sales skills

Sales and marketing blogs [video]

Indexes of thousands marketing blogs are great for SEO. Make really sticky content. Today we're going to review five of those indexes and explain how, and why, the sites have created those indexes of thousands of marketing blogs. Let's start with I've concluded and then I'll explain why I've concluded that. Number one: find the best blogs that you personally enjoy reading. There's no point creating content that you're not personally interested in. That's inauthentic. Secondly, though edit that list with your audience in mind. Third, summarize the content and link fully. Don't steal copy. You're just READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Sales, Skills, Strategy, Tactics|

How do you sell to the C-Suite? You don’t

It’s a question that comes up a lot, and sometimes we even ask ourselves: How should you approach the c-suite? How do you get the attention and time of that elusive senior person who you need to get onside early and who, ultimately, can approve your deal? Often, the answer is: you don’t. And you shouldn’t. Let me show you why. Before we sell, we solve – so who is having the problem? Often the person who can approve the deal is not the person who actually has the problem that the deal is going to READ MORE ›

By Hugh Macfarlane|Strategy|

B2B Sales: You need to focus on the workarounds that aren’t working

In most “solution selling” methodologies, B2B sales people are encouraged to uncover their prospect’s issues, rather than leading with their products. But there’s a potential problem: any organisation, any stakeholder, always has many more issues that they would like to address than they could possibly have the have money, time, or inclination to deal with. That’s why so many issues stimulate so many apparently positive sales conversations that end up going absolutely nowhere. The prospect is interested enough to talk, but not motivated enough to act... One of the ways of dealing with this, of course, is READ MORE ›

By Bob Apollo|Evergreen, Skills|

Sales and Marketing training lifts performance where you’d least expect it

Training your marketers does little to help them generate leads that are more 'acceptable' to Sales, nor does increasing the training of your salespeople improve their ability to close. If this is the case, why bother investing in training at all? In this week's blog, Hugh explains why investing heavily in training for Sales and Marketing does deliver benefits, but not where you'd expect. Want to receive more content like this? Subscribe to our monthly B2B marketing blog!

By Hugh Macfarlane|Evergreen, Skills|

20 Best Practices all B2B Sales & Marketing Organisations Should Adopt

What separates the top-performing B2B sales and marketing organisations from their also-ran competitors? What are the winning behaviours that enable them to create repeatable, scalable and predictable businesses? After observing many of these best-in-class organisations in action, I’d like to suggest 20 best practices that all B2B focused companies ought to think about adopting… These best practices appear to be particularly relevant to B2B organisations with complex, high-value products or services that involve extended sales cycles, and where uncovering better qualified opportunities, shortening sales cycles and increasing sales win rates can have a dramatic impact on revenues, READ MORE ›

By Bob Apollo|Sales, Skills|

What have you learned from your top sales performers?

What is it that your top sales performers do better than anyone else? Part of the explanation may, of course, be simply that they are more naturally talented, or have a greater emotional intelligence when it comes to decoding complex sales relationships. But they will also have accumulated a set of winning habits and behaviours that the rest of your sales team could benefit from. And your ability to leverage that learning could make all the difference when it comes to achieving or exceeding your revenue goals. As Miller Heiman’s 2013 sales best practices report points out, READ MORE ›

By Bob Apollo|Sales, Skills|

6 Critical Foundations of the new “Solution Selling”

Faced with increasing competition, commoditisation and margin erosion, most B2B vendors have chosen to embrace “solution selling” in one form or another. But, as many have learned to their cost, simply slapping solution lipstick on a product pig tends to be a cost-added, rather than a value-added strategy. Applying solution selling in today’s increasingly well-educated and often justifiably cynical buying environment requires a profound change in mindset and selling (and marketing) behaviour that many companies never manage to properly master - but the ones that do usually reap substantial rewards. Having observed some of the best exponents READ MORE ›

By Bob Apollo|Sales, Skills|

The attributes marketers need to be revenue marketers

In the past few months a cool new term has appeared on my radar. That term is, “revenue marketer”. Wish I had thought of it first. It defines a new level of marketing professional. While I’m energized by the term, sadly, I’m concerned that too many B2B marketers don’t have the right perspective and skills to play in this new league. My latest exposure to the term was at an event in Austin hosted by Marketo, a marketing automation platform vendor. Speaking at the event was Debbie Qaqish , Chief Revenue Marketing Officer of The Pedowitz Group, READ MORE ›

By Chuck Besondy|Sales, Skills, Strategy, Velocity|

Why Hold a Sales Kick-off Meeting?

Boston-based Funnel Coach, Daniel Holland, writes... These traditional boondoggles cost valuable time and money, and are usually not effectively organized or measured for impact. Historically, companies have gathered their sales forces and distributors in a resort-type atmosphere to feed them motivational speakers, washed down by ample food, drink, and recreation, all with the objective to motivate their performance to achieve sales goals for the coming year. One of my favorite examples can be found here. Naturally, the CEO and the SVP/Chief Marketing Officer wanted to ‘ignite passion and the full power of the company around ONE mission.’ Most READ MORE ›

By Daniel Holland|Sales, Skills|