Sat.Nov 10, 2018 - Fri.Nov 16, 2018

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What Makes a Sales 'Hall of Famer'?

Anthony Cole Training

Assuming for a second that when you think about hiring for a position in your organization, you are thinking about hiring the best, especially in the early rounds of looking for talent.

Sales 134
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The Wrong Salespeople are Hired 77% of the Time

Understanding the Sales Force

94% of sales managers are optimistic about their salespeople. That's a very surprising statistic for a couple of reasons: 50% or more of their salespeople won't hit their quotas this year and haven't since at least 2008. Objective Management Group's (OMG's) findings from the evaluations and assessments of 1.8 million salespeople show that 50% of all salespeople are weak.

Quota 122
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Why Sites in High-Growth Industries Have Terrible UX

ConversionXL

If you generate a $200 million quarterly profit with an online product, your website’s user experience must be world class, right? Wrong. Your homepage can still look like the one above, which is from one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world. But terrible UX isn’t a shortcoming of the cryptocurrency industry—it’s common in every high-growth industry, including, perhaps, your own.

UX 116
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How to Write a Follow-Up Email That Actually Works

Sales Hacker

In sales, it’s almost never an immediate “yes.” In fact, “92% of salespeople give up after four ‘no’s’, but 80% of prospects say ‘no’ four times before they say ‘yes’.” That’s why failing to follow up on the sales emails you send can have a disastrous impact on your sales performance. Unfortunately, effective follow-up these days isn’t as simple as shooting off a “Just checking in” message ( although this phrase has been recently proven to be more effective than we originally thought ).

Follow-up 111
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State of AI in Sales & Marketing 2025

AI adoption is reshaping sales and marketing. But is it delivering real results? We surveyed 1,000+ GTM professionals to find out. The data is clear: AI users report 47% higher productivity and an average of 12 hours saved per week. But leaders say mainstream AI tools still fall short on accuracy and business impact. Download the full report today to see how AI is being used — and where go-to-market professionals think there are gaps and opportunities.

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What’s Your Funniest Sales Story Ever?

Anthony Cole Training

I'm heading to a sales training session about 12 years ago. It's a client in downtown Cincinnati and I've been working with them for two years. They know me as a high energy, enthusiastic and entertaining sales trainer. In other words, I stand up, I move around, I'm engaged, I role play, we learn a lot and people make more sales.

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Just Because Buying Is “Chaotic,” Doesn’t Mean It’s What Customers Want!

Partners in Excellence

As we increasingly understand the “Chaotic Buying Journey,” as illustrated by the great work done by my friends at Gartner; marketing and sales people are struggling with, “How do we respond?” Too often, the thinking is, “We have to meet the customer where they are at!” Some marketing and sales enablement people are reveling in the new content challenge, thinking, they have to provide content and related support for every one of these points in the buyer jour

Customers 107

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Hold-Out Groups: Gold Standard for Testing—or False Idol?

ConversionXL

You regularly run A/B tests on the design of a pop-up. You have a process, implement it correctly, find statistically significant winners, and roll out winning versions sitewide. Your tests answer every question except one: Is the winning version still better than never having shown a pop-up? A hold-out group can deliver the answer, but, like everything, it comes at a cost.

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5 Really Important Sales Concepts - Today's Lesson - Be Unique

Anthony Cole Training

In our sales training classes, we spend a great deal of time on the appropriate "attitude" required to be successful in selling. With the right attitude, you can count on consistently executing the required conduct and sales techniques to be successful. I once heard another sales development expert explain that "sales technique is just a change in language.

Technique 134
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How to Exercise Your Sales Authority Correctly

Jeff Shore

By Jeff Shore. ?In his seminal masterpiece, Influence – the Psychology of Persuasion , Dr. Robert Cialdini offers six key principles of influence. Among the Big Six: the principle of authority. Put simply, we are greatly influenced (in ways we do not always understand) by our impressions of authority. This not about sales tactics; this is about human nature.

Sports 99
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14 Unforgettable Color Palettes to Help You Design Your Own

Hubspot

It's a well-known fact that colors can influence mood -- consider how you feel differently when you enter a bright orange room, versus a muted gray. But did you know color also plays a major factor on your customer's first impressions of your brand? People generally make up their minds on how they feel about a product within the first 90 seconds -- and about 62-90 percent of their assessment is based on colors alone.

Promote 101
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The Intersection of AI and Sales: Personalization Without Compromise

Speaker: Jesse Hunter and Brynn Chadwick

Today’s buyers expect more than generic outreach–they want relevant, personalized interactions that address their specific needs. For sales teams managing hundreds or thousands of prospects, however, delivering this level of personalization without automation is nearly impossible. The key is integrating AI in a way that enhances customer engagement rather than making it feel robotic.

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Should Your SDR Team Be Outsourced?

Sales Hacker

Growth is good. When growth occurs, so does the expansion. But growth brings new challenges. As leads pour in, it becomes challenging for your current sales reps to manage their book of business and properly prospect. As a sales manager, you have to ask yourself “Do I simply hire more salespeople, or is it time to implement an SDR program?”. Driving sales is such a vital component of every company’s strategy, so it may seem illogical to even consider outsourcing any part of your sales process.

Clients 98
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The Getting Introduced Methodology

Anthony Cole Training

From our 5 Keys to Coaching series:

Growth 134
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If You’re Not Digital, You’re Dead | Sales Strategies

Engage Selling

?????????I’m doing some research on my new book, Right on the Money, and I found a study from Serious Decisions that said that 67% of all buying is done digitally.

Sales 93
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The Straightforward Guide to Value Chain Analysis

Hubspot

What's your business' competitive edge? A value proposition helps businesses identify what sets it apart from competitors. But how can you tell if your business activities are creating the most value for customers and a great profit margin? A value chain is used to describe all the business activities it takes to create a product from start to finish (e.g., design, production, distribution, etc.).

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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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How to sell an $85 bottle of water and why you shouldn't want to

Membrain

I recently got back from Vegas. I was at a conference there, staying in a very nice, high-end hotel. The hospitality was delightful. The room was beyond comfortable. The view was spectacular. Everything was great.

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7 More Sales Core Competencies

Anthony Cole Training

In 2008, I posted two blogs covering 14 of the 21 core competencies identified by the Objective Management Group Sales Person Assessment. Between then and now, much has taken place that I've written about, and as I fly from Atlanta to Portland, Oregon, I have some time to write about the remaining 7 core competencies. I know that you've been waiting with baited breath.

Sales 133
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Episode #090: Selling to Multiple Decision Makers with Matt Heinz

Jeff Shore

In This Episode of The Buyer’s Mind with Jeff Shore: Matt Heinz, President and Founder of Heinz Marketing, discusses with Jeff what to do when you’ve got more than one decision maker. That could be a husband and wife or it could be different level managers in a B2B situation. This situation nothing new to the seasoned sales professional but the solutions might not be what you think.

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Are PQLs the New MQLs in Sales?

Hubspot

For many years, B2B companies have executed their inbound sales funnel the same way. Much like the word “funnel” suggests, it’s based on the idea that you fill the top with people interested in your product (leads) and then filter out those who aren’t qualified to buy. The problem? The way we’ve been filtering people just isn’t working any more. Marketing qualified leads (MQLs) and sales qualified leads (SQLs) were created as a way for sales and marketing to determine if the leads they were deal

Sales 97
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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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Sales pipeline management: let’s stop confusing progress with probability

Membrain

Sales forecasting is hard. For proof, you need look no further than the 2018 CSO Insights Sales Performance study, which reported that on average a little over 46% of all forecasted sales deals actually resulted in a win (never mind the timing).

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Productive Conflict

Partners in Excellence

Over the past week, I’ve been involved in several conversations that have the same underlying theme. It’s basically around the concept of Productive Conflict. I believe this is a critical concept–both in how we engage our customers and in driving change internally. At the same time, I believe it is misunderstood, avoided, and executed very poorly with horrible results.

Product 86
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Eight Powerful Motivators That Will Inspire Your Salespeople

Selling Power

These eight intrinsic motivators can help you maximize your sales results.

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How to Navigate a Career Change in Enterprise Sales

CloserIQ

It’s a great time to be in enterprise sales. Many industries—including SaaS products, cybersecurity, and healthcare—are poised for growth. Companies in these industries will thus need skilled salespeople to work on enterprise sales. So if you want to enter enterprise sales , there are many opportunities available to you. The same is true for professionals who are already in enterprise sales, but want to enter a new industry or role.

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The GTM Intelligence Era: ZoomInfo 2025 Customer Impact Report

ZoomInfo customers aren’t just selling — they’re winning. Revenue teams using our Go-To-Market Intelligence platform grew pipeline by 32%, increased deal sizes by 40%, and booked 55% more meetings. Download this report to see what 11,000+ customers say about our Go-To-Market Intelligence platform and how it impacts their bottom line. The data speaks for itself!

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[Master Class] How Do You Create Confidence In a Changing Market?

Jeff Shore

By Jeff Shore ? Are the rumors of a changing market beginning to cause ripples in your organization, your sales team or even your own mind? Or perhaps, it’s escalated way past rumors and what was once a hot market is starting to cool way down. This leaves your customers wondering… “AAAAAAAAAHHH! IS IT HAPPENING AGAIN!?!?!” Or, at the very least, causes anxiety.

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Scaling “Authentic Conversations”

Partners in Excellence

I just received one of those emails. I’m on a distribution list, I’ve been invited to hear a webinar on “How do you scale authentic communications.” Among the topics they will be covering are: “how to automate meaningful and timely follow up,” and “how much time is too much time spent on personalizing emails………” (Interestingly, the only personalization in this email was my name.

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LinkedIn Just Relaunched Company Pages. Here’s What You Need To Know.

Hubspot

Having a Company Page on LinkedIn is essential. It gives you the opportunity to take part in conversations important to your brand, engage with and grow your audience, and leverage your current employees to spread your mission. On November 13 th , LinkedIn relaunched Company Pages as LinkedIn Pages, adding new features that customers value most. If you log into LinkedIn today, you’ll notice some obvious differences.

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Why You Should Be Scoring Sales Reps

Sales Hacker

Sales managers need a way to rank their Sales Development Reps (SDRs) on performance. Having a scoring system in place for SDRs and other sales reps gives clarity to both managers and reps on how they should be prioritizing their time and how they stack up against their colleagues. On average, we’ve found companies are tracking 7+ KPIs for their SDRs. ?

Sales 76
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AI in Marketing & Sales: Today’s Tools, Tomorrow’s Potential

Speaker: Kevin Burke

AI is reshaping marketing and sales, empowering professionals to work smarter, faster, and more effectively. This webinar will provide a practical introduction to AI, focusing on its current applications, transformative potential, and strategies for successful implementation in your organization. Using real-world examples and actionable insights, we’ll examine how businesses are leveraging AI to increase efficiency, enhance personalization, and drive measurable results.

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Email Writing Tips for the Not-So-Great-Writer

Heinz Marketing

By Brenna Lofquist , Marketing Consultant for Heinz Marketing. Advice from an everyday marketer not a copywriter. This topic might seem very basic or some people might not even take the chance to read it, but I am sure there are others out there like me, who don’t have a strong writing background and still need to write engaging marketing emails. Growing up my mom always said that I was such a great writer and I thought so too but writing about non-fiction prompts for State exams or English clas

Pitch 75
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You Don’t Fix Pipeline Problems In The Pipeline!

Partners in Excellence

One of the biggest mistakes sales managers and sales people make is spending too much time focusing on the health of the pipeline. Managers are constantly holding pipeline reviews. They are constantly asking, “What’s changed since we reviewed the pipeline yesterday?” (You can see how tedious these constant reviews are, particularly if you have a long sales cycle (anything over 3 months).

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Six Cover Letter Greetings for Every Situation

Hubspot

When you're trying to make a good first impression, a greeting is critical. Saying "Yo, what's up" to your new employer will evoke a different, likely more negative reaction than, "Hello, sir, it's nice to meet you.". A cover letter greeting is just as important as your first in-person salutation. It's a chance to demonstrate professionalism and even effort -- for instance, addressing your hiring manager by first and last name shows you did your research.

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Data Shows That Only 14% are Qualified for the Easiest Selling Roles

Understanding the Sales Force

Lays Potato Chips. Movie Theater Popcorn. Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies. BBQ Ribs. Fudge Brownies. Rolos (a personal favorite from years ago). All junk food which, after having the first one, you just can't stop there. You must have more. Lays even had that as a slogan back in the late 60's - "Bet you can't eat just one." Back then I couldn't stop at one.

Sell 74
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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