February, 2019

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9 Things Terribly Wrong With Sales Today

A Sales Guy

Sales is suffering from 9 brutal ills: The Bro Culture, Lack of Coaching Too Product-Centric Not enough sales people understand the game/rules of sales Too much reliance on selling tools. Not enough training in the industry/space Too much activity management Little respect for prospects and buyers time Not enough humility. Sales is the greatest profession in the world in my opinion.

Sports 150
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Over hiring is the startup kiss of death. Here’s how to avoid it.

Openview

Growing a business can often create a complicated conundrum for entrepreneurs: How do we get the people who have what it takes to help us believe in our mission enough to take a risk and join the cause? This situation can often lead us to do some questionable stuff – like biting off more than we can chew to get them on board: Bigger titles than they’re ready for or we can support.

Finance 131
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18 Best Sales Blogs to Follow in 2019 (As Voted-for by 50+ Sales Leaders)

Gong.io

Looking for a list of the BEST sales blogs to read in 2019? Then look no further. If you want to level up your sales game, your best bet is to read the best sales blogs the pros are learning from. BUT, instead of making a list of my own favorite sales blogs, I did something different: I asked over 50 sales leaders and professionals which sales blogs THEY rave about.

Sales 133
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Email Copywriting 101: Five Steps to Better Converting Emails

ConversionXL

“Email marketing is dead.” That’s what a digital marketer told me while trying to sell me his messenger bot software. But email isn’t going anywhere. Customers who buy through email spend 138% more than those who don’t sign up for email offers. And email marketing has an ROI of 28.5% compared to 7% for direct mail. If you’re unpersuaded by statistics, also recall that: If you own your email list, you pay nothing to reach subscribers.

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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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Cold Calling Perfection: A 10-Point Assessment

Women Sales Pros

In email prospecting , one of the first things I recommend is that you send yourself a draft before hitting send. That way, you experience what it’s like for the prospect you’re emailing – from the perceived length to the content and call to action. You can quickly see where you need to make adjustments to grab your prospect’s attention and get a reply.

Cold Call 118
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AI And Sales, What We Misunderstand

Membrain

Based on much of the press, much of it created by vendors of AI solutions, AI is the answer to all the problems we have with sales and marketing. We are presented a brave new world where we can engage the right customers, say exactly the right words at the right time, making sure we ask no more than 4 discovery questions, that our opening pitch (?) is no longer than 9.1 minutes, that….

Pitch 108

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Why You Need to Be a Needs-Based B2B Salesperson

Openview

Being a salesperson isn’t just about knowing the ins and outs of your product. You may have all the answers to commonly asked questions and have no problem pitching your product, but your value proposition only goes so far. In order to be successful, you have to be able to identify the needs of each potential customer. A needs-based salesperson is the gateway between brands and consumers.

B2B 101
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7 Elements of “Insanely” Persuasive Product Demos

Gong.io

If doing a product demo FEELS easy and intuitive, watch out. Even if you have lots of product knowledge, doing a product demo persuasively is hard and counterintuitive. That’s right, COUNTERINTUITIVE. What do I mean? I mean that what feels right during a product demo usually causes failure. For example, it probably feels right and intuitive to do a “ramp up” product demo.

Product 132
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How to Use Social Media for Market Research

ConversionXL

Social media isn’t a perfect source of market research: It’s not a representative sample and, for small businesses, it’s simply too small of a sample. But for large organizations, it’s still a critical one. Why? Because it includes your most passionate fans. It’s also a rare source of candid consumer opinion: 80% of social media posts are about ourselves, and those opinions and beliefs—expressed individually and within a community—are not interrupted or biased by participation in a formal

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Sell #LikeAGirl

Women Sales Pros

There is an infamous Superbowl commercial for some of us that played in 2015 called #LikeAGirl and in honor of Superbowl weekend I’d like to share a great blog post sales strategist and best-selling sales author Jill Konrath wrote about that commercial. With no further ado, please enjoy, I Sell #LikeAGirl. Lori Richardson is President of Women Sales Pros and is working to see more women in sales and sales leadership in companies where there are male-majority sales teams.

Sell 117
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Prepare Now: 2025s Must-Know Trends For Product And Data Leaders

Speaker: Jay Allardyce, Deepak Vittal, and Terrence Sheflin

As we look ahead to 2025, business intelligence and data analytics are set to play pivotal roles in shaping success. Organizations are already starting to face a host of transformative trends as the year comes to a close, including the integration of AI in data analytics, an increased emphasis on real-time data insights, and the growing importance of user experience in BI solutions.

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How to improve sales education with technology

Membrain

According to the Sales Education Foundation, on average, graduates of academic sales programs ramp up 50% faster than their peers without a sales-specific educational background, and experience 30% less turnover. Yet colleges and universities have been slow to meet the need, with only a few leading universities offering dedicated sales majors.

Education 106
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Hiring Salespeople Should Not be Like a Coin Flip

Understanding the Sales Force

Hiring the right salespeople has always been problematic for most companies but with the shortage of quality sales candidates, it's more difficult than ever. The pressure to fill a role often causes sales management to hire the best of the pool of candidates instead of the right candidate. What's the difference you ask? The difference is huge, especially if you have a complex sale, a long sales cycle, or a lot of competition.

Territory 105
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The Sales Motivation Myth You Need to Stop Believing

RAIN Group

This RAIN Group article was originally published on the LinkedIn Sales Blog. Some sales leaders believe that a quota and an attractive compensation plan are enough to ignite the hustle, passion, and intensity in a seller. It makes sense they think this way given recent Harvard Business Review articles with titles like "Motivating Sales People: What Really Works" that focus 100% on compensation.

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Stop Chasing Customers You Can’t Help!

Partners in Excellence

I’m often asked the fastest way to improve sales productivity. The answer is simple and should be obvious, “Stop Chasing Customers/Prospects You Can’t Help!” That statement is likely to elicit a resounding “Dugghhhh!” The reality, however, is that sales people waste too much time chasing customers they can’t help or worst, customers that don’t want/need their help.

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Don't Let AI Pass You By: The New Era of Personalized Sales Coaching & Development

Speaker: Brendan Sweeney, VP of Sales & Devyn Blume, Sr. Account Executive

Are you curious about how artificial intelligence is reshaping sales coaching, learning, and development? Join Brendan Sweeney and Devyn Blume of Allego for an engaging new webinar exploring AI's transformative role in sales coaching and performance improvement! Brendan and Devyn will share actionable insights and strategies for integrating AI into coaching and development - ensuring personalized, effective, and scalable training!

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The State of Marketing Training in 2019 [Original Research]

ConversionXL

U.S. companies spend billions on training each year. What about marketing departments? How much do they spend? What are they getting out of it? And what are they struggling to solve? We surveyed 462 marketing leaders—CMOs, VPs of Marketing, Marketing Directors—to find out. Respondents completed a 10-question survey that covered: The perceived skill level of marketing teams.

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We Rise by Lifting Others

Women Sales Pros

I never aspired to enter a career in sales, but I had a natural gift for connecting with people, which made sales a natural fit. My non-traditional path to sales started early in my professional career when I lost my first marketing job in NYC. It was during this challenging time that I became fascinated with what motivates people, what keeps some moving forward in times of great stress and what makes others fold under pressure.

Education 110
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The sales methodology that outperforms all others

Membrain

Every established sales methodology attracts its own fan base. Some are fans of SPIN®, others Challenger®, Miller-Heiman, Sandler, Solution Selling® and so on – the list goes on for ages. I’m particularly but not exclusively attracted to "value selling" myself.

Sales 105
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How to Use the Your Experience with Turbulence to Overcome Resistance

Understanding the Sales Force

We were on a JetBlue flight from Florida to Boston and the turbulence was much worse than usual. More dramatic, longer lasting, and bad enough for the flight attendants to remain seated for the entire flight. You've probably experienced a flight like that too. Fun! The jet was probably traveling 500 MPH but it's funny how when the air is smooth, it doesn't even seem like you're moving, but when you add some serious bumps, you can feel every single one of those 500 MPH.

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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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What Makes for Successful Sales Coaching

RAIN Group

"Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach him to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime.". This is a popular axiom in the coaching world. You'll find it everywhere. Here it is in a CBS News story : " Myth 8: Professional coaches tell their clients what to do and give them advice. Fact: Bad or inexperienced coaches tell their clients what to do and are constantly giving advice.

Clients 105
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A Data and Analytics Leader’s Guide to Data Literacy

Smarter With Gartner

Imagine an organization where the marketing department speaks French, the product designers speak German, the analytics team speaks Spanish and no one speaks a second language. Even if the organization was designed with digital in mind, communicating business value and why specific technologies matter would be impossible. That’s essentially how a data-driven business functions when there is no data literacy.

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Knowledge Retention: How to Protect Your Competitive Advantage

ConversionXL

You invest in your employees—mentoring, conferences, training. Yet over time, unused knowledge fades. Employees take other jobs. How do you protect your investment? Marketing had the highest turnover rate (17%) of any profession in 2018. It isn’t the only cause of knowledge loss. Retirements, promotions, intracompany transfers, and “the forgetting curve” all play a role, too.

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Why Your Losing Customers

Women Sales Pros

Strategies to Increase Retention, Expand Relationships and Drive Referrals This week I moved my business from one of my long-time vendors – hired someone new. The new vendor is not any less expensive, does not have a better product and is actually slightly less convenient to work with in terms of availability and response time. So why did a move? Good question and an important one to know the answer to if you want to know how to succeed in today’s marketplace.

Customers 107
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How to Improve Email Deliverability and Optimize Each Send

Learn how to optimize email deliverability and drive greater email ROI. What lands your email in the customer’s inbox? Understanding those factors, otherwise known as email deliverability, is critical to getting the most return on your campaign investments. But the “rules” around which factors land you in the spam folder aren’t always easy to keep up with.

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Become a Top Sales Manager with These 6 Essential Tips

Membrain

The first-line sales manager is one of the most rewarding, yet overworked positions in the sales chain. Client and team meetings, account and territory planning, financial and administrative work, management requests, and sales rep coaching are just a few of the sales manager’s responsibilities.

Territory 104
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To Get Off the SaaS Growth Treadmill: Avoid Revenue Churn and Burn

Openview

A recent study by Invesp found that 44% of SaaS companies are focused on customer acquisition, as opposed to just 18% that are focused on customer retention. The focus on landing new customers makes sense to some degree. At launch, we are so focused on getting product-market fit, then gaining traction in the market and putting up good growth numbers.

Growth 94
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ROI Calculators Are Dead. Great Salespeople Are Doing This Instead

Gong.io

My hands were sweating again. Of all the things I expected from this sales meeting, an “easy win” was not one of them. I spent six months working on a deal with four tough senior managers. Each of them voiced a flurry of objections at every turn. And now I had my shot with the decision maker — an executive in her early 50’s with a reputation for relentless questions.

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7 Actionable Tips to Re-Engage Old Sales Leads

Sales Hacker

Have you considered reconnecting with your old sales leads? You’re not alone. Getting traffic and leads is the biggest pain of 63 percent of all businesses. Source: HubSpot. But MarketingDonut says 44 percent of salespersons give up after one rejection. Albeit, 80 percent of the time, business leads need about five follow-ups to convert to paying customers.

Technique 101
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Brick & Mortar Retail Relevance: How to Stay Ahead of the Curve

Speaker: Jay Black, Senior Account Executive

Let's set the record straight: in-store retail isn't dead - it's evolving! Faced with the digital age and the demands of omnichannel shopping, some retailers are thriving while others are struggling to adapt. Join Jay Black in this exclusive session as he explores the strategies that set successful stores apart, including: Crafting unique and unforgettable in-store experiences 🛍️ Mastering the art of retail demands 🛒 Navigating inventory challenges in today's climate 📦 an

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Increase Repeat Purchases with Cohort Analysis

ConversionXL

In my daily work with ecommerce brands, I see two types of companies: The first type focuses on acquisition and conversion. The second relies on retention. The second type is winning. Why? Overall acquisition costs for both B2C and B2B have gone up by 50% in the past five years. Sooner or later, relying on new customers will break you. To offset these costs, you need to earn more repeat purchases from existing customers.

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What Inclusivity on a Sales Team Feels Like

Women Sales Pros

Here is a great video made by Boston technology company, Hubspot on sales culture (and company culture) If your company has a great sales culture, and you are hiring for diversity and inclusion, why not talk about it on your website? It could make the difference between someone applying and not. Share your company values, in your employees and leaders’ own words.

Sales 100
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An Easier Way to Coach Salespeople - For a While

Membrain

One of the challenges that sales managers have is their trepidation around transitioning from very little coaching to daily coaching; and at the same time, moving from coaching light (ineffective coaching) to coaching pro (effective coaching). Why? They aren't masters of role-playing and role-playing is one of the primary tools to demonstrate best practices and how effective sales conversations should sound.

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Sales Email Best Practices: What's Working Right Now

SalesLoft

Conventional wisdom for crafting sales prospecting emails is based almost purely on gut instinct. That isn’t a terrible start. Writing is an art, after all. However, adding a little structure in the form of sales email best practices will have a significant impact on email performance. To add some science to the art, SalesLoft deconstructed millions of emails to find out which best practices indeed lead to higher reply rates.

Legal 101
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How to Prove Marketing Value: Demonstrate Content ROI and Contribution to Sales

Every marketer knows how important it is to prove their efforts drive sales opportunities, but that’s easier said than done. When problems like sales and marketing misalignment, lack of data, and wasted efforts persist, marketers can’t measure, prove, or increase their impact on revenue at a time when demonstrating marketing value is critical. Using analyst and expert data, this guide to marketing impact and content attribution explains: How B2B buyers use content The most common types of conten