The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

At The Center for Sales Strategy (CSS), we take delivering results seriously. Our proven strategies help clients improve their company’s sales performance and increase their sales revenue by providing strategic plans and tailored solutions for their needs.

We've taken some time to dig into last year's numbers so we can analyze and improve in the coming year. Here's what 2019 looked like.

Salespeople seem to always have so much to do, yet never enough time to get it all finished. Recently, I met one-on-one with about 30 different salespeople over the course of a two-week period. During each of these meetings, the salespeople revealed that they could benefit from some priority management or time management lessons.

That got me thinking that this is something I bet many sales managers and sales teams could use. So I asked all of my colleagues at The Center for Sales Strategy (CSS) and LeadG2 for their best time management tips. Here's what we gathered.

The world of sales has rapidly changed as new technology evolved and became more accessible to businesses and sales teams. Over the last decade, the major trends in sales have included ideas like inbound marketing, social selling, and implementing sales enablement tools.

From companies becoming more intentional about building a culture of engagement to sellers mastering the art of shared-screen conversations, predictions in sales trends for the next decade take a slightly different approach. Improving sales productivity and the overall sales process are still top priority — but there’s more! Here are our predictions for the next ten years in sales, sales management, and sales marketing trends.

These days, there's a quick fix for everything. From a 21-day diet to a 3-step skin care plan and a 24-hour credit repair, it's our natural instinct as humans to look for quick solutions to our problems. We’re impatient by nature, and we want the kind of solution that turns everything around now.

While some of these quick fixes may work in the short-run, most are not sustainable and they leave you in worse shape than you were before. Ironically, the quick fix delayed the real solution.

In our world of quick fixes for everything, we also expect a quick fix to be applied to sales. However, the best sales performance solutions combine a jump-start plan to deliver immediate results together with a long-term plan to assure sustainability. And, the long-term plan must include three fundamentals.

In an ever-changing sales landscape, maintaining a healthy personal brand on social media has become a necessary tool for sales professionals to build and maintain relationships with prospects. According to a Forrester Consulting study, Social Selling: A New B2B Imperative, “49% of B2B enterprises have developed a formal social selling program, and 28 percent are in the process of doing so.”

Even though using social media to sell has been widely adopted in many industries, our 2019 Media Sales Report found that only 12% of sales managers said their salespeople are using social media effectively to set appointments with prospects.

If you aren’t utilizing social selling as part of your sales strategy, you could be losing sales to more social-savvy salespeople. 

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my axe.

-Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln's productivity secret was to work smarter rather than work harder by simply using sharper tools to get the job done more efficiently. Inefficient tools waste your time and energy, and simply knowing what to do is never enough. It’s the matter of actually doing it that makes all the difference.

Great leaders grow themselves and their organizations by deliberately managing the present, letting go of old beliefs and behaviors, and purposefully creating a future by adopting new practices.

How can I be successful in media sales? 

How long will it take for me to make a lot of money?

How quickly can I expect to be promoted?

Whether fresh out of college or a seasoned professional seeking a career change, anyone pursuing a career in media sales (or any sales position) asks these same three questions. Everyone wants to know how they can be successful, make good money, and advance their careers. All smart things to think about!  

As a sales performance consulting company, we've helped hundreds of B2B sales organizations attract, retain, and develop the highest performing salespeople and sales managers. We've learned a thing a two about success! Here are our tips on how to be successful in your first year as a media salesperson. And, this advice is valid for all sales positions, not just media!

Is your sales team running the same plays as it did ten years ago? Even five years ago? If so, there’s a good chance you need to update your sales playbook.

The way businesses buy and sell has forever changed—and to stay competitive, you need to change too. Yes, certain things are still essential such as:

• Finding needs and pain points
• Presenting solutions
• Getting results

But how you interact with prospects and clients is different.

Just like an athlete, you can go it alone and get some occasional wins. To win a gold medal requires a clear plan, consistent discipline, and constant improvement.

At The Center for Sales Strategy (CSS), we take delivering client results seriously. We are here to help take your sales strategy from occasional wins to gold medals. Our proven strategies help clients improve their company’s sales performance and increase their sales revenue by providing tailored solutions for their needs.

We've taken some time to dig into last year's numbers so we can analyze and improve in the coming year. Here's what 2018 looked like, and we'll be sharing 2019 soon after the New Year.