Anthony Cole Training

JANUARY 30, 2019

Facing stalls and objections throughout the sales process is a common occurrence for many salespeople. What we find is that, often, it is due to ineffective qualifying and not asking for the prospects commitment to take action prior to presenting a solution. In this blog, we will cover the 10 common symptoms that suggest you may accept put-offs from prospects and how that is affecting the strength and quality of your sales pipeline.

Pipeline 134

Pipeline Prospecting Presentation Process 134

Gong.io

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

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

Product Objectives and Key Results Objection handling Pitch 132

ConversionXL

JANUARY 31, 2019

Good user research asks the right questions to the right people. If you fail on either account, you may make million-dollar decisions on bad data. Leading questions are an easy way to poison your data. A leading question is “a question asked in a way that is intended to produce a desired answer.”. If you’ve worked in marketing or sales, you know leading questions well: They’re wonderfully effective at guiding consumers toward a “yes” for a product or service.

Technique 121

Technique Closing UX Represent 121

Partners in Excellence

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

This post is another of my learnings on my personal learning journey on micro improvements. There are two habits I’ve realized are critical to my productivity that are enormously simple, but it’s taken a long time to recognize them. One is hugely simple to implement–it really focuses on my mindset. The other is theoretically easy, but takes a lot of practice to make it real.

Start-ups 118

Start-ups Meeting Closing Product 118

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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.

Sales

Hubspot

JANUARY 31, 2019

If digital and traditional marketers faced off in a debate about whose promotional philosophy is superior (which would probably get more heated than an NSYNC versus Backstreet Boys dispute), one of the points digital marketers could hang over traditional marketers’ heads is their ability to measure a campaign’s performance -- and their opponent’s inability to do the same.

Presentation 101

Presentation Technology Technology Campaign 101

Membrain

JANUARY 27, 2019

My friend, Tim Ohai, made an interesting statement, “Sadly many sales people have no idea how to identify when no customer problem exists.”.

Customers 98

Customers Sales 98

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 29, 2019

Most sales people focus on the outcome of the deal. They want to get to the close and an order as fast as possible. Managers constantly reinforce this rush to completion in their “coaching conversations,” by asking, “When are we going to get this deal?” or “We need this to close this quarter!” Everything we do is focused on jumping to the end of the buying process.

Pitch 117

Pitch Presentation Closing Customers 117

Hubspot

JANUARY 31, 2019

When I initially applied for my role at HubSpot, I was immediately blown away by the hiring manager I was working with. She was professional, incredibly informative, and experienced. She had the answer to every question I had about the company, the role I was being interviewed for, and HubSpot’s culture. From the first point of contact with this HubSpot employee and throughout my onboarding process, she was the prime example of what I believed a person in human resources should be.

Education 101

Education Consult Promote Start-ups 101

Openview

JANUARY 30, 2019

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared on Highspot’s blog here. . Prospecting, pitching, tracking engagement — there’s no question that modern technology solutions have made it easier for sellers to complete these essential tasks. But even as the tools have improved, selling has become more complicated as buyers’ expectations have risen.

Product 97

Product Sales Up-sell Customer Relationship Management 97

Understanding the Sales Force

JANUARY 30, 2019

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.

Consult 96

Consult Conversion Sell Sales 96

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.

Product

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 28, 2019

I’m constantly amazed conversations I have with otherwise smart people. Usually, they start with some sort of challenge they are having: We aren’t growing at the rate we need to grow. We aren’t hitting out numbers. The markets have changed dramatically. Our competition has changed. Our customers are changing. Our budgets are smaller, we don’t have the resources we used to.

Technology 97

Technology Technology Conversion Start-ups 97

Hubspot

JANUARY 29, 2019

Last year, a buzzword ripped through the content marketing space that most marketers were surprisingly thrilled about and eager to implement. Shockingly, it didn’t start with “virtual” or end with “intelligence”. Instead, it was what attracted most marketers to the industry in the first place -- "storytelling". Content marketing’s steady adoption of storytelling is an exciting new opportunity for content creators.

Entertainment 101

Entertainment Cold Call Lead generation Education 101

Women Sales Pros

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

It’s a sad fact that most sales presentations and pitches are instantly forgettable. And forgettable presentations are unsuccessful presentations. One of the biggest reasons presentations are unsuccessful is because they follow a structure that has been around since the seventies. And how many of your prospects were even around in the seventies?! Does this mean you need to overhaul your entire presentation?

Pitch 95

Pitch Presentation Launch Closing 95

CloserIQ

JANUARY 28, 2019

As a manager, it’s your job to help sales representatives learn the ropes and achieve their full potential. One way to do that? Introduce them to the right sales tools. One LinkedIn study suggests that the performance of top sales representatives is correlated to the set of tools they use. 82% of top-performing sales reps say that tools are “critical” to their ability to close deals.

Contract 94

Contract Represent Presentation Sales 94

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!

Sales

InsightSquared

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

Over the last twenty-five years, I have worked in a variety of environments and roles that, in one way or another, focused on the pursuit of sales. During those years, there were many times when I was frustrated by the lack of reporting capabilities necessary to drive continuous improvement. Through it all, it was clear that having the right metrics presented with actionable insights was the key to getting better.

Sales 92

Sales Meeting Pipeline Drivers/motivators 92

Hubspot

JANUARY 28, 2019

We can all agree there's more than one way of doing something. For example, some people default to the "loop, swoop, and pull" method when they tie their shoes, while others swear by the "bunny ears" technique. Either way you swing it, your shoes get tied, right? The trouble is, in some areas of life, different approaches don't always return the same results.

Presentation 101

Presentation Healthcare Follow-up Start-ups 101

Membrain

JANUARY 30, 2019

For the Inuit people of North America, hunting whales is serious business. They plan for whale hunting season all winter long and when spring comes, they station scouts to watch for signs that the ice is breaking up and the hunt can begin.

Sales 89

Sales 89

Engage Selling

JANUARY 31, 2019

Why are you good? Seriously. Have you asked yourself this question before? Let’s face it. Salespeople often come with healthy egos, to put it lightly. The good ones know that they’re good, but it’s vital to go beyond that.

Clients 87

Clients Closing Service Pipeline 87

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!

Customers

SaaStr

JANUARY 30, 2019

One thing almost every founder I meet with these days has figured out is that outbound email campaigns work. But not always at first, not always the same wa y. It took me a while to figure it out, too. In my first start-up, I cold emailed the VP Engineering of a Fortune 100 company. He called me back the next day. I thought I was a genius! My second cold email, I got a Top 3 prospect to call me back in 24 hours!

Price 86

Price B2B Prospecting Start-ups 86

Hubspot

JANUARY 28, 2019

We all know about the infamous rivalry between Dunkin' Donuts and Starbucks. At the end of the day, they both sell coffee -- but they've each cultivated strong, unique brands, and have attracted very different audiences as a result. You can often overhear heated arguments regarding the topic, with people vehemently claiming one coffee chain to be better than the other.

Sports 101

Sports Contact Service Up-sell 101

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 30, 2019

Authenticity has become a buzzword tossed around social media too casually. We aspire to be authentic, we claim we are authentic. Or, at least, I’ve never met someone who claims to be inauthentic–though I suspect many of those who claim authenticity but are actually inauthentic. What is authenticity? To paraphrase Justice Potter Stewart, I know it when I experience it.

Drivers/motivators 85

Drivers/motivators Presentation Trust Networking 85

Understanding the Sales Force

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

Perhaps you saw this too. Yesterday, a post appeared in my LinkedIn feed that talked about the power of sales process. The article was clearly written to support the author's technology application, which helps track sales KPI's; so they should know a little about the topic of sales process. Towards the end of the article, they provided a sample of what an effective sales process should look like.

Process 84

Process Sales Technology Technology 84

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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

Sales

Miller Heiman Group

JANUARY 31, 2019

Salespeople are highly motivated to sell as many solutions as possible to their existing accounts. Yet most accounts end up getting smaller over time, not larger. This is directly related to how the seller fits into the buyer’s process. 70 percent of buyers start interacting with sellers after the buyer has fully defined their needs, according to CSO Insights, the research division of Miller Heiman Group.

Consult 83

Consult Account management Up-sell Drivers/motivators 83

Hubspot

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

What's your company worth? It's an important question for any entrepreneur, business owner , employee, or potential investor -- for any size company. And like most complex mathematical problems, it depends on a variety of factors. If you're an entrepreneur , understanding the value of your company becomes increasingly important as the business grows, especially if you want to raise capital, sell a portion of the business, or borrow money.

Profit margin 98

Profit margin Growth Price Negotiate 98

SaaStr

JANUARY 31, 2019

There are a few magical moments as you go upmarket in SaaS: The first time you close a $1m TCV (total contract value) deal. E.g., $250k a year for 4 years. The first time you close a $1m ACV deal. A $1,000,000 a year deal. The first time you close a $1m ACV deal — every month. 12 a year. This one takes a while to get to ??. But once you can close one $1m deal, you can close another, and eventually 10, and then, like ServiceNow, a stunning 600+ per quarter.

Closing 83

Closing Contract CRM Contact 83

SalesforLife

JANUARY 29, 2019

When sales and marketing work well together, social media marketing and social selling are powerful strategies for driving revenue. In fact, as recent social media statistics state, 64% of Twitter users and 51% of Facebook users are more likely to buy the products of brands they follow online.

Sell 82

Sell Product Sales 82

Speaker: Evelyn Chou

Choosing the right business intelligence (BI) platform can feel like navigating a maze of features, promises, and technical jargon. With so many options available, how can you ensure you’re making the right decision for your organization’s unique needs? 🤔 This webinar brings together expert insights to break down the complexities of BI solution vetting.

User Experience

Sales Hacker

JANUARY 31, 2019

If you’re getting all the responses you’ll ever need on the 1st email you send to prospects, let me know. You’re a walking, talking miracle worker! If you’re like the rest of the sales world, and need to send several follow-up emails to get a response, this one’s for you. Here’s what we’re covering: Balance Scale with Personalization and Relevance. Have a clear purpose.

Follow-up 81

Follow-up A/B testing Prospecting Campaign 81

RAIN Group

JANUARY 30, 2019

One of the biggest mistakes sellers make in a sales negotiation is letting buyers take control of the negotiation, leaving you to play defense. If you want to come to a great agreement (and you do), you need to lead the process. In our white paper, 6 Essential Rules of Sales Negotiation , Rule #3 is: Lead the Negotiation. A key part in leading a sales negotiation is teeing up the meeting properly with an agreed to agenda ahead of time.

Negotiate 81

Negotiate Sales Price Meeting 81

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 30, 2019

Recently, I was having a conversation with a good friend and colleague. He asked me the question, “Dave, what to you think is the biggest problem area for B2B sales people in generating business today?” I’m a little slow, I asked, “George, what do you mean?” He responded, “Well if you look at much of the press and social media, it’s prospecting or top of the pipeline, lead to opportunity conversion… ” “But,” he went on, “som

Process 81

Process Pipeline Prospecting Sales 81

Hubspot

FEBRUARY 1, 2019

Trying to convince people to click on a long, jumbled link is almost as bad as a door-to-door salesman trying to sell people financial services. Needless to say, if your audience sees a link they perceive to be spammy in one of your social media posts, they’ll do the digital equivalent of slamming the door in your face -- scroll past it. To avoid being perceived as spammy or sloppy when you have a legitimate link to share, check out our list of the five best link shorteners that’ll clip your lin

Referrals 78

Referrals Click Through Rate Up-sell Networking 78

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.

Sales