February, 2016

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Sales Management Strategies #1 - Start with the End in Mind

Anthony Cole Training

It’s an oldie, but a goodie from the late Steven Covey. In his ground breaking book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, he states that highly successful people start with where they want to be – “the end” - and then work to get there. That’s great advice for managers attempting to lead for results, manage activity and coach behaviors.

Sales 121
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Enough! You’re Not A F **g Entrepreneur

A Sales Guy

I’ve gotta get this s**t of my chest. I fuckin’ love all the opportunity that is out there today. It has NEVER been a better time to start a business, to go out on your own, to pave your own path. Never! But to the majority of you running around calling yourself an entrepreneur, while you have a full-time job, collecting a paycheck from someone else, stop!

Up-sell 113
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The Intersection of SEO and CRO (and How to Maximize Long Term Growth)

ConversionXL

You’d think conversion optimization and SEO should play together nicely, right? In theory, conversion optimization aims to improve the user experience, which, conveniently, is what Google wants to do as well with their top search results. Therefore, the more you test and improve your site, the higher it should appear in the rankings. You get more traffic, more conversions, more money – in an endless hockey stick shaped cycle.

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Learn How We Discovered They Had the Wrong Salespeople

Understanding the Sales Force

Would you believe me if I told you that in a recent sales force evaluation, nearly 50% of the 300 inside salespeople were not in the right role? Recently, we evaluated a large inside sales force and I thought it might be interesting to share some of the more unusual findings that were responsible for this sales team's inability to achieve the revenue goals that the company expected from them.

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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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You Can’t Go It Alone On Complex Deals!

Partners in Excellence

You have a huge deal, it’s the biggest one you’ve ever had, it’s huge for your company. You and your company may not have done many of these types of deals before. Or the complexity of the deal will require you to do some special things (no I’m not talking about pricing). Inevitably, it’s complex, there are lots of twist and turns about the deal.

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10 Daily Habits of Sales Leaders

The Sales Hunter

A sales leader is one who helps others see and achieve outcomes they didn’t think were possible. In order for a sales leader to do that, they have to be at the top of their game each day. Below are 10 daily habits sales leaders must have to be successful: 1. Learn something new […].

Sales 78

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The Difference Between a Selling Product or Selling a Service

A Sales Guy

What’s the difference between selling a product and selling a service? I get this question a lot. Here’s the answer and I’ll make it as simple and as clear as possible. I think it’s important, very important, people understand the difference between selling a product and selling a service. Knowing the difference can affect how you sell AND how one hires, evaluates and assess salespeople.

Service 82
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Why Responsive Design Is Not Mobile Optimization (and What to Do About It)

ConversionXL

Back in 2014, Jeremy Smith wrote , “Traditional optimization is dead, and in its place is arising a brave new world of mobile conversion optimization.” I have to disagree. Is mobile conversion optimization a “brave new world”? Yes. Is traditional optimization “dead”? Not by a long shot. Traditional (i.e. web) optimization and mobile optimization are two separate practices, requiring two separate strategies.

UX 91
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Breaking News - More Salespeople Suck Than Ever Before (and Why)

Understanding the Sales Force

Saturday evening I was driving my car and listening to the radio when a song played that I hadn't heard since the 70's. It occurred to me that long before the advent of rap music, Charlie Daniels must have been the accidental originator of rap with his song, The Devil Went Down to Georgia. If you are too young to have heard it, don't remember it, or just want to hear this white country boy do his thing, watch this awesome YouTube clip.

Consult 88
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How to Create a Sensible Social Media Strategy for Your Business [INFOGRAPHIC]

Hubspot

Many businesses find social media overwhelming - there are so many networks available, and they’re always adding new features for you to learn and integrate into your plan. If you don’t have a full-time team of social media experts at your disposal, your success depends on creating a simple and sensible strategy that fits your resources and goals. Here are a few steps you can take to focus your energy: 1) Define your target audience.

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

Speaker: Jay Allardyce, Deepak Vittal, Terrence Sheflin, and Mahyar Ghasemali

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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Are They At 57% Yet?

Partners in Excellence

As a kid, I recall many of our family vacations involved long drives to some place or other. Inevitably, after my sisters and I exhausted the car games we played in the back seat, we’d eventually start whining to Dad, “Are we there yet?” Fast forward to today, I get the sense that too many sales and marketing people adopt the same view about customers, “Are they to 57% yet?

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10 Best Sales Motivation Quotes by Mark Hunter

The Sales Hunter

“My goal in sales is to help my customers see and achieve things they didn’t think were possible.” “A sale made without integrity is not a sale.” “My greatest assets are my time, my mind, and my network. My goal is to use each one wisely, each day.” “My goal with each person I […].

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Why You Should Never Ask A Buyer What They Want

A Sales Guy

I’m looking to do the audio version of my new book Not Taught. As I was calling around, the owner of one of the studios began to ask me a lot of questions. She asked, “How many hours do you need?” I said, “I don’t know.” She asked if I wanted to read and record the forward. I said, “I don’t know.” She asked me how fast I read.

Consult 69
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Common Growth Hacking Myths (and How Growth Actually Works)

ConversionXL

You’re familiar with the term “growth hacking”, right? You’ve likely read about how Facebook, Uber, Airbnb, Hotmail, Dropbox, etc. growth hacked their way to mega success. Those case studies resulted in a widespread shift in thinking. Many marketers became more concerned with 10x growth hacks they read about online than strategy and growth process.

Growth 91
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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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How Wrong are Company Methods to Rank and Compensate Salespeople?

Understanding the Sales Force

When report cards and grades are available, measuring the academic success of your child or grandchild is a lot easier than it is to measure sales success. School grades go up and we say, "Great effort!" School grades go down and we say, "Oh-oh, something is seriously wrong here!" Academic grades are a reflection of tests scores, completed homework and class participation.

Sales 83
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How to Get More Followers on Instagram: A Guide to Earning Your First 1,000 Followers

Hubspot

You might already know that Instagram is a growing channel that lets individuals and businesses alike expand their brand. For businesses especially, it's a way to humanize your brand, recruit future employees, showcase your product and company culture, delight customers, and generate new business. But here's the deal: Unless you're famous, it's really hard to amass a huge following on Instagram without some hard work.

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Customers Only See Their Part Of The Problem

Partners in Excellence

In today’s complex B2B world, we know our customers struggle to solve their problems, along the way, perhaps searching for solutions to solve their problem From the Challenger Customer , we know roughly 5.4 people tend to be involved in the process and we know the majority of these initiative end in No Decision Made. As great consultative sales people, we work with each of the 5.4 to identify their needs, priorities, and requirements.

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10 Ways to Close a Sale Faster

The Sales Hunter

The average salesperson has two or three ways with which they feel comfortable to ask for the order. Could you imagine a car mechanic repairing your car with only two or three tools? Years ago, I could fix most anything on my car with just a couple of tools. Today, cars are complicated, and […].

Closing 67
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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 Sell And Win More Million Dollar Deals

A Sales Guy

If you sell enterprise wide, large, million dollar deals, you get how complex and difficult it can be. Even if you’ve been killing it for years, and are highly successful, you know that complex selling has changed considerably. Over the past few years, selling big deals, million dollar deals, has become increasingly harder than it’s ever been.

Sell 64
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Why Content Personalization Is Not Web Personalization (and What to Do About It)

ConversionXL

In 1999, David Weinberger, a technologist and co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto , wrote, “Personalization: the automatic tailoring of sites and messages to the individuals viewing them so that we can feel that somewhere there’s a piece of software that loves us for who we are.” Ironically, nearly 20 years later, personalization is being used by companies attempting to make the online experience more human.

UX 90
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Choose Which of These Two Assessments are More Predictive of Sales Success

Understanding the Sales Force

This week a candidate for a sales position sent along his Predictive Index (PI) assessment so that we could compare it to his sales assessment from Objective Management Group (OMG). Most people have little sense as to how assessments compare to each other - and even more have experience only with personality and behavioral styles assessments. I was able to extract the dashboard from OMG's 21 page sales-specific assessment, and the graphics and selling summary from the 3-page Predictive Index beh

Sales 82
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Lead Generation: A Beginner's Guide to Generating Business Leads the Inbound Way

Hubspot

We've all been through it. You know, the moment you're about to dig into the best darn pile of spaghetti and meatballs you've ever seen. Just as you twist your fork in the pasta, spear a mouth-watering meatball, and go in for the first savory bite. the phone rings. "May I speak to Aaahnooom Hahsahn?" says the telemarketer on the other end. "This is an important message regarding your oven preferences.".

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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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The Brave New World Of Buying Automation

Partners in Excellence

There was a hilarious article in the New York Times, A Robot That Has Fun At Telemarketing’s Expense. It got me to thinking about the future of buying and selling. The sales and marketing automation markets are among the hottest SaaS markets around. Each year, 1000’s of new suppliers of software solutions emerge. Collectively the markets are expected to generate 10’s of billions of revenues.

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Sales Motivation Video: ASK for Referrals to Fill Your Pipeline!

The Sales Hunter

I’m always amazed at the number of salespeople who don’t ask for referrals. You can ask for referrals any time you demonstrate value! Yes, any time! And the more you discipline yourself to do this, the stronger and fuller your pipeline will be. Check out the video to see what I mean: […].

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Build A Brand That Matters With Brand You “Taught Leader” Bryan Kramer

A Sales Guy

What do you think of when you think of Apple? What do you think of when you think of Coke? What do you think of when you think of Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, Google, Yahoo, Vail Ski Resort, St Moritz or Chevrolet and Porsche? Whatever it is you think, that’s their brand. Period! Now flip it. What do people think of when they think of you?

B2C 61
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7 PPC Mistakes You’re Probably Making (and How to Fix Them)

ConversionXL

In Advanced Google AdWords , Brad Geddes wrote, “Wouldn’t you like your ads to be sought after, not ignored?” That’s the ultimate goal, right? To craft a PPC ad that’s so compelling people are happy to click it. It doesn’t happen often. If PPC has been around since 1996 , why doesn’t it happen more often? Why haven’t advertisers perfected the process?

CTR 90
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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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Sure Fire Way to Know Which Sales Opportunities are the Best Sales Opportunities

Understanding the Sales Force

I just love it when cool gets cooler and I'm not talking about the winter weather in New England. About a month ago, I wrote this article on Targeting and shared a generic model for scoring opportunities. George Bronten and Henrik Oquist, CEO and COO of Membrain, took note and already developed the concept as a new feature for their world-class CRM application, Membrain.

CRM 80
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How to Optimize Your Content for Google's Featured Snippet Box

Hubspot

In the past few years Google have been refining the way that it displays results to users. In particular, Google has been increasing the number of Featured Snippets that it displays for queries. What's a Featured Snippet? And more importantly, what do you have to do to appear there? Well, that's what I set out to explore. What is a Featured Snippet?

CTR 78
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Doing More By Doing Less

Partners in Excellence

It’s awfully crowded in the digital marketing/social selling world. Getting “heard” is increasingly difficult. Getting into see/talk to customers is one of the top challenges I hear from executives, marketing and sales people alike. To most, the solutions seem to be, “do more,” “be outrageous.” As a result our emails are filled with “provocative/attention grabbing headlines,” that we just ignore and delete.

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Executive Sales Leader Briefing: Better to Train Your Salespeople or Your Sales Managers?

The Sales Hunter

Why do companies spend money training their salespeople, but fail to give any level of training and development to their sales managers? If I could only invest in one person, I would invest in my sales manager long before I invested in a salesperson. The gap I see is huge, and I don’t care […].

Sales 62
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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