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The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

11 Techniques to Run Efficient and Effective Sales Meetings + More

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We hope you've had a great week! It's Friday, and today we're sharing what we've been reading online this week! Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. 11 Techniques to Run Efficient and Effective Sales Meetings HubSpot

Time is precious, and wasting your prospect’s time is the fastest way to ensure you won’t ever get more. The 11 techniques in this article are the key to making sure you’re running efficient, effective sales presentations that will keep your prospects engaged until the end of the process.

Topics: Inbound Marketing Sales Wrap-up

How to Get the Most from a Sales Candidate Interview

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Do you ever tell horror stories about the worst hire you ever made? These bad experiences tend to stand out, don’t they?

High turnover is a big problem for many sales organizations and hiring the wrong people for the job can be a big contributor to that turnover. It’s extremely important that you hire people with the right talents for the position.

Do your due diligence before you hire someone so you are not surprised by mediocre performance later. Perfecting your interview process will help you to put the right people in the right positions.

Here are some tips on how to get the most from a candidate interview:

Topics: hiring salespeople Sales

The Two Biggest Problems B2B Salespeople Have With Proposals

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1.  They don’t hear “yes” often enough.

2.  They don’t hear “no” often enough.

When you talk to salespeople all time as I do, it’s easy to see the biggest problem with many proposals is that they seem to fall into a black hole, an abyss, where salespeople don’t hear either "yes" or "no." That’s a problem.

It’s better to hear “no” than nothing. As a result, salespeople feed pending information to their managers each week, which includes proposals still hanging out there, and sales managers continue to miss their projections with faulty data. Experience shows that each week that goes by between presentation and getting an answer, the chance of closing a proposal goes down. In fact, the closing percentage on proposals over 30 days old is usually less than 10%, far less than what the salespeople are projecting. The reality is a no answer is usually a “no” answer.

So, how can salespeople avoid having their proposals drop off the face of the planet, never to be heard about again? Here are some steps that should be useful:

Topics: Proposal Needs Analysis Sales

14 Signs Your Sales Email Is Actually Spam + More

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We hope you've had a great week! It's Friday, and today we're sharing what we've been reading online this week! Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. 14 Signs Your Sales Email Is Actually Spam HubSpot

Sending valuable, customized, personalized sales emails is a legitimate sales tactic. Blasting out spam is not. So how can you tell if a cold sales email actually spam? Use these 14 signs to make the call.

Topics: Inbound Marketing Sales Wrap-up

Keep It Simple, Sales Manager

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Today we have a guest post from Sherrie Roberts. Sherrie has been crushing sales goals and breaking records for over 20 years from local broadcast to national networks and rep firms. Serving in roles as salesperson, sales manager, General Manger and Founder.


Government is not the only entity wrought with bureaucracy. It’s known to rear its ugly head in all businesses. Systems and policies are certainly vital to accomplish missions and keep chaos at bay. Yet bureaucracy is proof you can have too much of a good thing. Too often we become so ensnared by rules and with making them, that common sense takes a back seat. 

There’s this thing called the “naked rule” that has become somewhat of a mantra in my management career. Once, in a meeting discussing a unique issue that had arisen, one leader proposed a new policy to address said issue. Yet another leader responded, with brilliant hyperbole, “So if an employee showed up naked to work, would we really need a rule that says you have to wear clothes to work?” Thank you Captain Obvious for saving us that day from yet another policy that wouldn’t solve anything. In this case, it would have created unnecessary complication—as is so often the case.

Topics: Sales sales process

Increase Your Marketing ROI With Our Newest Online Course (free for a limited time!)

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I can remember it so well—sitting in the grass with a bunch of other sweaty 5th and 6th graders, out of breath from running laps and drills. We were the St. Joseph’s soccer team, and we were great at running around and yelling and kicking the ball in the general direction of the other team’s goal. We were pretty good at joking around and drinking the Gatorade, too.

But this practice was a little different. Today, Coach Freer had a big pad of paper and a sharpie. She proceeded to tell us this fabulous story involving fullbacks, and halfbacks, and forwards, and strikers. And those white lines on the grass? She told us what they meant, too. 

“Whoa!” I said to myself. “There’s a strategy here, and a structure!”

This memory came back so clear to me this week, as I finished building our latest online course, the Lead Gen What & Why: Inbound. In presenting the top 20 terms related to inbound marketing and lead generation, a real structure, based on strategy, started to come into focus.

Topics: content marketing Inbound Marketing Sales sales and marketing alignment

Are You Set Up to Recruit Top Talent?

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I’m in the midst of touring colleges with my son. There are so many choices and great things about all the schools. There are the big SEC football schools, schools in college towns and big cities, large campuses and small. So how will he choose? Finding the right fit when you are a senior in high school seems like such a concrete and monstrous decision.

The same can be true when graduating from college and looking for a job. What do millennials look for when searching for their “perfect” job? Many articles have been written about what they are searching for—collaborative work environments, recognition, opportunities for growth, flexible hours and a purpose to name a few. How does your company stand out to this group?

Topics: hiring salespeople Sales

Why It’s Time to Kill the Generic Sales Presentation + More

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We hope you've had a great week! It's Friday, and today we're sharing what we've been reading online this week! Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. Back to Basics: Why It’s Time to Kill the Generic Sales Presentation HubSpot

As a salesperson, it's your job to serve as a translator between the generic messaging found on your company’s website and the unique needs of your buyer. Modern salespeople tailor presentations to their buyers' context, leveraging the information they've already gathered in the exploratory phase to explain why they are uniquely positioned to help. This article explains how.

Topics: Inbound Marketing Sales Wrap-up

Sales Coaching: Don’t Let Your Weaknesses Get in the Way of Your Success

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I am really good at showing up on time, coaching people, planning jam-packed vacations, coming up with creative gift ideas, and breaking down something complicated into the key points that everyone needs to understand. Those are my talents—the things that I do well. Maybe even better than others. And, if I really thought about it, I could probably even think of a few more things to add to my short list.

Now, ask me to make a list of things I’m not very good at—the things I’ve worked hard at but never seem to be able to do as well as others…. Well, that could go on all day! Playing tennis, building budgets, writing in straight lines on a white board, singing in tune…. Seriously, I could fill the page!  While practice might make me a bit better, I will never achieve greatness.

And as much as that bugs me, it’s pretty normal. We all have strengths but we have MANY more weaknesses than we have strengths. And that’s okay, because no one succeeds based on their weaknesses.

Topics: key account growth Sales

4 Steps to Determine if a Sales Candidate is as Great as She Sounds

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The candidate is standing in front of you—sharply dressed, trying to impress you with how perfect she is for the job. This individual seems perfect. She looks the part, has the right answers, and a great personality. How do you get past the “shine”?

Topics: Sales