The following guest post is by Dan O’Brien, marketing manager at Prialto. It originally appeared on Salesforce Ben, and is reprinted with the author’s permission.  Want to know how to optimize your new CRM setup? Start by finding a stellar CRM administrator on your team. Nearly 60% of Salesforce implementations are unsuccessful, always due in some […]

What are sales call analytics? Sales call analytics can refer to analytics that pertains to one of two separate components of sales calls. The first component is activity numbers and performance metrics surrounding the calls themselves. The second is a measurement and analysis of the actual sales conversation that occurs on the call. The former […]

We’ve said it before and we will say it again: cold calling is hard. But, every single sales team in every single industry absolutely must make them. If your team does any type of sales prospecting, your reps need colds to reach new leads, capture new clients, grow their network, and ultimately generate more revenue. […]

My favorite sales metric that is most important and ironically, the one that is poorly measured, is how effective and consistent managers are at coaching and observing their team. This is the only way to objectively assess core sales competencies, best practices, behavior, communication and attitude, which is what ultimately determines performance. The Missing Metric: […]

Dashboards and analytics give sales managers, sales coaches, and marketers a great deal of insight into the performance of reps, but sometimes, there’s really no substitute for actually listening to phone calls. Call recordings allow managers to listen on their own schedule, instead of wasting time randomly listening to live calls with the hope of […]

It’s another Monday morning, and you find yourself surrounded by yawning colleagues, open laptops, and Starbucks disposable cups in the conference room while your sales manager drones on with the latest numbers and pipeline update. You check your email, check the news, and check your watch – can we get out already? Why do sales […]

According to a study by CSO Insights, sales organizations are using an average of 10 sales tech tools, with a plan to add another four in the next 12 months. Affectionately named the “sales stack,” these tools are all supposed to help a salesperson become more productive and yield metrics that managers can use to […]

A survey of 450 C-Suite executives has shown that enterprises are hungry for mobile customer relationship management (CRM) apps. The study, conducted by market research firm IDC and enterprise resource planning (ERP) specialist ISF, showed that 31% of respondents identified CRM apps as most-wanted among enterprise mobile apps– more than any other type of mobile […]

There are so many factors that go into managing a sales development team. You need the right reps, a solid strategy and a repeatable sales process. However, one of the most important things that sales leaders need is insight into their SDRs’ activities. It seems simple enough, but unless you’re tracking the right data points […]

Business-to-business (B2B) sales cycles can be long depending on your price point. And sure, it probably will take your reps longer to sell a marketing automation system than a TV — much more is at stake. But I can say with almost 100% certainty that your sales cycles are longer than they need to be. […]

Despite the changes of the last decade to the sales role, sales time management is still difficult. Reps face a ton of inputs – from Slack notifications to emails to calendar reminders and more. The tyranny of distraction makes it easy for reps to lose focus on what matters most very quickly: building customer relationships. […]

Things are going great with your sales contact, you’re making steady progress towards a deal. You’ve had several excellent calls with them. They seem to be fully engaged and enthusiastic about your product. They asked lots of questions during a recent demo and appear to be very excited about your customized proposal. You’re expecting a […]