The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

The pandemic affected more than just the health and daily lives of people across the world. It affected behaviors and perceptions—including how media is used.

With media plans reconfigured and millions of dollars’ worth of ad budgets shifted - to say the rug was swept out from under the advertising industry is an understatement.

In case you missed Episode 8 of the Improving Sales Performance series, here’s a breakdown of the conversation that host, Matt Sunshine and guest, Gary Pizzati had on how many traditional clients are buying and selling in 2021. Plus, recruiting and selecting top talent, the impact of technology, and how to keep a sales culture alive during these unprecedented times.

"I see the value in spending time with my sellers in the field coaching them, but I just don't have the time."

We’ve heard this a lot from sales managers over the years, pre-COVID and during COVID. Finding time to watch sellers in the field is a challenge to time-starved managers. The average time to coach a seller on a typical 30-minute, face-to-face appointment is actually around two hours when you factor in things like travel time to and from an appointment.

One of the positive outcomes of COVID is the ability for managers to sit in on appointments with sellers when they conduct virtual meetings with customers. These virtual coaching opportunities—also known as Zoomalongs—provide an extremely efficient method of coaching at a fraction of the time of a face-to-face coaching call (30 to 45 minutes versus two hours).

Here are some thoughts and tips on how to get the best ROI on virtual coaching opportunities.

- MOTIVATION -

"I never lose. I either win or learn."

-Nelson Mandela

- AROUND THE WEB -

<< If you only read one thing >>

Imagine one of your sales reps has an important sales call with one of their biggest sales lead yet. You've coached them, doubled-checked to make sure their equipment works and they know what they need to about the offer.

But they get on the call, and it doesn't go so well. The prospect sounds annoyed and hangs up before your rep can fully explain the product or service.

Don't let this happen to your sales team! Keep reading to learn how you can use questions to improve sales skills and increase sales.

While all the guidelines that apply to productive performance reviews still apply in our work-from-home environment, there are certainly new dynamics in how and where this feedback gets shared. 

Because we’re invited into homes more often (thanks to video meetings), we know more about our people and their personal life. We see their home environment, interact with their kids and pets, and most importantly, we all share more about our own personal challenges because we have a common experience — the pandemic. 

We all have stories about what we are and are not doing these days. This is one good thing that has come from the pandemic experience and it makes approaching the feedback process with empathy presumably easier to do.

Congratulations! You made it through 2020, and a new year is upon us.

Business is not going to look the same as it did this time last year. The pandemic hasn’t just caused pivots — it’s caused permanent change. But all change is not bad! 2021 presents significant growth opportunities for organizations that can Accept, Adapt, and Accelerate from the lessons this year taught us.

Below are predictions from our team of experts to help sales organizations remain agile and seize opportunities in 2021.

You want to get the most out of your people… so how do you really inspire them? 

Most of the managers immediately respond, “Pay them more!” Believe it or not, that’s not going to cut it. 

Most employees are not coin-operated, and more money does not lead to more engagement.

Wonderfully stated in a Harvard Business Review article, authors Eric Garton and Michael C. Mankins explained there are four levels of employee engagement: Dissatisfied, Satisfied, Engaged, and Inspired, and they pointed to recent productivity research related to each level. 

Here’s what they learned.

Exceeding revenue goals is linked to developing new customers as well as increasing revenue from existing clients, today we are bringing you a recap of the most popular posts we've published in 2020 on key accounts and account list management.

Providing quality content that helps our clients and visitors improve their sales performance is a goal of ours, and we hope this blog has brought you insight, education, and tips to get you on the path to success. We've searched for the most popular blogs of 2020, and we've curated these lists that will publish each day this week to bring you some of the most informative content from the year. Check out these top blog posts on key accounts and account list management from 2020, and let them kickstart your 2021 sales strategy.