Recently I have noticed startups in our area maturing to a level where they are ready to reach out to the market. Several have asked me about hiring their first sales person, and because they are startups and money is usually tight, they hope to pursue a 100% commission model. This means they want to […]
You are a savvy, budget conscious B2B marketer. You have a whole team of software developers working on an award-winning SaaS Cloud solution that will transform the world. So why not leverage their massive talent to build your new B2B website in house? Notice how I mentioned the software development team. This isn’t about whether […]
It seems like everyone is talking about Account-Based Marketing (ABM) these days. But what’s the big deal? Personalizing messages targeted to key prospects isn’t really new. Early versions of Account-Based Marketing started back in the 90’s as one-to-one, or personalized marketing, with the rise of online marketing and analytics that allowed marketers to have a […]
Forrester launched their Wave™ for Sales Enablement Automation Systems, so it’s time to add one to the essential sales toolkit, right and launch sales enablement in your company? Before you embark on a selection from among these nine vendors (or any others), let’s think about what we have learned from similar experiences in sales and marketing […]
Did you know that social media marketing and SEO are tightly interwoven? Oh course! But you might not have thought about the impact on SEO from good social selling habits. Train sales to be good social sellers and marketing will see that social selling boosts SEO results, too. Social selling can enhance your organic ranking, […]
Whether you are just starting a business or taking your business growth to the next stage, an inside sales team can be your most valuable resource. But before you set up your inside sales team in San Diego, whether you are based here or decided it gives you a good outpost on the west coast […]
If you are like many Sales Leaders, this is the time of year when you turn your attention to the annual sales kickoff meeting. You picked a date, lined up an offsite meeting space with great food, planned a team-building activity and had travel booked for everyone. All set! Right? Not so fast. Don’t let […]
I started using LinkedIn Sales Navigator again because they’ve finally been adding features that make it more useful for prospecting. Admittedly, some of these were features that LinkedIn had in the basic platform, then removed. Now advanced search and tagging are in Sales Navigator and better than before. Navigator has added a lot of new […]
The Internet of Things is changing business. While most of the time we talk about the impact on manufacturing, logistics, and operations, what we need to realize is that IoT will have a major effect on sales and marketing processes, too. In a transparent, real-time, interconnected world, everything about business will be transformed as information […]
Sorry, sales. The buyer is in charge now. Jeffrey Lipsius uses simple storytelling in his book, Selling to the Point, to explain why the buyer is now in charge of sales. It’s a big concept that Jeff has explained through storytelling that makes it easy to grasp and relatable. That’s not to mean that sales […]
Last week cybersecurity leader FireEye released long-anticipated results that fell below market expectations. The market reacted quickly as Fireeye’s stock value fell another 15%, trading in the $15—$18 range (at one time during 2014 the stock traded as high as $80). The company announced layoffs of up to 400 employees as part of a restructuring. […]
To look at this question, should inside sales report to marketing or sales, a bit more closely, let’s ask it differently. Is the ISR / SDR better aligned with marketing or with sales? According to Bridge Group, in 2014 24% of SDRs reported to marketing and this number has been increasing among both large and small companies […]
It’s been 3 years this month since I started teaching Social Selling, and 3 years since the launch of LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator. What’s interesting to me is that there is still such a divide among sales professionals with respect to social selling. There is the enthusiastic “all in” group who started social selling practices early […]
I wasn’t really shocked or even surprised that CSO Insight’s 2015 Sales Enablement Optimization Study ranked Social Selling Training as ineffective. “Social selling training services were ranked as the training service with the highest need for major redesign (33%)” In the past two years, I’ve seen way too many self-proclaimed “experts” reducing social selling to […]
There are literally thousands of technology tools comprising the marketing stack in The MarTech Landscape , many of them released in just the last few years, and many of them targeted to B2B Sales and marketing programs. These advanced tools help engage the buyer, accelerate lead generation, manage the sales process and analyze results along […]
The AA-ISP Inside Sales Leadership Summit is in its seventh year, bringing together over one thousand individuals dedicated to the inside sales profession. The two and a half day event is chock full of sessions dedicated to this growing field. There are so many options that it’s impossible to attend them all. Here are some of my […]
You are probably using LinkedIn for B2B Sales and Inside Sales prospecting, but have you tried out the power of Twitter for B2B Selling? I recently met with a group of Inside Sales professionals and a lot of them felt that Twitter “wasn’t right for their industry” or they weren’t really sure where to start. […]
What is the lead response time goal for your company for web-generated leads? 1 day? 1 hour? 21 seconds? First, let’s start with the definition of LEAD. If it’s transactional, then jump on that phone right this second. Someone calling to get mortgage or insurance rates. Or a loan. CALL NOW. Someone completed a demo […]
Whether you call it inside sales, business development, or sales development, this is a critical role for revenue growth. Released just last month, I highly recommend anyone in leadership for sales or inside sales read The Sales Development Playbook by Trish Bertuzzi. Specifically, the book is written for: Executives and Executive Sponsors VPs of Sales Sales […]
Twitter is a rapid-fire medium, but I’ve found that it is really important to check the Twitter handle you are citing before hitting TWEET. Here are three big reasons: #1 You want them to notice! Part of the reason you mention someone is that you want to give them the nod or get their attention. […]