The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

How would it feel to be part of the 1%? You have a flexible schedule and have a reliable, dependable, top-performing sales team. To many, that life will only ever be a dream.

That's because the 1% are willing to do things that others aren't. From creatively improving sales performance to being a leader and mentor, here's how you can join the 1% as a sales manager.

According to research, over $5 billion is spent solely on sales training and sales improvements every year in the US. If your remote sales team is not up to speed with the latest sales strategies and techniques, you could be costing your business a lot of money in missed opportunities.

Coaching a remote sales team has its perks, you have less overhead because there is no brick and mortar location, plus, everyone has a bit more freedom and flexibility.

That being said, there are also many challenges of coaching a remote sales team, including the lack of connection and distance. 

So the problem is knowing how to lead a remote sales team effectively so that you can increase your sales and get a major ROI on your sales training costs. The last thing you want is to spend a lot of money on sales training and not have it be well-received. 

Thankfully, we've created this article to solve those problems, keep on reading to learn more.

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.