CSO Insights’ 2017 Sales Manager Enablement Report compared the win rates on forecasted sales opportunities between companies with a formalized approach to coaching—meaning there is a standard approach used by all sales managers—to those companies where coaching strategies were entirely left up to the manager or done informally. Their findings provide proof as to why a sales coaching initiative at your company is so important: companies who had adopted a formal approach to sales coaching achieved a win-rate on forecasted deals that was 19% higher. In short, developing a strong sales coaching culture offers a great ROI. And great leverage: Each sales manager trained is then empowered to improve the win rates of every sales rep on their team. Here are seven keys that will move you in that direction.

If your sales team isn't producing the results expected, the pressure is on you to fix the situation fast. One option is to replace salespeople. A better option is for you to optimize your performance as a sales leader. In The Sales Manager's Guide to Greatness, sales management consultant Kevin F. Davis offers 10 proven and distinctly practical strategies, skills, and tools for overcoming the most challenging obstacles sales managers face and moving your team ahead of the... (click to download excerpts from this eBook)

If your sales team isn't producing the results expected, the pressure is on you to fix the situation fast. One option is to replace salespeople. A better option is for you to optimize your performance as a sales leader. In The Sales Manager's Guide to Greatness, sales management consultant Kevin F. Davis offers 10 proven and distinctly practical strategies, skills, and tools for overcoming the most challenging obstacles sales managers face and moving your team ahead of the... (click below to download excerpts from this eBook)

Throughout this eBook, you will learn 11 key strategies that will help you position your profile to be seen as a thought leader and subject matter expert, leverage your existing network to gain access to decision makers and engage with people who are engaging with you.

Each sales opportunity presents its own unique dilemma in terms of identifying the "real buyer". Further examination of a sales opportunity will yield additional information regarding the viability of the opportunity as it relates to the product and service offerings available from the salesperson's company. One of the most important steps in the sales process is to identify the real buyer ‐ an individual I'll call the "relevant executive" for the sales opportunity. Recent research (like that shown in my book Selling to the C‐Suite) shows that key executives typically get involved early in the buying cycle to understand the issues creating the need for a solution. They will often delegate the middle phase of the buying cycle—exploring options, setting vendor criteria and evaluating solutions—to others at lower levels of the organization. Senior executives also get involved in the project again during the final phase to help plan the implementation and measure the results. That’s why waiting to get involved with an organization when the RFP is initially received can be problematic. The better strategy is to gain access to the relevant executive early in the buying cycle, at a time when it is possible to actually influence RFP criteria by showcasing the benefits and value of your products or services. Click below to download this paper to help you and your team develop the right strategy for targeting and engaging with the right - and relevant - executive.  

Beyond the Sales Process focuses on the frontline of engagement with customers. It is specifically intended for salespeople, account managers, their managers, and sales leaders, as well as others who have responsibilities and pressures associated with developing and winning business, and those who are tasked with extending and expanding their relationships with customers.

Typically only 20% of salespeople are considered high performers. Why are so few highly successful? There are deeper reasons- reasons why salespeople succeed or fail... What actually causes your salespeople’s success? Why does most sales training cause your people to shut down? And what are the five dimensions that most influence sales’ success? This eBook will provide all the answers as well as explore the critical role of values, inner beliefs about selling itself and belief in your products in influencing sales success. Click below to download this eBook.

Today's C-Suite executives have a wide variety of concerns, mostly involved with planning, managing and affecting change throughout the organization.  They are also concerned about multiple constituencies - customers, shareholders, employees, suppliers, competitors, business partners, regulatory agencies and the various governments in which they operate - both domestically and internationally.  C-Suite executives are willing to meet with professional salespeople if they are convinced that the salesperson can deliver true business value to them. This white paper will outline the six steps that will enable you to successfully engage with C-Suite executives - and to maintain and leverage those relationships over the long term.

Executive Summary How do you know if your executive presentations are effective? In this white paper I am going to give you a series of tests you can use to form an objective assessment about the quality and effectiveness of your presentation. I have spent nearly fifteen years researching and reviewing literally hundreds of sales tools and presentations from big companies to small boutiques, and many in between, and believe the effectiveness of an economic impact sales tool used in (and after) the sales process boils down to these important criteria:

Able, adjusted, all systems go, apt, equipped, fit, in order, organized, planned, prepared, primed, qualified, rehearsed, set. These are all synonyms for the word ready. The question is, can you really be sure that these words apply to your sales team? To help you not only shift the way you think about sales readiness, but actually take steps towards ensuring your own sales organization’s readiness, we have compiled 22 tips to guide you.  

Just as B2B sales strategies must adapt to increasingly savvy buyers, sales training must change too. This brief discusses how newer training content and methods can result in a better, smarter sales force.

Ask a CEO to name his or her organization's most important asset and you're sure to hear "our people," followed closely by "our customers." Everything  else  takes  a  backseat, and  yet few books are written about how these two most  valuable assets interact, engage, align, collaborate, innovate, and create value together. Beyond the Sales Process focuses on the frontline of engagement with customers. It is specifically intended for salespeople, account managers, their managers, and sales leaders, as well as others who have responsibilities and pressures associated with developing and winning business, and those  who  are  tasked  with  extending  and expanding their relationships with customers. In the case studies that follow each section, you'll learn how top companies engage differently and grow successful customer relationships based on collaboration, innovation, and mutual value creation and co-creation. These case studies provide an in-depth perspective on how industry leaders across the globe engage, win, and grow with their customers. Adecco Staffing U.S., BNY Mellon, Hilton Worldwide, Honeywell Building Solutions, Merck/MSD, Panasonic Corporation, Securian Financial Group-Group Insurance, Siemens AG, and Zurich Insurance Group have generously provided us with their stories. While this book is largely intended for those who want to consistently be at the top of their professional peer groups and are willing to consider new ideas to help them succeed, it will also be of value to the managers and leaders who motivate, coach, and support the efforts of their teams. Thus, this  book  is  for  those  customer-facing  professionals  who need to drive their performance to the next level of effectiveness. Click VIEW below to download these valuable strategies.

Research shows that effective sales coaching can dramatically improve the performance of sales teams - in some cases driving up revenues by 20% or more. But all too often sales organizations find it challenging to develop a sales coaching program that's embedded in a coaching culture.   Read this 5-page white paper and learn best practices and strategies for developing an effective sales coaching program for your sales organization.   In this whitepaper you will learn how to:   Implement a proven sales coaching model Create a coaching culture Use metrics to maximize the ROI on coaching Turn sales managers into great coaches

Many companies approach orientation like it's a formality. It has to be done, but no one wants to waste too much time on it. So, new employees are ushered in, given a quick tour of the office and a rundown of the benefits offered, and then they're expected to get right to work. It seems leaders assume that more detailed information on things like the company's processes and customers will simply be absorbed by new hires as they go along.

Analytics are at the heart of a modern data-driven business.   When it came to content, we used to rely almost entirely on anecdotes and guesswork. That is no longer good enough - content is at the heart of the sales and marketing process and we must know how it is being used and how it is performing.   Marketing Automation tools made that a reality for marketing content. They let marketers analyze and optimize content marketing efforts during the first half of the sales cycle, providing analytics to show how effectively content moves customers through the funnel. But until recently, as soon as a deal was handed off to the sales team, it entered a content black hole.    There has been no way to answer very basic questions about sales content. Do reps have what they need? Do they use it? Do customers pay any attention to it? Does any of this actually generate real revenue? Even in our increasingly data-driven world, sales content has remained back in the days of guess and hope. But an emerging set of Sales Enablement platforms has changed that. They manage sales content throughout your sales engagements and use analytics to give you full visibility into how that content performs.   This guide walks through eight reports that answer the key business questions about sales content and shows how to use them to optimize the way your company engages with customers.

Industry research shows that effective sales coaching can dramatically improve the performance of a sales team - in some cases driving up revenues by 20% or more.   The reason for such potential improvements is the significant "multiplier effect" sales organizations can achieve through sales coaching: one trained manager can coach multiple sales professionals and improve their overall performance. With such potential benefits it is no wonder that many sales organizations recommend that their frontline sales managers spend 25% - 45% of their time sales coaching.   The High Impact Sales Coaching Guide provides expert advice on essential sales coaching skills to help sales managers effectively empower their teams to reach their highest potential.

Sales enablement, while useful, is ad hoc in practice, thereby neglecting to provide structure to any sales process. Without proper guidance to put your initiatives into practice, your efforts will inevitably fall short and will inadvertently lead to the opposite of structure: chaos. Similarly, many sales processes today are stuck in the why - or in the chaos of poorly defined processes, ad hoc efforts, and unrecognized returns. In other words, sales leaders continue to work overtime on enabling their salesforce with repetitive maintenance strategies, while not spending nearly enough time on executing effectively to grow and scale their sales initiatives.

Regardless of industry, organizations are starting to recognize the value of big data and how they can use it to gain new insights about their business. CITO Research has surveyed Qlik customers in healthcare, banking, securities & investments, insurance, telecommunications, and retail. Download this white paper to learn more about how they are harnessing the power of big data to generate business benefits and competitive differentiators. 

Charts and graphs are an incredibly powerful way to present your data, but even minor mistakes can bury your insights in clutter and confusion. This e-book will help you tell a clear and compelling story every time with critical tips on color choices, choosing formats for different data types, avoiding "chart junk," and more.

In the era of data discovery, analytical power has migrated from the IT department to business users. Surveying over 700 analytics users, Aberdeen set out to understand modern analysts to identify what makes them successful. Among many interesting findings, Aberdeen discovered that modern analysts are 55% more likely to have access to interactive data visualization tools, and 46% more likely to have a data governance solution. Download this report to learn more.

At CeBIT 2014, Gary D. Burnette, VP of sales transformation at IBM, gave some insight into why and how IBM had deployed Sugar from SugarCRM to support a global sales force of more than 45,000 sellers within 12 months of a successful pilot. IBM's successful approach provides a valuable lesson for organizations embarking on major multi-country or global customer relationship management (CRM) deployments.

Without a doubt, technology has become a great tool for improving the effectiveness of B2B marketing. Social media, marketing automation, mobile marketing, and search engine arketing all aid in efficiently generating a high volume of leads. Whether marketing teams support sales efforts by generating and nurturing high quality leads or following up on events, technology can make their work more efficient and productive. However, smart businesses know that purchasing decisions are made by human beings who respond to personal interactions with other human beings. Though many simple business transactions can exist entirely online, effective marketing practices must include a human touch.

Today's B2B marketing organizations claim that the fundamental task of generating leads is their most significant challenge. Activities like social media marketing can be powerful, but they can also distract marketing from its core business objective, which is to generate qualified, actionable leads for sales. Outbound lead generation via telemarketing promises to resolve this challenge. Telemarketing generates high-quality leads that empower sales to drive business growth. However, many marketers' budgets are being examined with a critical eye. The phrase "do more with less" has become a dominant theme in many marketing departments. Marketing is being tasked to generate higher quality leads and do so with ever-decreasing budgets. Once marketing recognizes that telemarketing can be part of a cost-effective lead generation program, the next step is determining how to go about it. The primary consideration is whether it should be done in-house or outsourced.

Common wisdom to increase production would dictate a change in the monetary compensation plan. Pay more cash and get more results. Everyone likes money - it is a simple and rational choice. And if money is so desirable, why not use it as a reward to induce more desired behavior? Many corporations do just that. It is undeniable that money works to drive behavior, and money used as an incentive yields positive results - up to a point. The fact, however, is that money is not the optimal reward to get extra effort from people.