. These are tried and true solutions from winning sales consultants, so keep this list handy!

1. A Dotted Line

This one might sound obvious,

Too often, we define “new business” as the business a competitor once had until we stole it. Here’s the bad news: They often think of new business the same way. Thus, competitors engage in a constant war of churn, where quite often there really is no “new business” at all; just an exchange or recycling of clients as if sales was nothing more than a tennis match, and the client is the ball.

This was another great week in terms of engaging content. We found a lot that made us think.

Here are the five articles that piqued our interest:

1. Why arguing at work is okay, and the right way to to it {Inc.}

Don’t just inform. Organize. 

When was the last time you arrived at a sales appointment, and the decision maker said, “Glad you’re here! I know our appointment was scheduled for only 15 minutes, but as it turns out, I have an extra hour and a half today!” 

Doesn’t happen.

More likely is the meeting where you encounter this rushed greeting: “I know our appointment was for an hour, but something has come up so I only have about ten minutes.”

Happens all the time.

That’s why I want you to think of the daunting task of the Google mission statement: “To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Of course, Google has more than one singular focus, and serves more than just a user who wants to do a quick search to find a quick answer or fascinating fact. They serve consumers who are shopping, companies who are being shopped, and marketers who are into metrics. I get all that. But focus on that beautiful, simple idea: 

“To organize the world’s information… and make it useful.” 

Part of my job has me visiting different websites every day. I am always impressed with those organizations that have an active company blog and use it regularly to influence, educate, and build their brand and their thought leadership position. But so often I notice there are no comments left on any of the blog posts I read, or if there is a comment it’s usually just one—and then there is almost never a response from the writer to engage the person who took the trouble to comment.

Why would a blogger go through the entire writing, editing, designing, linking process to publish something they thought would provide value and then ignore the people who took time to visit the site, click through to the blog, read a post, and comment? I hope you’re not that someone.

The most successful sales and marketing organizations are ones that set their sales teams up for success. They give them the tools and resources they need to get the job done as efficiently and profitably as possible. The best ones actually solicit input from their salespeople, asking what they need in order to be more successful. 

If you’re a part of such an organization (and even if you’re not), you should insist that your company design and deploy an inbound marketing strategy. If they ask why, no problem! Here are a dozen reasons you can share:

This was another great week in terms of content. We found a lot to love.

Here are the five articles that piqued our interest:

1. The Healthiest Typeface {The Atlantic}

I grew up as the only girl with three brothers in the house—and a lot of laundry! That machine ran non-stop and I was always enlisted to help.

It was simple enough: Load the clothes, add some soap, turn and pull the big knob, and presto!—the clothes are getting washed. Sure, once in a while I put something red in with the whites and had a problem, but, for the most part, is was simple enough.

Well, I recently bought a new washer and dryer… and oh, how times have changed! That big knob you turn and pull? Gone. These new appliances look like space machines loaded with the latest technology. Aquajet! Sensors! Steam! A bedding setting! There’s even a function called “waterproof.” Whoa. It’s complicated.