Quality data is one of the essential keys to running a successful business in today’s always on, analytics driven world.
While the sheer amount of data available is impressive, quantity by itself typically only translates into more work. That is until it is shaken down into something useful.
As the business world is evolving overnight, the only way we can truly compete is by making sure our...
Most business-to-business or B2B companies don’t want to admit this, but their sales and marketing departments are at odds. In the worse case scenarios, the company isn’t even aware of the problem. With the B2B sales and marketing teams each sending out conflicting messages, this lack of cohesion makes it difficult to generate B2B leads and sales. Getting both departments to see themselves as allies instead of rivals improves the company’s bottom line.
Tips for Bringing the Two Sides Closer
1. Remind both teams of their roles
The marketing...
As a driven, competitive sales professional, you are willing to do whatever it takes to increase your sales, network with potential clients, and extend your business’ reach in your industry. Social media now plays a powerful role in how businesses operate across industries. It allows you to gauge customer support for your product or service as well as research your competition. Social media, then, can help you become a better B2B sales professional, even helping improve sales. Understand how to use social media to your advantage in the highly competitive sales industry.
When social media started to take shape in the 21st Century, it represented a way for people to connect, interact and share with others more frequently and more remotely. Twitter, Facebook, and the like allowed users to share the details of their personal and professional lives for the world to see, for better or worse...
A new report from Gartner covers the latest advances in sales strategy and some serious stats on B2B adoption of mobile technology, social CRM, and clienteling. Here’s one of their most startling predictions: 80% iPad adoption by pharmaceutical sales forces by the end of 2012. The High Tech, Life Sciences and Insurance industries already have a jump on the game with huge levels of iPad adoption for sales productivity. Insurance is not really what you think of when it comes to being ‘adventurous’ so you know there are some serious numbers behind the move....
It all comes down to numbers right? I was told something very early on in my career “You can’t manage what you don’t measure”. When it comes to social selling, sales executives want to see the benefits of leveraging social intelligence during the sales cycle. Sales intelligence tools can make an impact on your revenue. B2B sales professionals that make the change are seeing great results. Even with this knowledge many sales executives are slow to implement applications that can make identifying new business and build pipelines faster. Part of this has to do with the concept of change.
“It is not the...
When you’re a B2B sales rep, few things feel worse than spending weeks or months on a high-priority prospect only to find out that your biggest competitor won the business. If this happens to you frequently then you’re probably feeling stressed out and unmotivated. Fortunately, you can turn things around with a simple secret: if you master the art of qualifying your leads, you can achieve greater sales with less time and effort. Initially you’ll have to fight against some instinctive habits, but with practice you’ll become a lead-qualifying pro. Keep reading to find out how to hone this crucial skill.
Maintain Control of Yourself and the Conversation
During your first contact with a lead, you may be eager to begin...
Most people hate making cold calls. If you’ve got a sales staff that doesn’t, you may have a gold-mine or a band of lunatics on your hands.
But cold calls are an unfortunate necessity in business. Warm leads have a much higher conversion rate and are less likely to burn out a sales staff, but growth depends on broadening your client base. Even with no conversions, cold calls are essential to your marketing efforts because it pumps up name recognition numbers and sows the seeds for future business.
As much as a sales staff dislikes cold calls, there is one group who likes it even less: the interrupted. If sales is making the standard 100 DPD (dials per day), just multiply that by how many competitors are in your market and see how many times prospects have been...
As a new sales manager, your role may be to improve sales, streamline a process and/or boost employee productivity. Under the circumstances, it may be tempting to focus on what’s not working. However, salespeople are just like all other human beings who appreciate encouragement and gratitude. To steer the sales process in a productive direction, you’re better off focusing on the positives.
Building a positive relationship with your sales team is an important first step. Your team may be set in its ways or unaccustomed to your...
I was at the opening day of the Sales 2.0 conference in San Francisco yesterday and had a great talk with Jim Keenan, you may know him as @keenan. He sent a tweet during the keynote session with his thoughts on why sales people are not embracing social media though all of the data is showing that leveraging social media for sales intelligence increases revenue.
My thoughts on why sales people aren’t embracing social faster – We’re too linear if it doesn’t get a sale NOW,we’re not interested! #s20c
— Jim Keenan (@keenan) April 2, 2012
I dont think he’s far off base. Sales people are developed to look for the deals they can get now and...
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