The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Inquiry is a powerful motivator. We use it to fuel conversations, problem-solve, and, ultimately, improve sales performance.

High-value questions are a driving force to much-needed mental shifts — especially in today’s environment. When your mindset changes, so does your behavior. As sales leaders, we can’t control market conditions, but we can influence a few things — like choices.

Below are five questions we challenge sales leaders to ask their salespeople every week if they want to improve sales performance, fill their funnel full of new prospects, and increase customer loyalty.

This episode of Improving Sales Performance takes an interesting twist where host Matt Sunshine interviews a big competitor of The Center for Sales Strategy. And while we are competitors, there is one thing we absolutely agree on, and that is creating impact for clients. 

Tune in as Jim Doyle and Matt Sunshine discuss servant leadership, selling with a servant heart, and lessons to help sales leaders coach, lead, and manage servant heart sellers.

Technology has disrupted the traditional techniques we have used to approach prospects. Today, the most successful developers of new business have a smart and focused prospecting strategy.  They concentrate their efforts on a disciplined strategy that provides more appointments and more revenue. 

The shotgun approach of yesteryear is dead. Before technology disrupted our approach, we could sit down, call 100 prospects, and get ten appointments. Any mention of not having enough appointments was met by your sales manager with, “This is a numbers game! Sit down with the phone, and don’t quit calling until you get ten appointments.” 

Today that strategy is total folly. 

Have you ever heard a seller complain that there just isn’t enough paperwork to be completed?

How about that they wish your CRM was more complex?

Or that there aren’t enough departments involved in their sales?

As a manager, it's likely that you have heard the exact opposite from most of your salespeople. Hunters like to hunt, but many don’t really like to cook or clean up after their kill. What are ways that you can let your sellers sell and minimize the roadblocks they deal with?

GOOD NEWS: 80% of professionals prefer to use email for business communication. 

BAD NEWS: With over 269 Billion emails sent every day, there's a lot of fierce competition flooding your prospects' inboxes.

So how can you, the stealthy salesperson, craft a genius prospecting email that warrants a response? 

We hear this question more than ever, "What makes a good leader?"

In the first 2022 episode of Improving Sales Performance, Stephanie Downs joins Matt Sunshine and guests Maryann Balbo and Fran Mallace of Cox Media.

Maryann and Fran are both Group Vice Presidents at Cox Media, and throughout the show, they discuss qualities of a good leader, leading in a 'people-first' company, and offer advice for sales leaders on company culture, sales management in 2022, and looking forward.

Tune in now or keep reading for a brief overview.

As we get closer to the New Year, we're taking some time to reflect on 2021 and the success we've seen our clients achieve. While many are enjoying this special holiday with family and friends, we're bringing you a recap of the most popular posts we've published in 2021. 

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 2021, 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 blogs on sales leadership from 2021.

We believe that talent + training + tactics = performance, and today we are bringing you a recap of the most popular blog posts we've published in 2021 on all things talent.

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 blog posts of 2021, 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 articles on talent from 2021 and let them kickstart your 2022 sales strategy.

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 blog posts of 2021, and we've curated these lists to bring you some of the most informative content from the year. Check out these top blogs on the sales performance from 2021, and let them kickstart your 2022 sales strategy.

In October of 2020, as live streaming media began to gain traction on platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook, we launched the Improving Sales Performance livecast.

This livecast gave our audience an opportunity to hear from various thought leaders, experts, and industry gurus, who shared their insight, tips, and knowledge on several topics that help companies improve sales performance.

In case you missed it, here’s a year in review on The Improving Sales Performance livecast.