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The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Breaking the Ice with a New Business Prospect

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The best B2B salespeople know the shortest path to a new business prospect's wallet is through a thorough understanding of needs, problems, challenges and opportunities. Wouldn't it be nice if a new business prospect would simply email this information to the salesperson — this would eliminate the need to set an appointment and conduct a needs analysis. That would be a great sales strategy!

Topics: sales strategy Sales

Make Your First Impression Your Best Impression

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There was a post on LinkedIn recently about the importance of making a good first impression. The post focused on professional men in beautiful, well-tailored suits, smiling, making excellent eye contact, and shaking hands. Surely there must be more than that.

First impressions are frequently discussed in the context of business meetings. Is it an important first meeting for a job interview? Or is it the first meeting with a client to conduct a needs analysis? It doesn’t matter what the situation, since memorable impressions are critical to both.

Topics: Sales

7 Smart Strategies to Speed Up Your Sales Cycle + More

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We're at the end of another week! It's Friday, and it's time for us to share what we've been reading online this week. Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. 7 Smart Strategies to Speed Up Your Sales Cycle — HubSpot

To figure out the perfect, predictable sales cycle would be like discovering the holy grail of sales. That’s not to say that there aren’t ways to make sales cycles more predictable. Here are seven ways to speed up the sales cycle and do just that.

Topics: Inbound Marketing Sales Wrap-up

Improve Sales Performance with Meetings that Are Never Mediocre

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The regularly scheduled meeting that takes place with a sales manager and a salesperson (usually weekly) is uber critical. Yet, sometimes it is nothing more than an item on the to-do list of both the salesperson and the manager. In many sales organizations, this focused meeting between the manager and salesperson happens because it's the way it has always been done—not because it is highly productive.  

Topics: Sales

Focus—Your Future Depends On It

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In 1996 Motorola introduced a cellular phone you could wear, email surpassed snail mail for the first time, and a computer named “Deep Blue” defeated the world chess champion. In the midst of this technological change, Al Ries published a marketing book entitled Focus: The Future of Your Company Depends On It.

Reis was already considered a marketing thought-leader, having coined the word “positioning” along with Jack Trout. Positioning was used to describe the perception of your brand relative to that of your competitors. 

Whether you’re positioning your company, your department, or just yourself, the wisdom of focus is important to revisittweet-button-1.jpg

Topics: Sales focus

4 Digital Marketing Trends You Can't Afford to Ignore + More

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We've come to another Friday, and it's time for us to share what we've been reading online this week. Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. 4 Digital Marketing Trends You Can't Afford to Ignore — Inc.

The four trends described in this article offer an incredible, never-before-realized opportunity to cultivate relationships with your prospects in unique ways. They're also an opportunity for media to forge new offerings to their clients and innovate their way into these new spaces where their competitors aren't.

Topics: Inbound Marketing Sales Wrap-up

Use Consumer Psychology to Help Reel In More of Your Ideal Prospects

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You can make the best and the most spectacular recommendations to your prospects, but what use is it if the prospect doesn’t share your point of view?

In B2B sales, you’ve probably spent a lot of resources to score an appointment. You’ve generated leads, qualified them, answered initial questions. And you don’t want to lose your ideal prospects now. Consumer psychology can help you reel the prospect in to sign on that dotted line.

Topics: Sales sales process

Six Ways To Better Organize Your Time

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Is it even possible to organize time? Let’s look at six ways we can focus our time on the things that are most important to us. 

  1. Consider Current Commitments

Take a look at what you have already committed to doing. Look at each appointment on your calendar and each item on your latest to-do list. What result do you want to see from each commitment? How does each one make you feel when you think about that use of your time? 

Topics: Sales

How to Beat the Battle of an Ineffective Blog + More

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We've come to another Friday, and it's time for us to share what we've been reading online this week. Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. How to Beat the Battle of an Ineffective Blog — Content Marketing Institute

A business blog is a powerful tool. But an effective blog requires a strategy. If you're not seeing the kinds of results you want from your blog, take a look at this post, which offers three ways to get your blog performing. 

Topics: Inbound Marketing Sales Wrap-up

Think Spring! A Sales Strategy to Nurture Leads

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Lead nurturing is a bit like gardening. Most often leads or new business prospects are not ready to buy immediately. If you take the time to nurture the leads you generate now, they will bloom like daffodils in the spring.

Topics: Lead Generation Sales