February, 2023

article thumbnail

How to Organize a Prospect List for Booking First Meetings

Iannarino

It's important to be organized in sales. You always have open loops you need to close, like sending a new contact the case study they requested. Or perhaps you owe another client an edited contract for a new offering they are interested in buying. Being organized improves your efficiency , allowing you to do more work in less time and with less effort.

Meeting 281
article thumbnail

4 Types of Sales Positions That Can Never Be Replaced by AI

Understanding the Sales Force

I began debunking sales articles when the first ones predicting the death of selling appeared circa 2008. Back then, new digital marketing companies were telling everyone that salespeople would be replaced by inbound marketing. "Inbound is King," they said. Later, articles predicting the end of selling became both more prolific and more specific including the certain death of: Solution Selling Cold Calling Consultative Selling Sales Process SPIN Selling and more.

Cold Call 163
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Trending Sources

article thumbnail

Buy Out Contracts: At Least Think About Making Them Part of Your Sales Toolkit

SaaStr

So we’ve done a few good posts on SaaStr about how to steal a customer / prospect from a competitor on SaaStr here: How to Steal a Customer From the Competition (a good one) Want to Steal a Customer From the Competition? You Gotta Do the Work (Of Course) Your Competition is Trying to Sell To, And Steal, Your Customers And yet, I still see so few SaaS companies doing even the most basic steps here.

Contract 108
article thumbnail

82 Open Ended Sales Questions (Ultimate Guide Included)

Veloxy

Did you know that asking questions makes it more likely for customers to approve of you? It’s true. Research conducted at Harvard University suggests asking questions improves liking and learning. Open ended sales questions are a crucial aspect of the sales process. They allow salespeople such as yourself to better understand the customer’s needs, goals, and challenges.

article thumbnail

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.

article thumbnail

The Tech You Need to Deliver Killer Virtual Presentations

Cerebral Selling

When the pandemic hit, my entire sales training and coaching practice went virtual. While I’m grateful that my clients feel my presentation style is fun and engaging, to create the live experience I was after (not to mention creating my entire online Sales Academy program), flipping on my webcam, popping in those ubiquitous Apple headphones, and looking down at my laptop wasn’t going to cut it.

article thumbnail

The Team, The Team, The Team

Force Management

I have been very fortunate to be a part of some great teams in my life. My freshman year in college I played football for the Defending National Champions of I-AA (now D-I), Boise State University. I transferred my sophomore year to Bowling Green State University in Ohio and played for one of the greatest teams in BGSU history. During the 1985 season we were ranked 20th in the nation ahead of some of the powerhouse schools like Texas and Georgia!

135
135

More Trending

article thumbnail

Is Outbound Dying?

Partners in Excellence

I’m breaking into a nervous sweat just writing the title to this post. As a person who thinks prospecting is so vital, and properly done, so powerful, I am in a quandary writing this post. How do we incite customers to change when they don’t recognize they may need to change? How do we drive sufficient levels of demand to achieve our goals?

article thumbnail

How to Feel Better about Prospect Follow-Up

SalesProInsider

What’s your mindset around follow-up efforts for reconnecting with prospects who have stopped responding? What about those who haven’t followed through on the actions that they said they would? Do you get into a mindset of negativity? Do you feel frustrated that you must keep chasing them? Annoyed that you’re the one who’s constantly following up and checking in with them when they’re not doing what they said they would?

Follow-up 133
article thumbnail

The Art and Science of Complex Sales Podcast

Membrain

In this latest episode of the Art and Science of Complex Sales podcast, Paul Fuller sits down with Peter Strohkorb to discuss how automated outreach and spam is ineffective and ruining the sales game for everyone.

Gaming 132
article thumbnail

What If Pay Equity Comes to Sales Teams?

Understanding the Sales Force

Today's article is different from most of my other articles because there is no opening analogy, very little data, and a complete lack of humor. It's such a serious article I was ready to delete it before I clicked the publish button. If you don't like the subject, the content or the writing, it's OK. This needed to be written.

Sales 126
article thumbnail

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.

article thumbnail

North Star goals for category leaders: Customer lifetime value model

Martech

This is the third of a four-part series on the North Star goals that set category leaders apart from their peers. You can find Part 1 (one-to-one, omnichannel personalization) here and Part 2 (first-party customer view) here. Sales and marketing professionals understand the continual pressure to reach and convert new customers to a product or service and how easier it is to keep a happy customer than win new ones.

article thumbnail

Why Proactively Prospecting Is Key to Success in B2B Sales

Iannarino

There is an old fable by Aesop about the ant and the grasshopper. The ant is industrious, diligently working through the summer and preparing for winter. The grasshopper is playing, avoiding work. Aesop's lesson is that those who don't do the right thing, in the right way, at the right time, will suffer later.

article thumbnail

What About The “Human” Element In Selling?

Partners in Excellence

As my social feeds get filled with “gurus” talking about how AI can be deployed to do virtually everything critical to sellers, I started wondering about the “Human” element of engaging our customers and people in our own organizations. It seems AI and tools like ChatGPT are the answer for virtually every sales activity. It can generate endless amounts of well written content for email campaigns, blogs, and so forth.

Sell 123
article thumbnail

4 ways to close more deals in 2023 (according to new buying data)

Gong.io

This article is part of the Gong Labs series, where we publish findings from our data research team. We analyze sales conversations and deals using the Gong Reality Platform’s proprietary AI, then share the results to help you win more deals. Subscribe here to read upcoming research. A global pandemic. A new generation of decision makers. An economic downturn.

Closing 121
article thumbnail

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!

article thumbnail

Can Customers Be JOLTed Past Their Fear of Making a Mistake?

Membrain

I recently finished reading the latest book out of Ted McKenna and Matthew Dixon (one of the authors of The Challenger Sale and The Challenger Customer ), The JOLT Effect. It provides a useful lens through which to think about, and overcome, buyer resistance to making a decision.

Customers 132
article thumbnail

Made Up Sales Statistics and Their Contrast to Real Data

Understanding the Sales Force

A sales consultant who knows that I geek out on sales data read that 84% of salespeople suck because they don't enjoy what they do. A huge percentage of salespeople do actually suck but the actual number is closer to 75%. Is it really because they don't enjoy selling? Most of the data I write about comes from Objective Management Group which has assessed more than 2.3 million salespeople.

Consult 125
article thumbnail

How to use AI and machine learning to personalize and optimize campaigns

Martech

AI is revolutionizing how marketers engage customers. Beyond how a chatbot like ChatGPT might change the way customers search, AI and machine learning models can also equip marketers with the power to personalize and optimize their messages to customers. Automation and optimization for personalized messages “[Automation and optimization] are two broad areas that marketers leverage machine learning for,” said Alex Holub, head of machine learning at customer data platform (CDP) company mParticle,

Campaign 130
article thumbnail

Improve First Meetings by Abandoning Your Spiel for Sales

Iannarino

Sales reps normally start their sales discovery process by building rapport , working to make some connection with a decision maker. When the time is right, the salesperson talks about their company in detail. Salespeople are taught to do this to prove they are a safe and trustworthy choice. What follows is a slide with the sales organization’s largest clients, showing that some of the largest companies in the world buy from them.

Meeting 284
article thumbnail

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!

article thumbnail

The GA4 migration deadline is right around the corner

Search Engine Land

Google is sunsetting Universal Analytics (UA) on July 1st. Starting in March, Google will automatically create Google Analytics 4 (GA4) properties for any customer who does not set up a GA4 property with basic settings. If you do not opt-out of auto migration by February 28, 2023, Google will transition your UA account to GA4 without any custom strategy.

article thumbnail

Does Anyone Want To Be a Unicorn Anymore?

SaaStr

So few things were more coveted than unicorn status from about ‘16-‘19. It was a sign you were one of the elite, and it made recruiting and so much more easier. Stewart Butterfield noted that how important it was for Slack at the time to become a unicorn — period. Then things changed from mid-2020 to early 2022. It seemed like everyone become a unicorns.

Sell 118
article thumbnail

The Art and Science of Complex Sales Podcast

Membrain

In this latest episode of the Art and Science of Complex Sales podcast, Paul Fuller sits down with Matt Dixon , co-author of the JOLT Effect , to discuss why buyers stall out and end in no-decision, as well as what salespeople can do about it.

Sales 132
article thumbnail

The Difference Between Sales Competencies, Sales Capabilities and Sales Outcomes

Understanding the Sales Force

If you watched Super Bowl 57, you observed two teams that simply refused to give up or give in. Sometimes, that's the feeling I get when I'm writing articles and I have solid data on my side, while dozens of competing authors just won't stop their constant borage of articles using junk science, anecdotal evidence, and alternate facts.

Sales 124
article thumbnail

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.

article thumbnail

4 emails that customers will love — and help them love you

Martech

Is your brand easy to love? It is if your products and services are better than anyone else’s for the price. But that’s not the only way to create a lovable brand. Lovable brands embrace customers even when they aren’t in the mood or the market to buy. In dozens of ways, these brands show they appreciate shoppers for more than their lifetime customer value.

Customers 125
article thumbnail

Stop Overcoming Objections, Start Resolving Concerns in B2B Sales

Iannarino

Over time, B2B selling has changed and become increasingly more complex. A large part of the changes in how we sell in the 21st-century result from the difficulty companies have making decisions around the things they buy.

B2B 281
article thumbnail

This day in search marketing history: February 25

Search Engine Land

SEOs upset over Google dropping attribution in featured snippets In 2019, SEOs were not happy about a Google featured snippet format that didn’t immediately show the source of the content. For the Found on the web card, searchers had to click to expand the featured snippet and then scroll through various sources to see the publisher. Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison said Google’s support of the overall ecosystem (searchers, advertisers and publishers) is important. “We d

Negotiate 119
article thumbnail

“Vendor Viability”: It’s a Risk Big Customers Know How to Take.

SaaStr

Vendor Viability. The question for bigger customers especially on if a vendor will actually stay around if they you buy. This remains a large risk with start-ups. But it’s been mitigated to some extent in the minds of customers. With 100+ public Cloud companies, it’s now a bit clearer that at least after a certain point in time, SaaS vendors have a lot of stability.

Customers 116
article thumbnail

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

article thumbnail

What Is “Salesmanship?”

Membrain

I read a fascinating article by Kelly Fairchild. She talked about “salesmanship.” It got me to thinking about, “What is salesmanship?” Based on the conversations I have with sellers and my social feeds, people seem to think salesmanship has to do with the following: Hitting quota, making commission Beating the competition Pitching products/solutions Prospecting, getting meetings Executing messaging sequences and outreaches across all channels to get meetings Persuading people to buy our products

article thumbnail

This is What Would Happen if Bob Got Promoted to Sales Manager

Understanding the Sales Force

For those of you who are familiar with my series of articles about Bob - the worst salesperson ever - you can catch up by enjoying, laughing, and making fun of him here. 12 of the articles that show up on that page are about Bob! Today, I reviewed the worst OMG evaluation of a sales manager that I have ever seen. It was literally the worst because he was in the 1 percentile, meaning that 99% of all sales managers are stronger than he is.

Promote 118
article thumbnail

Campaign tracking in GA4: How to ensure your links are properly tagged

Martech

By July 1, 2023, Universal Analytics, the older version of Google Analytics, will cease to collect data. To get ahead, marketers should be well on the way to migrating to the preferred version, Google Analytics 4. After completing numerous UA to GA4 migrations, one issue that appears in almost all instances relates to categorizing existing marketing links into Google’s newly defined channels.

Campaign 115
article thumbnail

The Five Must-Have Attributes to Win B2B C-Suite Level Sales

Iannarino

To win C-suite–level sales, you need a set of attributes most salespeople lack. Without them, your chances of winning over C-level executives is a little less than winning the lottery. By working on five key attributes, you improve your ability to sit across the giant desk and learn to create the level of value necessary to capture top executives’ attention and interest, eventually winning their business.

B2B 281
article thumbnail

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