The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Scientists say music changes mood, motivation, cognitive processing, and the ability to retain information. Additionally, music just makes work more fun and time fly!  

Setting appointments is a common problem — in fact, the 2020 Media Sales Report found that 80% of sales managers find it harder today than just 5 years ago. Listening to music is just one small motivator that will help get the job done.

Effective sales prospecting is one of the most challenging — and most important —parts of the sales process. Getting it wrong means wasted time and frustration. Getting it right means a healthier pipeline and better performance.

One of the leading indicators for sales success is to look at the number of appointments that a salesperson has each week. (This is not the only leading indicator that you should be tracking, but it is one of them.)

The idea is that if a salesperson has a significant amount of appointments each week which involve finding needs, getting assignments, presenting solutions, or delivering a proposal, that this quality sales activity will lead to good solid revenue performance.  

It's fair to say that everyone in sales or in sales management would agree with this, but here's the flaw — many salespeople are confusing "I'll follow up with you next week" with "I have an appointment."

To be clear, "I’ll follow up with you next week," does not mean you have an appointment.

In Season 2 of Improving Sales Performance Series, we’ve focused on the data and analysis of the 2020 Media Sales Report.

In this episode, Dalena Pajares, Dean Moothart, and Kurt Sima of The Center for Sales Strategy and LeadG2 join Matt Sunshine as they discuss the data from the Media Sales Report surrounding the analysis of the sales process and setting appointments section.

You can stream it now to hear their insight, advice, and initial thoughts after analyzing the data that was just published. Or keep reading for a brief overview.

According to a DePaul University study, the average turnover cost per Account Executive (AE) is $97,690 when you add up recruiting costs, training costs, and lost sales. So, if you lose five AEs in one year - you’re close to losing nearly a half a million dollars. 

Couple that with the fact that in a Glassdoor survey, only 19% of AE’s have no immediate plans leave their companies, but 68% of AE’s plan to look for a job within the next year.  

Why do sales reps leave? And what can your sales organization do to stop your top sellers from leaving?

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?

It's hard to keep up with every article we publish throughout the year! So, today, we're making it easy by recapping the most popular sales process posts we've published in 2020.

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 to bring you some of the most informative content from the year. Check out these top blogs on the sales process from 2020, and let them kickstart your 2021 sales strategy.

To start something at the beginning and complete it (in order) to the very end is seen as a virtue. Linear thinking is logical, and experts say that most of us in the western world rely on it 90% of the time. But don’t let that limit you into believing there's always just one path to the best result.

What result do you want from sales training? To say the team completed all the courses or learn to sell smarter or faster?

2020 has been a strange year for everyone. Successful teams who are used to winning find themselves struggling. And managers, who are used to leading successful teams, are trying to coach and help reps who aren’t used to struggling.

If this sounds like a situation you’re experiencing, how can you identify where your team needs help and get them back on track?

"If you don't know your numbers, you don't know your business." — Marcus Lemonis

"It's a numbers game, but I don't know which numbers" — Average Salesperson

Okay — I made-up the last quote, but it's still true. Too many times, I meet with sales managers and salespeople who firmly believe that sales is a "numbers game", but they have no idea what numbers they need to know or even what numbers they should be tracking.

Most sales leaders focus on KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and while they are important, they do not help produce sales improvements. KPI's are like your scorecard after a round of golf, fun to see how you played, but they can't help you play better for the round you just finished. 

Rather than focus on KPIs, it’s time to concentrate on Leading Indicators so that we can effect change during the game that will help you and your team win. Think of leading indicators as data that allows you to make "in-game" adjustments, so that your team can keep scoring.