June, 2012

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Effective Sales Coaching Practices – Part 2

Steven Rosen

What do the best sales coaches do? In this article we want to further explore what effective sales coaching looks like. As I previously discussed in Part 1 of Effective Sales Coaching Practices , the goal of coaching is to help the individual improve their performance and reach their true potential. In our business, that means being the best sales rep they can be.

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39 Useful Things to Post on Twitter

The Sales Heretic

Twitter—like other social media sites—has enormous potential as a sales tool. The micro-blogging service gives you a direct, unfiltered communication channel with both prospects and existing customers. It’s unlimited PR in 140 characters or less. To maximize Twitter’s effectiveness, however, you need a following. And to develop a following, you need to post content (“tweets”) that [.].

Twitter 310
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Ask Me. Tell Me. Show Me.

Bernadette McClelland

'Ask Me. Tell Me. Show Me. In walking into a white goods shop recently, the sales person asked if we needed any assistance and when I mentioned I wanted to buy a blender he took me to the aisle, chose one off the shelf because the others were too expensive (his belief!) and proceeded to tell, tell, tell us about it. The thing is, it isn’t just retail salespeople who do this.

Intent 294
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The Quality of Execution – Sales eXchange 153

The Pipeline

Quality execution, that is demonstrating your craft, and demonstrating your willingness to make the effort to do it in a quality way, to sell better, is often the last and best differentiator. In a world where products and solutions are all but the same, quality execution above all in selling is not only intelligent, but profitable. While many sellers seek out new ways to do old things (prospecting and selling), rather than seeking out better and more quality execution of the sales.

Buyer 293
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The Trends You Need to Succeed This Holiday Season

October Prime Day is usually an early sign of how consumer spending trends ahead of the holidays. This one was no exception. Our October Prime Day Report breaks down what’s working: the products flying off the shelves, the categories winning big, big brands, and the search terms defining demand. All brought to you via Similarweb’s Shopper Intelligence platform.

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A Great Way To Keep Your Sales Pipeline Full

MTD Sales Training

You had a great month! You closed a ton of sales, including that big one that you had been working on forever. However, shortly after the euphoria of “Sales Person of the Month” awards and a huge paycheck begin to wear off, a horrible reality sets in. You look up and realise that your pipeline is completely dry. You have little or no fresh leads, no appointments, and no proposals in the mix, nothing.

Pipeline 287

More Trending

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STAR Sales Managers Win More Sales

Steven Rosen

All companies want to win more sales. More sales equals greater profits. So why has winning more sales become the. unreachable dream? The first place to start is by looking at your sales people and discerning why they are not performing. Often, companies will invest in sales rep training , CRM systems and buy new toys in an effort to improve sales rep performance.

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Sales Advice from Hannibal Lecter

The Sales Heretic

Hannibal Lecter would have made a great salesperson. And by that, I don’t mean that he’d eat the competition for lunch. The cannibalistic psychiatrist in The Silence of the Lambs understood that people’s actions are a result of their motivation. And he was an expert at divining human motivation, as evidenced in a pivotal scene in [.].

Pivotal 296
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Misunderstood Marketing

Sales and Marketing Management

Issue Date: 2012-06-25. Author: Janet C. Jessen. Teaser: In far too many companies the marketing function has been misunderstood, minimized or marginalized. Marketing communications and sales literature are important, but they’re only part of a much larger picture. In far too many companies the marketing function has been misunderstood, minimized or marginalized.

Marketing 269
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The “Right” Measure

The Pipeline

No this isn’t about metrics, this is not about steps you can take as a manager, no, it’s much more cynical and entertaining than that. It is about a game that sales people and managers can play while presenting or watching a peer present is a selling situation. It is about measuring how many times a sales person will say “right?” looking for agreement from the potential buyer.

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AI Strategies for Sales Managers: How to Cut Down on Tedious Admin Work

What if you could help your sellers stop wasting 72% of their day on non-selling activities and focus on bringing in revenue? Incorporating AI in your enablement workflows can help you cut down on busy work, get projects done faster, and let your team (and you!) focus on making a bigger impact. We put together this guide to show you how to use AI to cut time and costs for projects, including collateral creation, development of training videos, and automating tedious processes.

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The Best Way To Begin A Cold Call

MTD Sales Training

Whether closing a direct sale or just setting appointments over the telephone , cold calling can be tough. In a cold call , you have but a precious few seconds to establish enough trust and rapport to get the prospect to allow the call to continue. In the first three seconds, the prospect forms a mental imagine of you, your surroundings and appearance.

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Three Tips to Build Powerful Customer Connections

No More Cold Calling

Referrals are the secret to B2B sales: Get the meeting at the level that counts. “Face to Face in a Sales 2.0 World”—that’s how I met Todd McCormick at the Fall 2011 Sales 2.0 conference. Not only did I love the title of his presentation, but when Todd talked about the importance of personal connections and the power of looking someone in the eye, he had my attention.

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PowerViews with Rich Vancil: Marketing Ops, Sales Ops & Mashups

Pointclear

My PowerViews guest today is Rich Vancil, IDC Group Vice President for Executive Strategies. As a member of the Executive Advisory Group, he delivers CMO and Sales Advisory Services that provide senior technology marketing and sales executives with insights into how to improve productivity and efficiency in their organizations. Rich earned his MBA from Harvard Business School, and he’s twice been named to BtoB Magazine’s Top 100 Most Influential people.

Marketing 247
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Six Sales Questions You Should Stop Asking

The Sales Heretic

You hear it again and again: “In sales, it’s important to ask good questions.” The problem is, nobody ever tells you exactly what those questions are. As a result, too many salespeople, business owners and professionals ask bad questions. Questions that can make your job more difficult and even cost you the sale. If you’d like to [.].

Exact 290
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Buyer’s Guide: 5 Tough Questions To Ask a Salesforce Managed Services Provider

This guide is for leaders who recognize the importance of Salesforce but would rather trust a team of external experts to do the heavy lifting. Choosing the right managed services provider is a significant decision that impacts your business's efficiency and success. In this 10-minute read, you'll find 5 essential questions to ask any potential provider.

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Avoid the doublespeak trap

Sales and Marketing Management

Issue Date: 2012-05-01. Author: SMM. Teaser: Mike Figliuolo is on a crusade to wipe away unproductive phrases and words that get in the way of being an authentic leader. Mike Figliuolo is on a crusade to wipe away unproductive phrases and words that get in the way of being an authentic leader.

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Which Sales ADD Do You Suffer?

The Pipeline

Let’s take it as a given that all good sales people suffer some form of ADD, if you want to debate that, feel free to give me a call, but there is no denying that we bounce around like so many balls on a pinball table. But Sales ADD, like cholesterol, come in two forms, good and bad, the question is which do you have, and how is it impacting you and your success.

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How To Handle The Price FIRST Prospect

MTD Sales Training

Two minutes into the sales interaction, the prospect is demanding to know the price. You do what you can do avoid divulging the price too soon, but the prospect insists. If you sell a product or service were you must put together a quote, and it will take time to do so, that helps. However, when you have exhausted the usual options and answers and the prospect remains adamant on knowing the costs right away, here a few tips you might try.

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Effective Selling Can't Occur Until Salespeople Perfect This

Understanding the Sales Force

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan So much is written about consultative selling and the huge part it plays in the world of modern sales. However, talking about consultative selling and actually selling consultatively are two entirely different things. Actual consultative selling requires that salespeople ask good, tough, timely questions, and when appropriate, challenge and push-back.

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Beyond the Basics: How to Develop and Retain a Top-Performing Sales Team

Speaker: Brendan Sweeney, VP of Sales at Allego

Maximizing sales rep performance is no easy task. 📈 Traditional sales training methods focus heavily on the first few weeks in the sales role. Companies dedicate time, resources, and budget to onboarding new hires, only for them to forget what was learned in those first few weeks, lose motivation, and struggle to come to grips with their role.

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Quit Saying “Honestly” and “To Tell the Truth” Unless You Are a Liar

The Sales Hunter

Surprising to me is the number of times I hear salespeople and others use these lines or other similar lines. When I hear somebody say either of these, I can’t help but think if what they’ve been telling me up to now has been a lie. Allowing the customer to have confidence is a requirement if we expect to close a sale. This means our words, our actions and our entire demeanor have to be geared toward giving them confidence.

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5 Ways to Grow Your Sales Pipeline This Summer- SPICE It Up

Score More Sales

S.P.I.C.E. Up Your Sales. In North America, sales efforts traditionally slide downward during the summer months. No matter what you think as a sales professional, most of us mentally gear down our sales activities for three reasons: We expect less. Everyone “knows” that our prospects are totally diverted with personal and family issues during the summer, right?

Pipeline 229
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The sweet science that leads to sales success

Sales and Marketing Management

Issue Date: 2012-05-01. Author: SMM. Teaser: Nancy Martini, President and CEO of PI Worldwide, a Boston-based management consulting company, explains why increased sales can be found at the intersection of behaviorial science and improved skills assessment. Nancy Martini, President and CEO of PI Worldwide, a Boston-based management consulting company, explains why increased sales can be found at the intersection of behaviorial science and improved skills assessment.

Leads 246
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8 By 8 and 5 After 5

The Pipeline

Had an interesting discussion with at a reseller conference I presented at earlier this week, with Jason Stitt, a VP of Sales at a local technology firm, dealing with sales activity. We talked about the level of activity, the timing of the activity, and of course the quality of activity; mostly how these factored in prospecting and driving new revenue.

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How to Optimize Call Monitoring: Automate QA and Elevate Customer Experience

Speaker: Laura Noonan, Chief Revenue Officer at CallFinder + Angie Kronlage, Director of Program Success at Working Solutions + April Wiita, Vice President of Program Success at Working Solutions

Are you still manually reviewing calls? 🤔 It's time for a change! The traditional method of manual call monitoring is no longer cutting it in today's fast-paced call center environment. Industry experts Angie Kronlage and April Wiita from Working Solutions are here to explore the power of innovative automation to revolutionize outdated call review processes!

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How To Reduce Your Price Without Reducing The Value

MTD Sales Training

Once in a while, (and it really should be just once in a while,) there comes the time when you absolutely have to lower your price to close the sale. While this may seem like a simple and easy operation, it is something that sales people mess up all the time. Done correctly, a “small price drop” can indeed help close the sale. However, done incorrectly, the smallest price decrease can cost you the sale, the trust of the buyer, many other sales and possibly your reputation in the industry.

Discount 283
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Controversial "Best Time" For Salespeople To Fill Their Pipeline

Understanding the Sales Force

Understanding the Sales Force by Dave Kurlan The obvious answer is to make sure they fill the pipeline when it begins to empty or is getting close to being empty, right? Wrong. If the pipeline is nearly empty today, your salespeople are feeling scared, stressed, discouraged and demotivated. If awful is how your salespeople feel then do you really believe that NOW is the ideal time to get them prospecting?

Pipeline 224
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A Sales Prospecting Technique That Will Blow Away the Competition

The Sales Hunter

Do you want a sure-fire way to set yourself apart from the competition while prospecting? Use a link to a news story from a website. “What?” you may be asking. “How do I do that and does it work?” You bet it does. I use it all the time in my own business. Here’s how: Find an on-line news link that your prospect or person with whom you want to network would find of value — and you send them the link.

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Grow Customers With 3 Sales Tips for Improved Communication

Score More Sales

How many times have you told someone something and later they asked you about the very thing you already explained? What happens when this is a prospective customer? Are they listening? Customers and potential buyers of your products and services are so multi-tasked now that they very well may be looking you in the eyes and listening – only to forget later what it was you said.

Customer 225
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Secrets of a Successful Sale: Optimizing Your Checkout Process

Speaker: David Nisbet, Everett Zufelt, and Michaela Weber

Once upon a time, in the vast realm of online commerce, there lived a humble checkout button overlooked by many. Yet, within its humble click lay the power to transform a mere visitor into a loyal customer. 🧐 💡 Getting checkout right can mark the difference between a successful sale and an abandoned cart, yet many businesses fail to make payments a part of their commerce strategy even when it has a direct impact on revenue.

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Stop Closing Sales and Start Providing Value, or Lose to Price | Top Sales Trainer | Best Sales Trainer | Top Leadership Trainer

Jeffrey Gitomer

Tweet Are you trying to figure out some manipulative way of closing the sale or asking for the sale? Or worse, are you wondering when the best time to close is? Hers’s another question for you – Is it more powerful for you to ask for the sale or for the customer to ask, “When can we get started?” There are 9.5 key areas where value can be perceived.

Closing 223
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Are You The Consolation Prize? – Sales eXchange 152

The Pipeline

I am very concerned when I hear capable sales people tell me that they set out to be a consolation prize when they engage with a potential buyer. Worse, I feel downright scared when I hear sales experts encourage sales people to set out and settle for being a consolation prize, rather than encouraging them to win. Here is the problem, when speaking with potential prospects who tell you “we are all set”, or “thanks we are happy with our current provider”.

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Do Not THINK About Closing the Sale

MTD Sales Training

There are a million tips all over the world on what to do to help you close the sale. You can find all sorts of tips, tricks, and magical scripts, as well as a bunch of pat answers to objections. In addition, in some places, like here at MTD Sales Training, you will find some very sophisticated and powerful closing processes that will help you be more successful.

Closing 280