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The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

10 Strategies for Breaking Through to Unresponsive Decision-Makers

10 Strategies for Breaking Through to Unresponsive Decision-Makers

  • You’ve worked with your marketing team to develop your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
  • You’ve built a database of target companies that match your ICP characteristics.
  • You’ve researched to identify the key decision-makers of your target prospects.
  • You have a great solution that has helped other similar companies.

You have a great story to tell.

Now you have one last problem. You need a chance to tell your story.

You can’t sell anything until you first talk to a decision-maker. But you can’t get a decision-maker to pick up the phone or even open your emails.

How do you break through to seemingly unresponsive decision-makers?

Topics: sales process prospecting

Improving Sales Performance: Are You THAT Kind of Coach?

Are you THAT kind of coach

Professional athletes have coaches.

Oscar-winning actors have coaches.

Pop icons have coaches.

Wait!? Even people who have been in the business for a long time? Why do they need coaches?

That’s easy! Top performers, whether they are professional athletes, Oscar-winning actors, pop icons, or sales professionals, are not content with just being good. They strive to maintain their edge, stay on top, and climb even higher.  

Their coaches, with their unique vantage point, can see what they can’t see themselves, making their perspective incredibly valuable. This investment in their talent is what sets them apart and propels them forward.

The same can be said for your direct reports.

Coaching leads to excellence.

Topics: sales coaching

Coaching for Career Development and Retention of Top Talent

Coaching for Career Development and Retention of Top Talent

It’s a fact that everyone wants the “best of the best” talent at their organization. Much attention, effort, and investment of significant time and money is given to finding and recruiting high performers.

Sadly, what often follows is the common scenario in which business leaders hire people they believe in and then sit back to see what they can do. However, growing and retaining strong talent requires leaders who can develop their people, not just manage them.

Topics: sales coaching employee development employee retention

10 Ways to Increase B2B Sales Performance with Successful Feedback

10 Ways to Increase B2B Sales Performance with Successful Feedback

The feedback a sales manager provides can either propel a salesperson to new heights or stunt their growth.

Yet, too often, managers fail to give the right feedback at the right times, missing critical opportunities to develop their team's talents.

Topics: developing strengths sales talent

Can My Top-Performing Salesperson Become a Top-Performing Manager?

Can My Top-Performing Salesperson Become a Top-Performing Manager

We know that top-performing salespeople are extremely driven to meet and exceed their goals. With that drive also comes the desire to continue to move up the ladder.

As a leader, it’s natural to have these salespeople “next on this list” to move up when a position becomes available. But are all top-performing salespeople destined to become top-performing managers?

Topics: sales talent assessment sales talent

From Stagnant to Stellar: A B2B Sales Leader's Guide to Growth

A B2B Sales Leaders Guide to Growth

As a B2B senior sales leader, you know the pressure of driving consistent growth. But what happens when your once-thriving sales organization stalls?

Stagnant sales pipelines and flat revenue can be a symptom of deeper issues. This is a roadmap that equips you with insights, action items, and a clear path to transform your team into a growth machine.

Topics: sales strategy Leadership

How to Develop Farmers and Hunters to be More Effective

How to Develop Farmers and Hunters to be More Effective

There is a hierarchy in the sales world.

Most sales leaders come from the days when salespeople were responsible for every step in the sales process. You had to find your leads, get an appointment, and ultimately close the deal. You only ate what you killed.

We were hunters, so we tend to favor and even value hunters more than farmers. When I say farmers, I mean salespeople who spend most of their time nurturing clients, building relationships, and growing them.

Topics: sales performance sales accelerator sales talent

Are You, as a Sales Manager, Consistent and Predictable?

Are You, as a Sales Manager, Consistent and Predictable

I often have conversations with sales managers who lament their teams' lack of accountability, implementation, and follow-through. They talk about struggling to get new initiatives or processes adopted consistently.

In these situations, my typical response is: "Let's talk about your weekly one-on-one meetings and how you use them to drive accountability."

One-on-one meetings between managers and their salespeople are critical for staying aligned, removing blockers, and driving performance. However, many managers fail to run these meetings effectively. Here is a proven guide to great one-on-one meetings that drive real accountability.

Topics: sales leadership

Gamification in Hiring: 5 Creative Ways to Make Recruitment Fun and Engaging

Gamification in Hiring

Attracting the brightest minds and best talent has become a fierce competition for organizations across all industries. However, conventional recruitment methods often fail to captivate potential candidates, leaving them disengaged and unmotivated. It's time to shake things up and inject some excitement into the hiring process.

Enter gamification—the art of blending game-like elements into the recruitment experience. By incorporating interactive challenges, immersive simulations, and creative quests, organizations can pique the interest of top talent while making the journey of finding the perfect fit an exhilarating adventure.

Gamification transforms the once-dull task of recruitment into an engaging and enjoyable experience that resonates with today's candidates.

Topics: hiring salespeople recruitment

Overcoming Challenges in Converting Prospects

Overcoming Challenges in Converting Prospects

Salespeople, even great salespeople, sometimes have trouble closing the deal. Getting to yes is often the hardest part of the sales process.

How hard?

As many as 57% of salespeople reported difficulty converting prospects into customers. If your team is having trouble with conversions, the first thing to do is figure out why.

Topics: prospecting sales challenges