Red Star Kim

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

Long before I learned of the value of Socratic questioning in coaching and counselling, I remember an editor asking me to use Socratic questioning in some writing. Socratic questioning is a way to drive logical argument. It’s helpful in conversations, critical thinking and negotiation. So what is Socratic questioning? (Questioning skills). This article on Socratic questioning follows an earlier and longer post on questioning skills Why are questions so important?

Negotiation 130

Negotiation Facilitation Emotional Intelligence Sales 130

Account Manager Tips

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

Explore Eric van Antwerpen's unique approach to redefining success in sales teams.

Sales 147

Sales Account Management Management 147

SBI Growth

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

As business leaders, we get excited when we think about just how much a Sales team empowered by artificial intelligence (AI) can achieve in terms of commercial productivity, but the reality is that most companies aren’t there yet because it’s a long learning process for everyone involved.

Artificial Intelligence 121

Artificial Intelligence Sales Marketing 121

Customer Think

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

In the dynamic world of e-commerce, understanding your customers is key to success. Meeting customer needs is critical in today’s competitive e-commerce landscape. Digital platforms have raised consumer expectations by offering a wide range of products and services. Customer-centricity is more than a trend; it is a strategic approach that sets companies apart.

Digitalization 119

Digitalization Meetings Marketing 119

2023's struggles fueled a shift: companies are ditching wasteful strategies in favor of data and AI-powered growth. Enter 2024, the year GTC takes center stage. Discover 5 ways a customer-centric approach unlocks new revenue and delivers lasting success.

Red Star Kim

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Most people appreciate the importance of questioning skills in selling, training, coaching, counselling (especially Cognitive Based Therapy – CBT) and commercial conversations. In this post I explore different types of questions and how they can be used in various business scenarios. Why are questions so important? (Questioning skills). The importance of questions Children learn by asking questions.

Negotiation 130

Negotiation Value Proposition Emotional Intelligence Decision-making 130

The Center for Sales Strategy

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

"I spend all day making cold calls, and I'm getting very little to show for my efforts. Getting the first appointment is harder than ever. If I could just get my foot in the door." It's a common complaint from B2B sales reps nowadays. Traditional prospecting approaches like cold calling have become less and less effective over the years. Decision makers simply don't answer unsolicited sales calls like they used to.

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B2B Decision-making Sales Marketing 111

Customer Think

FEBRUARY 18, 2024

At its core, a data warehouse is a centralized repository that stores data from multiple sources in a structured format, enabling organizations to perform complex analytics and generate insights. Unlike traditional databases, which are optimized for transactional processing, data warehouses focus on analytical processing, facilitating strategic decision-making based on historical and real-time data.

Facilitation 106

Facilitation Decision-making Organization 106

The Great Game of Business

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

Like most business owners, you seek innovative ways to motivate your teams, enhance productivity, and achieve sustainable success. One powerful strategy is the implementing bonus programs.

Innovation 83

Innovation 83

The Center for Sales Strategy

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Here is a truth bomb that might just revolutionize your sales strategy. Brace yourself because I'm about to tell you why your meticulously crafted pitches about features and benefits are falling on deaf ears. Yes, you heard that right. It is time to shift gears and move beyond the traditional features and benefits spiel.

Sales 109

Sales 109

Brooks Group

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

Qualifying prospects is one of the selling skills every great sales professional relies on. That’s because filling your sales pipeline is a numbers game. Buyers leave the funnel for many reasons as they progress through the sales process : lack of budget, timing, or wrong fit to name a few. You’ve got to qualify many more prospects than you need. Yet inexperienced salespeople tend to fast-forward to the pitch without properly understanding their prospects’ wants and needs.

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Prioritization Sales Training Sales Construction 80

Advertiser: ZoomInfo

Marketing technology is essential for B2B marketers to stay competitive in a rapidly changing digital landscape — and with 53% of marketers experiencing legacy technology issues and limitations, they’re researching innovations to expand and refine their technology stacks. To help practitioners keep up with the rapidly evolving martech landscape, this special report will discuss: How practitioners are integrating technologies and systems to encourage information-sharing between departments and pr

B2B

Nutshell

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

Want to get more of your marketing team on your CRM and email marketing platform so they can send email campaigns, but don’t want to pay for an entire seat? A new update we’ve been hinting at is here! Introducing three free marketing seats for Nutshell Pro customers and above! Nutshell is here to help sales and marketing teams work better together.

Marketing 71

Marketing CRM Management Sales 71

Force Management

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

Healthy sales pipelines and accurate forecasts are grounded in structured territory, account and opportunity planning processes. These processes provide sales managers with an unrestricted line of sight into their sales organizations. Without this line of sight, sales organizations often miss quota goals, forecast revenue inaccurately, and close the majority of deals late in the quarter – or year.

Sales 71

Sales Sales Management Organization Management 71

The Center for Sales Strategy

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

In this episode of Improving Sales Performance, we’re once again diving into The 5th Annual Media Sales Report by The Center for Sales Strategy. Today, we’re exploring why sales managers are experiencing such increased difficulty in achieving organizational goals. Joining Matt to discuss that and much more is Stephanie Downs, SVP/Senior Consultant here at CSS.

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Media Sales Management Sales Management 107

ClearPoint Strategy

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

Discover the 10 features that set apart the best business reporting software. Enhance your decision-making with insights on functionality and capabilities.

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Software Software Decision-making 81

Advertisement

How do 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party intent data compare? 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party data each have specific advantages and disadvantages. It comes down to four factors: accuracy, cost, control and quantity. This infographic explains the pros and cons of each and helps you understand which one is best for meeting your business objectives. Intent data can be a great way to fill your pipeline and close more deals.

Meetings

Customer Think

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

When it comes to the mobile ecosystem, change is the one constant we can count on. During the pandemic, brands were nimble and adopted new mobile technologies and strategies to reach their customers digitally. In 2023, we saw brands evolve and become more strategic across the mobile customer lifecycle.

Marketing 69

Marketing Digitalization 69

Groove HQ

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

Customer acquisition is difficult. Its costs time and money to get a new customer and if they churn quickly, your LTV suffers and suddenly your can not afford such CAC’s as your competitor can. We all know where this downward spiral ends. To evade this fate, you must focus on customers. Not just have them […] The post Customer Advocacy through Customer Support: Lower Churn, Higher Loyalty appeared first on Groove Blog.

Acquisition 67

Acquisition 67

The Center for Sales Strategy

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

New data from the Media Sales Report shows that 46% of managers believe less than 20% of their sales teams are underperforming. It’s a terrible position to be in. It sucks your energy, time, and takes your focus from where you can be making a positive impact. It’s hard on leaders and underperformers. Underperformers usually fall into two categories: 1.

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Management Sales Media Sales Leadership 102

Strategic Planning and Management Insights

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

The great resignation woke the eyes of many business leaders to shift their culture in their organizations. That culture shift will keep them afloat in their business because everyone aboard is driven to keep the ship sailing. In this episode, Brad Zimmerman , the Co-Founder and Partner of Phoenix Performance Partner, dives into The Great Engagement to guide leaders into creating high-performing cultures.

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Profitability Organization Leadership 59

Speaker: Susan Spencer, Principal of Spencer Communications

Intent signal data can go a long way toward shortening sales cycles and closing more deals. The challenge is deciding which is the best type of intent data to help your company meet its sales and marketing goals. In this webinar, Susan Spencer, fractional CMO and principal of Spencer Communications, will unpack the differences between contact-level and company-level intent signals.

Sales

Customer Think

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

For those not familiar with my work, I’m an active author, consultant, researcher and trainer in CX and EX (and also a member of CustomerThink’s Hall of Fame).

Customer Experience 69

Customer Experience 69

Groove HQ

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

“Why are you selling $1 for 90 cents ?” “Well, profits are not great but the revenue is booming!” To some, it may seem like a joke, but for many businesses, this is a reality that they ignore. Today we will dig deep into what is CAC and how to keep it lower than your […] The post Customer Acquisition Cost: Less CAC More LTV appeared first on Groove Blog.

Acquisition 67

Acquisition Profitability 67

The Center for Sales Strategy

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

How much more productive would you be if you focussed on your inputs? This means avoiding all distractions and only working on planning, pitching, and following up—all the factors that budge the needle, not those that don't. A lot of valuable time is wasted focusing on things we cannot control. For example, we have zero control over the economy, competitors, pricing, inventory, or customers' attitudes.

Sales 80

Sales 80

RAIN Group

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

In the competitive arena of sales, the true game-changer is having a well-trained sales team whose behaviors result in the desired outcomes. Consider the case of a technology firm that revamps its sales strategy to focus on consultative selling. During training, a conversation planning tool is shared that helps reps prepare for needs discovery meetings.

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Sales Meetings Sales Training 58

What if there was a better method of changing the conversation with your customer from delivering pricing to delivering value solutions? A method that would help keep you in control, manage the uncertainty, and close larger deals more quickly for you and your company? There is.

Negotiation

Customer Think

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

How to gain and keep a customer’s trust has become an ever-present challenge in recent years, with customers becoming increasingly concerned about data, privacy and security issues. This trust challenge has been exacerbated over the last year with the emergence of Generative AI. Recent research by Qualtrics XM Institute reveals how big this challenge has become.

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Zendesk

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

What is a customer persona template? A customer persona template is a tool businesses use to create a detailed description of their ideal customer based on market research and customer data. While customer or buyer persona templates can vary depending on your business needs, they generally include demographic information, interests, motivations, frustrations, and more.

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Decision-making Brainstorming Media Communication 52

ProlifIQ

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

The State of Account Planning in 2024 2023 was a challenging year for go-to-market teams. With economic uncertainty, slowing growth, and more scrutiny on every purchase, many teams struggled to close deals and retain accounts. To better understand how teams are adapting to this new environment, we surveyed over 250 professionals across sales, customer success, account management, and more about their account planning processes, challenges, and priorities for 2024.

Account Planning 52

Account Planning CRM Energy and Utilities Account Management 52

PandaDoc

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

Leads, opportunities, sales: That’s the natural sequence of the sales process, right? But opportunities can be much more than that. All you need to do is zoom out, see the bigger picture and start looking for long-term growth and expansion possibilities rather than focusing only on short-term conversion objectives. Below, we’ll discuss the impact that a robust opportunity management process can have on your bottom line.

Management 52

Management CRM Sales Decision-making 52

Advertiser: ZoomInfo

In times of economic uncertainty, account-based strategies are essential. According to several business analysts and practitioners, ABM is a necessity for creating more predictable revenue. Research shows that nearly three-quarters of marketers (74%) already have the resources needed to build successful ABM programs.

Marketing

Customer Think

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

I recently read a blog post by Seth Godin titled, “The four cohorts of the status quo“ It reminded of the fact that as leaders, we need to understand the concept of status quo, how to leverage it and deal with it, as appropriate.

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Leadership 64

Flevy

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

Achieving sustainable growth often requires organizations to look beyond traditional revenue streams. Revenue Diversification is a strategic approach that mitigates risks associated with overreliance on a single source of income by spreading revenue sources across different products, services, or markets. The diversification of revenue streams is crucial for organizations aiming to enhance their resilience against market volatility, tap into new growth opportunities, and ultimately, secure a com

Digital Transformation 52

Digital Transformation Management Digitalization Publishing 52

Arpedio

FEBRUARY 23, 2024

In today’s fast-paced and ever-evolving business landscape, organizations face a myriad of challenges when it comes to driving revenue growth and maximizing profitability. As customer expectations continue to rise and market dynamics shift at an unprecedented pace, the need for a strategic approach to revenue generation has never been more critical.

Acquisition 52

Acquisition Facilitation Artificial Intelligence Decision-making 52

Insightly

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

This article was originally published on Fast Company Executive Board. Check out nearly any review platform for SaaS companies and a phrase you’ll run into often is “ease of use.” It is important because nearly all users and SaaS buyers cite “ease of use” as one of the top requirements for software they purchase. This should be fairly straightforward—how quick is the learning curve to onboard new users to the product or platform?

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CRM Decision-making Onboarding Manufacturing 52

Advertisement

Contact and company intent data both have their advantages. Contact-level intent leads can be acted on immediately to reach active buyers, while company-level leads improve outcomes for account-based marketing and other programs. This infographic unpacks the advantages of both contact and company data and gives details about how B2B marketers can benefit from both.

B2B