White Papers & eBooks
Download this eBrief to find out how to streamline sales content management to a digital approach that solves content challenges—for sellers AND buyers.
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Before you embark on expanding your initial sales team, focus on equipping your sales team for success. Thinking about your sales organization as a machine will help you focus on the critical success factors (outlined in this e-book) needed to build a repeatable and predictable revenue stream for your company.
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The foundation of Customer Success is an effective process for customer onboarding, implementation and launch.
This reduces the time it takes for customers to see value from their purchase, known as Time to First Value (or TTFV).
But what exactly is TTFV, why is it so important, and how can you minimize it?
In this whitepaper, we explore the concept of Time to First Value, which is just one aspect of Imparta’s Customer Success & Renewals program, and describe the 7 techniques you can use to reduce TTFV to benefit your customers, and your own organization.
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Uncover the sales negotiation fundamentals that are most often overlooked and misunderstood by salespeople, including both positional (win-lose) and principled (win-win) negotiation styles. You’ll also learn how to defend against the six most advanced procurement tactics that you may not even realize you are coming up against, such as:
Best-of-the-Best Pricing
Reverse Auctions and eBids
Limited Authority
Discomfort
Nibbling
Reopening
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Modern Corporate Training Today, modern corporate training programs must focus on building a culture of learning to engage, train, and retain employees. They must also prove that these programs impact business growth.
To help you prioritize initiatives, we’ve identified six of the most important trends shaping corporate training today.
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While organizations around the world are spending billions of dollars on training, most of that investment is being wasted. Here’s what you can do to make sure your sales training initiatives add up to long-term results.
Have you ever observed a sales representative during a call and thought, "How can this be the same person who did so well during training? Why aren’t they doing what they were taught?"
They’ve been through the training and learned the skills—intellectually they know what they should do—but now that they’re back on the job, they’ve fallen into old habits and behaviors.
The fact is, this situation is more often the rule than the exception. Data collected by the consulting firm ES Research has shown that 85 to 90 percent of sales training fails to translate into a lasting improvement in productivity.
So what’s keeping the training from moving sales professionals from knowing to doing? Here are 4 of the most common reasons most sales training fails.
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Emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, many (if not all) companies are hyperfocused on boosting sales. A Google search for "sales enablement" yields millions of results—and a variety of conflicting definitions.
Clearly, sales enablement can mean different things to different people. To some, it’s tools, tactics, and training. To others, it’s all about strategy, data, and analytics.
To us, it includes all those things—but it always starts with the story.
Like any good book, your sales story should be a page-turner—keeping prospects hooked by engaging, inspiring, and making powerful emotional connections with them.
But too often, the stories sales teams tell are fragmented, overly focused on product specs and features, or misaligned with marketing.
The right story can make all the difference. And because research suggests that 50% of leads are qualified but not ready to buy, telling that story in the right ways at the right stages of the sales funnel is essential for converting new prospects into loyal customers.
But an effective sales story involves more than delivering certain keywords to drive awareness, consideration, and decision as prospects move through the funnel. It should be a holistic, consistent thread that runs through all your communications to prospects—and one that’s laser-focused on the value you offer and the problems you can solve for them.
Here are three critical steps to ensure that your sales team is telling a clear and compelling story about what you offer and why people will want to engage with your brand.
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Just like face-to-face meetings, virtual meetings and events still begin with the basics.
Think about the demographics of those attending. Before you start planning the agenda and developing content, you must consider your participants. Who are they? What is the average age? What are their interests? What are common threads that bond them? Then, how will you get them to stay engaged? If you can’t envision them participating in something live, don’t expect them to do it virtually either. Ultimately, you need to determine what is going to make this meeting or event successful for your attendees"
With this as a starting point, this eGuide - created by the experienced staff at One10 Marketing - will walk you through the considerations and process that will guide you to creating a successful virtual event or conference.
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Get A Coach | Be A Coach the authors introduce a new framework for coaching that extends the benefits of this powerful tool to the masses. You will see how everyone, at every level of the organization, can get a coach anytime they need one, anywhere they are within the organization and for anything they are doing. Why? So that people can get better results in their job, more fulfillment in the workplace and more growth and development in their careers. For the organization there are also huge benefits:
Facilitating knowledge transfer
Fostering collaboration
Closing the skills gap
Establishing real time, on-demand learning
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When you set out to target new business, you probably have an ICP in mind - your ideal customer profile. When you set out to recruit a new sales professional for your department, you should also have an ICP. In this case, ICP stands for ideal candidate profile. The individual you envision possesses nonstop energy and resilience, outstanding listening skills and can close deals faster than you can blink. Go ahead and blink. Then, pinch yourself. Because you are dreaming.
These types of candidates don’t just sail into your organization. When you’re recruiting, you must look for candidates who are highly coachable. Using the right guidance with the right tools, over time, you’ll be able to develop your new rep into the polished professional you envision.
Coachability is one of the top traits that sales managers consider when they’re hiring. In our Voice of the Sales Manager survey, respondents rated the most desired characteristics in their reps as follows:
1. Problem solver 69%
2. Confident 66%
3. Positive attitude / Optimistic 64%
4. Takes initiative 62%
5. Highly coachable 60%
Click below to download this free White Paper from SalesFuel.
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A #1 top-tier sales hired gun knows the value of selling directly to The Boss, and knows how to sell to The Boss whenever possible. Here's how:
Click on the download button below to download this Infographic.
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Sales Enablement For Marketers
If you’re a marketer supporting a sales team, you’ve got a lot on your plate. Sellers are facing one of the most difficult buying landscapes in recent memory—and they need your help.
To be effective, you need to align with sales, deliver the best content and other resources that will move deals through the pipeline, and make sure sellers can find and use these resources properly.
"Sales enablement has never been more important than it is today."
You crank out solution briefs, case studies, videos, blog posts, product guides, and more to support reps' interactions with prospects and help them be productive. You work closely with sales to learn which types of content are working to nurture leads and close deals. You keep your ears open to industry trends and one eye on the company roadmap to anticipate content needs and fill in any gaps.
It’s a continuous process of creating and sharing those new materials with reps to allow them to reach customers and sell more effectively. But it can often seem like all your hard work is for naught.
You need a better way. Find out how the right sales enablement solution can help you overcome these issues and turn your marketing into an engine that can turbocharge your sales growth for years to come.
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Planning for the Next Normal Sellers are working harder than ever—and sales enablement has never been more important than it is today. The business of sales has been completely disrupted by COVID-19 and the resulting shutdown. At the start of the pandemic, you may have shifted overnight to virtual selling, with the expectation of returning to normal within a month or two. Experts now say we’re not going back to the way business was done.
But the processes and tactics you put in place in the spring likely weren’t designed for the long term, and sales teams have often had to learn on-the-fly how to succeed when in-person meetings aren’t possible. It’s time to figure out what works in this new world and what doesn’t.
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Mastering Virtual Selling
Virtual selling—working a deal remotely when you can’t be there in person—is the new normal for B2B salespeople. But being a great virtual salesperson doesn’t mean simply conducting every meeting via video conference. Virtual selling means understanding a prospect’s mindset when you can’t meet in person, using all the tools and techniques available to close the deal. While the fundamentals are the same, you have new obstacles to overcome and new skills to master.
Allego’s learning and enablement platform accelerates results for virtual teams. From our work with hundreds of thousands of sales professionals around the world, we’ve developed unique expertise in virtual selling techniques that can give you the edge you need to hit your targets.
This guide distills that learning to help you and your team understand how to master virtual selling and stay ahead of your competition.
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With highly technical products and a clinical sales approach, 3M needed to ensure that their more than 1,000 sales reps could deliver key messaging effectively. An integral part of their sales process involved reps having in-depth discussions with medical professionals that covered not only product knowledge, but also the supporting science and research.
Download this case study to learn how 3M addressed this challenge and the results.
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Why are some companies thriving in the current environment while others fall behind?
The secret is modern sales enablement designed for virtual teams. Today’s winners are mastering virtual selling with an up-to-date approach to content, tools, and knowledge.
Sellers are working harder than ever—and sales enablement has never been more important than it is today.
At the start of the pandemic, you may have shifted overnight to virtual selling. But the processes and tactics you put in place in the Spring likely weren’t designed for the long term.
Sales teams have had to learn on-the-fly how to succeed when in-person meetings aren’t possible. It’s time to figure out what works in this new world and what doesn’t.
Sales enablement in 2021 will be very different from last year. But knowing how to pivot to a modern approach isn’t obvious.
Download this eBook to learn the elements of modern sales enablement and how you can upgrade your current approach for long-term success.
Get your eBook to learn:
Best practices to accelerate results with virtual teams—and why traditional tactics are no longer enough
4 key capabilities of a holistic sales enablement solution
How to build a powerful tech stack when your budget has been cut
Plus, the 2021 Sales Enablement Checklist to help drive results next year and beyond
Don’t get left behind by relying on an outdated sales enablement approach. If you aren’t updating today, you don’t have a moment to delay.
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Download this helpful infographic as a reminder of the 4 steps for leading virtual teams.
Outcomes of using Improv techniques to manage virtual teams
Greater trust within virtual teams
Speed to deliver on business outcomes
Radical collaboration = quicker turnaround
Balance accountability with autonomy
Accountability and engagement on tough projects
Practical skills to manage difficult or negative conversations in a positive way
Techniques to improve empathy and patience
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How much time, money, and effort is your company currently investing in its digital marketing strategy? Every organization knows they need digital marketing, but for many it is just not a priority. There is either no budget, no staff to manage it, or the organization simply does not have the knowledge or experience to implement an effective strategy.
If having a digital marketing strategy is not a priority for your organization today, you need to make it one. Download this white paper to find out why.
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Edmunds believes in the philosophy of making their sellers more effective versus enabling them to sell better. They achieved staggering results utilizing Rehearsal’s video-based practice and coaching platform. Not only does Edmunds have greater confidence that training is being delivered accurately and consistently, but those that practiced with Rehearsal doubled the revenue of those who did not.
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As a Sales Manager, your role is to manage sales AND lead people. This handy reminder includes simple models for building 2-way trust, actively listening, giving quality feedback, and coaching -- the essential ingredients for enablement and ennoblement that you'll need to lead.
Click below to download this Infographic.
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Measuring the impact of learning and readiness initiatives on revenue is the billion dollar question. In today’s uncertain environment, the answer is even more important. Rapidly changing markets, disrupted supply chains, and increasingly knowledgeable customers mean that companies must upskill employees to compete. But the ability to optimize learning—and maximize productivity—takes deep insight into how employees think, learn, and perform, insight which many companies lack.
Today, there’s a new breed of platform that combines learning, communication, and collaboration tools with analytics for a holistic view of learning and development’s impact on results. Workforce readiness technology allows organizations to move beyond assessments and scores to understand how to target activities that move the needle.
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There are no best-sellers written about middle performers who stayed in their lane. But there are libraries written about the well-loved top performers. And bottom performers get plenty of attention, in part because sales managers would rather drag them along than replace them.
Here is why the next chapter in your company’s history should focus moving the middle.
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Managing remote workers has always been challenging, particularly with sales teams where everything is measured on productivity and results. With more employees working from home than ever, sales managers must learn to manage a distributed workforce from a distance. For those organizations new to the world of a remote workforce, managing from a distance has presented unforeseen challenges.
So how do we know, then, if our sales team is cut-out for remote work? How do you gauge how well your team will adapt? We don’t have all of the answers today, but we can take a look at what successes and challenges remote sales teams have experienced, what new challenges organizations are seeing and how they are addressing them, and how sales managers can support, engage, motivate, and assess their newly remote workforce. We can use this information to help our salespeople adjust and thrive in a remote environment.
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