The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

When it comes to sales, you might feel as if there are many factors that are outside of your control. To an extent this is true, but when it comes down to it – you actually wield more influence over the situation than you think.

Once you realize what you can control, and what you can influence, you will feel more confident approaching prospects and delivering solutions and recommendations to your clients.

Helping sellers improve sales performance is an important—perhaps the most important—part of a sales manager’s job.

A key part of the process of improving performance is evaluating a seller’s performance. Tracking and evaluating important metrics will serve as a source of celebration as well as a way to add focus for future training and skill development.

Please note, this type of review and evaluation should not be confused with the typical annual review required by HR departments. HR reviews serve some purpose, but rarely serve as the catalyst for improving sales performance.

Holding people accountable is tough.

You have to be tough and sometimes even be a jerk, right?

92% of potential candidates have abandoned online job applications without finishing them. Tedious, repetitive application processes send candidates a message about the employer that isn't great.

To attract better candidates, it's time to dump the old system. Instead, recruit employees and sales talent by thinking outside the box. 

Although recruiting qualified candidates is a different process in different fields, anyone can try one of these six surprising strategies to recruit great candidates.

Before you can close the deal you first have to schedule the first meeting with the prospect’s decision-maker. Often, that’s the most challenging element of the sales process. Many sellers express the same frustration. “We have a great story to tell, but we’re simply not getting enough at-bats.”

Here are five ideas to help your sellers get off the bench and into the game.

What is the best way is to start a conversation? Ask the other person a question. 

We learn by asking questions.

Smart business people never stop asking questions. Your prospect probably forms their opinion about you based more on what you ask them, than on what you tell them.

“Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers” - Voltaire

Trigger Warning... If you get easily offended by brutally honest feedback that might seem harsh and mean, you might want to skip today's blog post.

Ok, now; that we've gotten that out of the way, here's that brutally honest and possibly mean content:

You should NOT invest resources into poor-performing salespeople!

Every successful organization depends on the productivity of various departments and teams to achieve its overall mission and goals. But being a part of a team doesn’t mean teamwork happens naturally.

For departments and teams to be efficient everyone needs to work together to execute and finish projects and goals. And yet the reality is that, more often than not, employees find it challenging to collaborate and work together with ease and balance.