I recently came across the question “ Sales Training “worst practices”: What are some of the biggest mistakes made in sales training? ” on focus.com , and I thought the points made in each answer were excellent, and I couldn’t agree more with what was said about the mistakes made during the sales training process. think it really comes down to putting the necessary processes in place to stop mistakes from happening from the get go of sales training. 3-4pm: Intro to CRM system. MORE >>

Modern Selling is the online community for B2B sales managers in the UK. They’ve been listening to the concerns of sales people for some time and one theme keeps recurring – that sales is dying. Across the world, B2B sales people are finding it harder to sell. Leads aren’t coming into their CRM as they were. Numbers of calls to reach decision makers have rocketed (this is backed up by a recent UK survey, which found a rise from 4 calls to 40). Others had recognised that change was needed… “People don’t call you back or reply to emails? MORE >>

” The folks in attendance were serious about their craft, and their companies had each made an investment of at minimum $30,000 per year plus staffing and training to put the powerful capabilities of marketing automation to use in the organizations. But we marketers often cannot control the practices on the sales side of the fence, and this massively impacts our ability to show ROI. asked this audience a raise your hand question: “How many of your sales people keep their client list on spreadsheets and not in the CRM?” million. MORE >>

This data deluge presents new challenges as well as big opportunities, especially for sales organizations, to distill actionable insights about prospects and transform selling from an art to science. Harnessing business and social intelligence about prospects will no longer be optional, but essential for increasing sales productivity and win rates. Today’s customers are not very responsive to traditional sales and marketing tactics such as email blasts, cold-calls, and canned pitches. Over 70% of the buyer’s journey is complete before it gets to sales. MORE >>

There are tools that inside sales reps can utilize too that can increase their productivity. Create templates and it syncs with most CRM’s. Last week I wrote an article on what some of your options may be to spend that remaining marketing budget as the end of year approaches and how those campaigns will effect your sales pipeline. In the post 4 Marketing Options For The End Of Year Budget And Their Sales Pipeline Impact I discuss spending on Trade Shows/Conferences, Webinars, Email Campaigns, and Teleprospecting Campaigns. Monday, October 1, 2012. MORE >>