I was working recently with a client at the moment that provides brilliant cloud solutions with a compelling business case. When I asked what their biggest challenges were they said: “Many in the sales team can’t seem to close… they want better closing techniques.” Here’s the thing I’ve learned from three decades in the trenches: ... Read Post

Yes, business processes are crucial to company operation. A company functions far more efficiently with formalized processes. When a system guides you to the next best action there is much less chance to miss an action or a step, thus loose an opportunity. In fact, when a company has, for example, a defined sales process ... Read Post

Editor’s Note: Today we post Chapter 7 of a 10-chapter book, authored by our CSO, John Golden and Matt McDarby, President of United Sales Resources. In the previous chapter, we proposed the idea of measuring social selling activities and outcomes.  If you’re still reading this book, then perhaps you agree there is value in measuring ... Read Post

Editor’s Note: As part of our ongoing Sales Innovators Interview series, we are very pleased to include video interviews of eminent sales leaders by Andy Paul. Andy is a sales acceleration expert and sales strategist, and is the author of the best-selling sales books, Amp Up Your Sales: Powerful Strategies That Move Customers to Make ... Read Post

I spend more time than is healthy in looking for, reading, and evaluating B2B value propositions. It is a bit of a strange occupation, but the attraction to it for me is the challenge in communicating the essence of an offer in a way that is clear, direct and simple to grasp. Achieving these three ... Read Post

Much of the time, sales management is conducted through what are called lagging indicators. These are KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that show what has already happened after all is said and done. Examples of lagging indicators: Sales # of units sold Gross margin # of different products sold Market share Gross revenue # of deals ... Read Post

Many sales pundits define 7 stages of the sales cycle, with closing a deal being defined as the end of the cycle. To most salespeople “the close” represents the welcomed end to a time consuming and laborious effort to get the client to buy. It is a time to get paid, take a deep breath, ... Read Post

You can follow all the sales tricks and best practices in the book, but if you’re working with dirty data, progress will always be one step forward, two steps back. “Dirty data,” in this case, refers to a CRM (or other database) full of inaccuracies, omissions and duplicate entries; customer and lead profiles are marred ... Read Post