The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

When it comes to digital marketing, there's a heightened focus on analytics to determine success.

Many businesses continue to place a heavy reliance on last click attribution models to determine which of their digital marketing tools are driving results. Last click attribution gives 100% of the credit for a conversion or a sale to the last click a visitor made before he or she arrived on the website to complete that action.

It's a model that has been used for years, but can be flawed if it's solely used to determine which digital marketing efforts are really driving results.

A heartbreaking ending, but a beautiful journey. If you’re a Cleveland Browns fan, then you’re like me, still brokenhearted after watching them lose yet another winnable big game.

Over the years I’ve written a few posts about this hapless team, and I’ll give the team credit for improving during the past season.

One thing still alludes the Browns, and that is winning the winnable big game. In short, something always gets in the way and they walk away with a loss.

Is your sales team winning the winnable games in the face of COVID and all the other obstacles that are thrown in their way?

Review the list below of winnable games—the games within the game of improving revenue performance and exceeding goals—to see how you are doing. The list also includes ideas on how to move from the losing side.

There's certainly a lot of banter these days about how many contacts a salesperson must make in order to secure an appointment. We all know it takes more than 2 or 3 calls, but how many does it really take, and why?

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.

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.