Since releasing our Complete Guide to Inside Sales Analytics, I’ve had some time to reflect on what the most important sales metric is. While there are dozens of metrics that I believe sales leaders must track in order to succeed, one metric keeps sticking out in my mind, and it’s a fairly simple one: sales conversations […]

Does the idea of sales experts pitted against each other in a sudden death tournament intrigue you? Is there at least one legendary book that helped you be the sales hero you are today? Do you love March Madness? If you answered yes to at least two of those questions, you’re a contender to win […]

House of Cards is back for its forth season. This is just one of those shows that keeps getting better and better and I can hardly wait to see how the latest season ends (I envision some binge-watching in my future). If you’re new to House of Cards, it’s the story of Frank Underwood (played by Kevin Spacey), […]

iPass, a market research firm, has released their Global Mobile Workforce Report for Q1, and with it an infographic that expertly displays the chasm between mobile workers’ demand for data and businesses’ ability to organize an infrastructure that effectively delivers this data. Some interesting finds from the iPass report: The mobile stack (average number of […]

Context for Sales Conversations For sales managers with Salesforce, lead status can only tell you so much about about the state of the prospect interaction. When you need real insights into a relationship with a contact, the progress of a discussion, or where things left off, you have to read the call notes. The call […]

In my experience, one of the biggest differences between successful and unsuccessful sales reps has been the amount of sales conversations that they have each day. A lot of work goes into having a single successful sales conversation. The most successful reps follow up relentlessly, leverage tools to connect with more prospects and can keep qualified prospects on […]

It’s not uncommon for star sales reps to be promoted or otherwise move into sales management. Unfortunately, top salespeople aren’t necessarily the best sales managers. The sales manager is a critical role, and you must select the right person for it. If the wrong individual is chosen, there may be significant costs to your organization. […]

  IBM is just the latest business to discover how powerful social media can be as a lead generation tool. A buyer preference study revealed that one third of B2B buyers are currently using social media to make purchasing decisions. This number is only going to grow. The study indicates that 75% of respondents are […]

Sales prospecting is a challenge. Most salespeople aren’t very good at it. Why? Because they haven’t cultivated the right habits. Masterful sales prospecting skills can take years to develop. But the truth is that by nurturing some simple habits you can fast-track your path to prospecting success. To develop new habits, you must make a commitment […]

At its very core, a sales rep’s job description is to lead. Outside of transactional sales models like retail and e-commerce, deals are not signed unless a sales rep leads a prospect to a buying decision. Sure, the ability to lead customers is a must. But some of the most successful salespeople have already realized […]

Maya Angelou, the great American poet, famously wrote: “People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. People will never forget how you made them feel.” This wisdom directly applies to how you sell, and is one of the keys to success in sales overall. There’s no escaping the reality that your […]

For most B2B companies and some B2Cs, the complex lead nurturing campaigns and remarketing ad technology at our fingertips are all part of a marathon designed to eventually enable a conversation between our sales reps and the right decision maker. Given this, shouldn’t call tracking metrics be as essential, if not even more essential, than […]