The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

When selling a product or service, not all outreach efforts should be directed directly at the decision maker, who has the final word on what will be bought.

Instead, it's more effective to engage with the people around them—influencers from whom they seek advice, people nearby who can speak favorably about your company, and sources of information they trust.

This is an even more vital strategy in B2B sales efforts. After all, the decision maker may not be the one using your product, adjusting workflows to accommodate it, or even engaging with the product directly at all. Instead, your sales teams need to develop a comprehensive approach for identifying and engaging with influencers who will ultimately lead you to decision makers (or lead the decision makers to you).

Start by clearly understanding the role of decision influencers in today's sales and buying experiences, how to reach out to these decision influencers, and, ultimately, how to leverage that connection to get in front of decision makers more effectively.

Getting the first appointment with a qualified decision-maker of a target prospect can be one of the most challenging aspects of B2B selling.

The ability to set appointments efficiently can make or break a business's success. The good news is that today, sales professionals have access to a plethora of tools and resources designed to streamline the appointment-setting process.

A good salesperson knows that success starts with making connections, building rapport, and creating a positive space.

Short and irritable prospects make it difficult to have any meaningful conversation and make your job much harder than it needs to be. 

Building rapport and making connections doesn't have to take long, and it's well worth the investment. Let's look at some simple techniques that you can use to improve a prospect's mindset so they're more comfortable and open to hearing what you have to offer.

The best way to fall flat on your face in a business conversation is to start the conversation talking about business.

Cultivate the art of small talk, and chances are good that once you do get around to bantering about business, the conversation will be meaningful.

"I spend all day making cold calls, and I'm getting very little to show for my efforts. Getting the first appointment is harder than ever. If I could just get my foot in the door..."

It's a common complaint from B2B sales reps nowadays. Traditional prospecting approaches like cold calling have become less and less effective over the years. Decision makers simply don't answer unsolicited sales calls like they used to.

What can you do about it?

Prospecting. It's the cornerstone of a thriving sales pipeline, yet it can feel like sifting gold from sand.

But what if a powerful ally could streamline your efforts and uncover hidden gems you'd never see alone? Enter Artificial Intelligence (AI), the technological revolution transforming the sales landscape.

Sales teams are the backbone of any successful business, and their performance can make or break a company's bottom line.

But with so much competition in today's marketplace, it's becoming increasingly difficult for sales reps to stand out from the crowd and close deals. That's why it's important to revamp your sales strategy and implement unique prospecting methods and tools to give your team a competitive edge.

We're going to explore five innovative prospecting methods and tools to help your sales team boost their performance and close more deals. From using AI-powered chatbots to leveraging social media platforms, we'll cover practical tips and strategies to help you stay ahead of the curve and achieve your sales goals.

As a sales team in the business-to-business (B2B) space, finding new leads is a never-ending challenge.

In a highly competitive market, it's essential to be creative and use unique approaches to stand out from the crowd. In this blog, we will explore some unconventional ways to find sales leads that will help you get ahead of the competition.

Email is a critical part of a prospecting strategy, as long as it’s used in the ways in which it’s intended for. HubSpot defines a prospecting email as an outreach email a salesperson sends to a potential customer to introduce themselves, their business, and how they can help their prospect.

Email prospecting is not for building relationships, communicating a strategy, sharing an idea, or conversation in general. Create your prospecting email the right way, integrate it into a sound prospecting plan, and then you can dramatically enhance the cold calling process by getting your first close—the appointment.

If you're looking to grow your business, prospecting is a crucial part of the process, as it allows companies to identify potential customers and clients and generate new business opportunities. However, many companies make mistakes when prospecting that can hurt their chances of success.

Let's talk about some of the most common mistakes companies make when it comes to prospecting and how to avoid them.