With the right tools, your sales forecast can be effective and accurate. The right CRM solution helps you get your bearings within the tangled web of sales metrics, and see the clear picture of the story your numbers are telling.

Download this free ebook and learn how to properly analyze your sales pipeline, and create an accurate and cost-effective sales forecast.

Sales forecasts are often done with considerable guesswork, sent along to company management, and everyone crosses their fingers and silently prays that these forecasts are somewhere near correct. If two key issues were solved – accuracy being one of them – everyone from sales reps on up to the chairman of the board could sleep a lot better at night, having far more confidence in those sales forecasts.

Traditionally, sales forecasting has been done by the sales manager after lengthy consultation with sales reps. While it may be “how it’s always been done,” this methodology is risky at best. There is actually a way to make this a much more winning game – from the salespeople on up.

By actual statistic, sales forecasts – along with closing rates – are generally off by a considerable margin. Here are 6 key factors that, if implemented, will go a long way to greatly improving the accuracy of your sales analytics and forecasting.

There is of course the basic benefit of accurate sales analytics: accurate sales forecasts. But there are numerous other benefits which should also be taken into account, and act as further motivations for companies to move beyond the considerable degree of speculation that commonly dominates today’s sales forecasting.

The most consistent and positive way to work out a sales forecast is with a CRM solution that includes accurate sales analytics that will show you the facts of the matter, every time.

Here we will take a closer look at how precise and usable sales analytics change the role of the person normally held accountable for overall sales and the forecasting of those sales: the sales manager.

Download Sales Forecasting, Analytics and CRM now.

You know that your pipeline is the foundation of a successful sales process and the root of all revenue.

When you understand the power of its metrics, you have all the information you need to create more opportunities, generate more leads (from the right kind of customer), and encourage existing customers to buy more. Within this book you’ll find the answers:

• How to properly measure your sales pipeline
• The KPIs that you need to track
• How to predict your sales with accurate and insightful pipeline measurement

Quantify the performance of your pipeline and you’ll be able to identify gaps, proactively tackle the challenges that kill your conversion rates, and close more sales.

Download this free ebook and learn more.

If you understand the metrics within your pipeline, you will have access to the information you need to create more opportunities, generate more leads (from the right kind of customer) and encourage existing customers to buy more.

One fact about Germany’s performance in the World Cup is that they played as a team.

Salespeople need to learn this same lesson. They are, by nature, loners; setting their own goals, being responsible for their own incomes, and following their own instincts. In one respect that’s a great thing—it’s what makes them great salespeople. But today the sales landscape has become far too competitive and, more importantly, too complex for a salesperson to go it alone.

How can you win your ultimate sales challenge with as much elegance and ferocity as German team did at the 2014 World Cup? Download our free ebook to make an unforgettable kick-off for your business.

While we’re learning, there are other factors that have entered into the sales landscape in the last few years that substantially aid the needed changes both for sales and sales management—and interestingly can be likened to the German victory in the World Cup.

What is insight selling and how can you benefit from lost leads and opportunities? How do you manage the information within your sales process – the quantity and quality? Most importantly, how do you keep it accessible, organized, and accurate?  Within this ebook you find the answers to how to develop and improve your sales system. You’ll learn:

• What is insight selling and how can you blend it into existing sales best practices?
• How can you analyze and capitalize on lost sales opportunities?
• What are the best ways to qualify leads and opportunities?

Improve your pipeline with the basic principles of insight selling and learn the power of new sales techniques and strategies. Download this free eBooklet and learn more.

Today’s forward-thinking sellers gather much more information than just about the general industry. They learn as much as possible about the specific prospect company itself, its role in the industry, its competition and any problems particular to that company.

We’ve got a new ebook just perfect for anyone planning to attend an in-person event or conference! — The Little Black Book for Conferences and Conventions.

Four experienced event attendees have written all their secret squirrel techniques and ideas for how to make the most of these opportunities — from preparing ahead of time, to what to do during the event, to following up afterward. Our experts:

• Barbara Giamanco — Leading social selling author, speaker, and advisor
• Joanne Black — Renowned authority on referral selling
• Peri Shawn — Award-winning sales and coaching author, speaker, and trainer
• Chad Porter — Co-founder of Invisume (“The Invisible Resume”)

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• Building Relationships – Numbered lists for preparing and making the most out of relationship-building activities
• Keeping Organized Amid the Chaos – Secret methods and apps that help maintain control — scheduling, what to bring with you, and using your time wisely
• Before the Event – Activities, planning, and creating a state of mind that sets the stage for success
• During the Event: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques – Contacting people, using social media, and managing meetups
• After the Event – Putting all your hard work to good use — don’t fall short at the finish line!
• Techniques That Really Work – Experts’ secret squirrel ideas that might just work for you
• Etiquette Pet Peeves – What to do — and what not to do!

Download this fun and free ebook, and you will be prepared and productive at your next in-person conference!

What does selling products and services—or the failure to do so—have to do with Napoleon’s march on Moscow, Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, and David’s epic battle with Goliath? According to sales expert John Golden, a lot–and not just because sales calls can feel like gruelling battles.

In this eye-opening sales guide, Golden reveals the surprising parallel between the steps of successful selling and the steps of successful warfare.

Winning the Battle for Sales delivers selling best practices based on examples from history’s battlefields Organized into three parts–the Sales Call, Account Strategy, and Sales Management–these tales reveal key takeaways that you can apply to every sale, including:

• Pyrrhus of Epirus vs. the Romans (280-279 B.C.)—vital points on avoiding the pursuit of victory at all costs
• Captain Bligh vs. Fletcher Christian (Mutiny on the Bounty)—important lessons about understanding customer needs and desires
• The Siege of Petersburg (U.S. Civil War, 1864)—indispensable guidance on delivering “outside-the-box” solutions
• The Gunfight at the OK Corral (1881)—the keys to preventing sales objections to ensure smooth negotiations
• Brian Boru vs. the Vikings (Battle of Clontarf, 1014)—essential information on turning unseen opportunity into a value driver

Just as generals pore over every aspect of a battle after it’s fought, you no doubt review your sales tactics in a similar fashion. This guide is a quick, snappy, entertaining read.

Sales management is anything but easy—just ask anyone who has done it. The sales manager is supervising people who are innately self-sufficient loners and who really don’t want to be supervised. Salespeople make their own observations and conclusions and commonly don’t take directions too well. Add to all of that the lack of accurate analysis tools on the part of sales management and you have a recipe for uncertainty at best.

No single book could cover everything there is to know about sales management—not by a long way. But this ebook provides some powerful, basic tips to make sales management considerably more bearable.

Today a sales process is essential to a smoothly functioning sales force. Considerable time and care should be taken in its creation, for it is as essential to your business as a business plan or product specifications. You wouldn’t skimp on those—don’t skimp on the sales process, either.

Traditional CRM systems, despite all their “bells and whistles” of advanced technology, have not made the necessary changes to become the streamlined tools they need to be. In today’s highly competitive business environment, a CRM solution must be far more than a complex method for measuring potential and accomplished quota achievement. In fact it needs to be the backbone, memory and mind of a sales force and all who must interact with it.

Sales management is anything but easy—just ask anyone who has done it. But there are 4 steps which, if fully applied, will at the least greatly ease sales management’s burden.

Instability and turnover within a sales force can be one of sales management’s worst nightmares. There are five key elements to recruiting—and far more importantly, keeping—a stable team of high-powered sales reps.

The key to improving the sales force is through coaching from sales management. While this has been known and discussed for some years, what might not be so obvious is the importance of sales analytics to the process. Here are four ways to improve sales force skill through the use of those analytics.

“Hockey-stick” is a fairly common descriptive term that describes a revenue graph that creeps along the bottom or the middle of the graph for most of a period, usually a quarter, and then in the last few weeks jumps up to the top (resembling a hockey stick). The skillful implementation of a sales process, CRM solution and the right sales analytics will do away with “hockey stick” revenue performance—along with the severe stress brought to bear on sales reps and the rest of the company.

Download Tips for Sales Management now.