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The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Weekly Wrap Up: What We Wrote, and What We Read: May 5th - 8th

Happy Cinco de Mayo! We had another evenful week. How do you measure the success of your week? Do you look at your scratched-out to-do list and see how much you've accomplished? Do you reflect on your week? Do you plan next week on Friday afternoons?

Topics: Digital Inbound Marketing Sales

Where Most Sales Pipeline Problems Spring a Leak

garden_hoseIt’s springtime in the United States. The birds are singing, flowers are blooming, and we’re hoping our long stint of April showers is about over. It’s time to plant the seeds that will become your summer garden. When you plant a garden, the final step is to pull out your garden hose and give the ground a good soaking.

If you spring a big leak in the hose, near where the faucet is, what you just planted is not going to get much water. If you spring a leak at the end of the hose, that water is just going to leak out onto your new seedlings and your garden will grow nearly as well. It’s easy to see that a leak near the beginning of the hose (pipeline) is the bigger problem.

A Leak in the Sales Pipeline

Topics: Sales

What We Wrote, and What We Read: April 28 - May 1 Weekly Wrap Up

Can you believe it's May already? At this rate, the year will be over before we know it. We're excited for the summer preview weather we've been having, but if you're in a part of the world where summer preview means tornado season, we hope you're staying safe.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

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Topics: Digital Inbound Marketing Sales

What We Wrote, and What We Read: April 21-24 Weekly Wrap Up

Today, we're happy to have our taxes done. Do you wait until the last minute or do you file as soon as you get your return?

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

  • Mike Anderson wrote about Vendor Relationship Management, and said, "Just because you’re already the selected vendor and serving the customer, it doesn’t mean the customer is no longer interested in VRM—in managing their relationship with you."
  • Dana Bojcic wrote about listening for talent when interviewing salespeople, and said, "If you don’t know the answer, ask more questions. Ask a lot of questions… and then really listen."

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Topics: Digital Inbound Marketing Sales

What We Wrote, and What We Read: April 14-18

Today, we're happy to have our taxes done. Do you wait until the last minute or do you file as soon as you get your return?

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

In 6 Immutable Rules of Communication in the Age of Content Marketing, Mike Anderson writes, "Picture a room filled with dozens of people who are talking, while only a handful of people are listening. The folks who are pumping information out (publishing) are literally overwhelming the poor folks who are taking information in (listening)."

In Best Practices when Networking on LinkedIn, Brian Hasenbauer writes, "Don’t send LinkedIn requests to people you don’t know or don’t have a solid reason for knowing them."

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Topics: Digital Inbound Marketing Sales

Weekly Wrap-Up + Posts from Around the Web: mid-April Edition

Today, we're enjoying April showers, and working on many behind-the scenes projects. This week, we tried something different, and published a timeley piece on Sunday. What did you think? We'll be adding a weekend post here and there, especially if there's something newsworthy that just can't wait.

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

In Never Send an Email When You’re Angry: Otherwise, This Might Happen to You, Brian Hasenbauer described how there really is such a thing as bad press, and how an angry email sent in the heat of the moment caused a PR disaster for one professional.

In How to Increase Engagement on Your Company Blog, I wrote about how to look beyond comments to see which posts are really resonating with your target personas and write more content that appeals to them.

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Topics: Digital Inbound Marketing Sales

Weekly Wrap-Up + Posts from Around the Web: April Fool's Edition

Today, we're still laughing about all the pranks that we fell for this week (even though we told ourselves we wouldn't believe anything we were told, we fell for all the same silly lines just the same). We also can hardly believe that we're past the first quarter of 2014! Time flies when you're having fun, right?

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up

  • Matt Sunshine got a terrible email, which prompted him to write How Not to Send a Follow-Up Email, and in it he noted, "Never forget that your potential customer owes you nothing."
Topics: Digital Inbound Marketing Sales

Weekly Wrap-Up + Posts from Around the Web: NCAA Tournament Edition

Today, we're thinking about our brackets, and wondering why college basketball is so hard to predict. How's your tournament going?

The Center for Sales Strategy Weekly Wrap-Up:

Below are some takeaways found within this week's blog posts:

Sales_Hunters,_Sales_Farmers,_and…_Sales_TrappersSales Hunters, Sales Farmers, and… Sales Trappers?:

Mike Anderson

"Trappers do it differently; they entice the prey—er, prospects—to come to them. They set out the honeypot that brings the bears, the cheese that attracts the mice, the information and advice that pulls prospects in and prompts them to make the first move toward doing business.  In the epic battle between the Sales Hunters and the Sales Farmers, it just may be the Sales Trappers who win."

 

How_to_Create_a_Sales_Job_Description_that_isn’t_a_Waste_of_Time

John Henley

"Think about how you want the person to introduce themselves to clients and prospects. You want a title that sounds like the person is working on the behalf of clients, not your organization. For example, instead of calling someone the Business Development Manager, consider calling him or her something like Client Solutions Manager. If good ideas don't come to you on the job title right away, complete the rest of this outline first and then come back and work on this."

Topics: Digital Inbound Marketing Sales

6 Tips for Creating an Amazing Field Coaching Experience

6_Tips_for_Creating_an_Amazing_Field_Coaching_ExperienceThe following is a post by our colleague Don Oylear. From time to time, we'll highlight great advice from our peers. Find out more about Don at the end of this piece, and contact us if you'd like to post something!

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You’ve hired top talent, and you’ve trained them up on best sales practices. They know your products inside and out. You’ve role-played until you can no longer stump them, but something is missing. What is that?

The answer is Field Coaching: Watching salespeople in action in front of real clients who hit back and fire live ammunition is the critical step in developing your salespeople. Your salespeople may not be the LeBron James or Tiger Woods of their field, but if they have the basic talent to succeed in the job, then with a little coaching, they could become great.

Topics: Sales

Weekly Wrap-Up + Posts from Around the Web: Officially Spring Edition

Today, we're celebrating the official beginning of Spring! We hope wherever you are, you see flowers blooming instead of a snow pack.

This Week at The Center for Sales Strategy

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Topics: Digital Inbound Marketing Sales