The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

If you'd like to build a winning sales team, take a look at the Pittsburgh Steelers. As a Cleveland Brown's fan, this breaks my heart to admit this fact; however, one look at the bottom line (wins) tells the story. Here are 5 things that you could do to build a winning sales tradition like the Steelers:

Honestly, that is not something that ever came out of my mouth… nor did it ever come to mind. When I was a kid I wanted to be a chef because I loved to cook and eat. I wanted to be a Michelle Pfeiffer in Grease 2. I wanted to be a Madonna (before she did all the weird stuff). After watching A Few Good Men, I wanted to be a lawyer, and for a brief moment, I worked at Express and thought I wanted to be a fashion merchandiser. Why didn’t I dream of becoming a sales person or better said, an expert in sales strategy?

The new year is almost here. Do you know everything you should about your top spending customers? If you are serious about improving sales performance in the coming year, here are 5 things you should know about all your accounts, especially your top spenders:

If you add up the value of everyone who sits in on a sales meeting—including yourself—you’ll realize how expensive sales meetings are. You should also remember the best training takes place in the field, with real accounts, not in a conference room with theoretical examples. But, there are still some legitimate reasons for having a sales meeting: education, training, team building, problem solving, positive psych and recognition. 

No question, some amazing online and cross platform campaigns have been produced this year. One of my personal favorites is Intel's Museum of Me. When I see these robust, multimedia campaigns come to life on my iPad, iPhone, or PC screen I am quick to post, Tweet and email links to friends and coworkers who will think it equally as cool. Because after all, when done right, it's another form of entertainment! With all that sizzle online creative can deliver, how much goes into building, designing and implementing such cool ideas?

Too many people focus on quantity. You've heard this: It's a numbers game. Give me more, more, more! This seems to be the rallying cry of most leaders these days. As more organizations become seduced by the concept of quantity, many have walked away from the concept of quality.

I'm a big fan of quality. One does not exist without the other. Quality leads to quantity in just about everything in the business world (and life). If you want to improve sales performance in your organization, here are five areas that should have a foundation of quality: 

Crazy. Brave. Passionate. Confident. These are the words I would use to describe Drew Manning, the personal trainer who embarked on a journey to go from fit to fat to fit again all in a year’s time. Drew spent the last six months gaining nearly 80 pounds, and on Monday, he will begin the process of taking it off. I just heard about Drew yesterday, so I’m a little behind. However, I’m fascinated by this story, and the social networking and professional branding takeaways.

Expanding your sphere of influence—and getting to know more people within your current customer base—makes common sense. It also makes good business sense.

The people on our Digital Team at The Center for Sales Strategy are often asked if social media is worth the time and effort it takes. After all, it's work to create content, engage followers and develop a community. The answer is... YES! Social media, if part of an integrated marketing solution, is ABSOLUTELY worth it! Here's the social media super tool your sales organization can use to make your product (or that of your clients and customers) come to life:

I loved this post on the Elm Street Economics blog today in which Mike Anderson says, "Walk through your store, office, lobby or dealership with a smile today.  Big enough that people stop and ask you, 'What are you smiling so big about?'  Then, just tell them it was nice to have some great economic news today."