About Social Media Today
- social selling
- sales process
- sales
- online community
- marketing
- lead generation
- customer service
- crm
- branding
- events
- Trending:
- SalesChaosTV
- Planning for 2012
lead management
Three Lead Management Guidelines From The NFL
Photo: Jeff Weese/Flickr(creative commons)
Running a good lead management program can be a lot like being the coach of a hot football team. You have a lot of leads coming in that need to be understood, appreciated, and then handled in a specific way depending on certain criteria. [read more]
.jpg)
3 Critical Marketing & Sales Steps Companies Won’t Take in 2012 (guest post)
Image: Courtesy of author blog
Sales lead management is a basic business process that is broken in most companies today. [read more]
Is it Time to Take Your Lead Generation Activities More Seriously?
Image: Courtesy of author blog
My regular observations have led me to conclude that very few organizations have a formal plan, strategy or methodology in place to manage leads, preferring the “scatter-gun” approach, because all business is good business, isn’t it? Well, actually no, it isn’t. [read more]
How Do Your Successful Salespeople Leverage Social Media for Selling?
Image: Courtesy of author blog
After talking to eight of the top thought leaders in sales training and sales technology we wanted to bring their insights to you. This is going to be a 3-part series that covers what successful salespeople are doing to leverage social media in lead generation and accelerating their opportunities. [read more]
Driving Demand with Social Intelligence
Image: Courtesy of author blog
The traditional approach to demand generation focuses primarily on outbound offers and campaigns to drive new leads into the funnel. However, the shift in buyer behavior forces companies to rethink their approach to demand generation. Social media stands out as a new source of customer engagement because it provides sales and marketing organizations with a tremendous opportunity to follow potential customers – even before they reach out to them. [read more]
Sales Prospecting: Follow-Up or Follow-Down
No salesperson is ever going to admit they don’t follow-up. If a salesperson is asked if they follow-up, they’re naturally going to respond with a yes. The problem is most salespeople are not nearly as good at sales prospecting as they think they are. I’m not talking about the salesperson who does not follow-up for the 5th, 6th,... [read more]
To Improve Sales Performance, Fail Faster [and Become 'Mr. Clean']
Mr. Clean® is a registered trademark of Procter & Gamble.
Losing deals stay in a sales pipe more than twice as long as winning deals. To be a winner, start by failing faster.Want to win? Then make it your mission to lose quicker. It’s hard not to agree that sales, by its very nature, is a highly human-centric endeavor. All good salespeople know intuitively when a deal is going to happen, and... [read more]
How Focused Are Your Lead Generation Activities?
Image source: Author's blog
Use of ‘Pareto Thinking’ is highly relevant and important when applied to sales people. For example, 20% of sales people’s activities will create 80% of sales achieved, which has enormous consequences on how to optimise and manage lead generation activities. Generating leads is an important sales activity that plants the seeds of... [read more]
How Much Time Do Sales People Waste?
Image: Courtesy of author blog
We need to find prospects, get them bought-in to the possibility of using our solution, get them what they need to understand our solution and how it might fit, get past gatekeepers, manage objections, get to the right people who will know how to buy us, and wait. And then, we only close a small fraction. [read more]
The 3 Critical B2B Sales Pipeline Metrics
How healthy is your sales pipeline right now? And what steps are you taking to progressively improve its fitness? Just as your own doctor might measure your body temperature, heart rate and blood pressure before putting you on a personal fitness regime, a pipeline doctor would want to understand your qualified pipeline... [read more]
Why Web-Based Sales Tools Are Inside Sales Weapons
From SFA, we went to CRM and then, for many, just plain Web tools. And at least for the inside sales sector, they’re invaluable in achieving efficiency. [read more]
Content Marketing Needs More Than Content
A lot of companies have embraced the idea of content for use in marketing. This being said, there's much more to the practice of content marketing than just cranking out content. B2B companies with complex sales that overlook the strategy and process will find themselves in the weeds in short order. I'm working with a lot of companies... [read more]
Grab the Referral Wheel and Watch Your Sales Double
Image by TheLivingRoomInKenmore via Flickr
A guest post by Joanne Black -- Every salesperson in every industry proclaims that referrals generate new business the fastest and most cost effective way. When you receive a referral introduction you: • Arrive pre-sold—the prospect knows who you are and actually wants to meet you • Gain trust and credibility—the most difficult thing... [read more]
The Foolproof Way to Measure Your Trade Show ROI
Photo: Courtesy of author blog
Do you know what the ROI from your trade show program is? It’s not hard to figure out, but it does take some effort. Use these 6 steps to measure your results. [read more]
More New Thoughts on Selling
Image: Courtesy of author blog
Following up yesterday's Moneyball article, here are some more new things for you to think about. When your salespeople are in front of or on the phone with prospects, do they ever think in terms of whether their prospects: Want what you're selling? Need what you're selling? Must solve a problem that you can solve? Don't care?... [read more]
Advertisement
Ardath Albee is CEO and B2B Marketing Strategist for her firm Marketing Interactions and an author. More »
Dave Brock is President and CEO of Partners In EXCELLENCE, a global consulting company. More »
Charles Green is founder and CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates and an author. More »
Paul Greenberg is the author of the best-selling CRM at the Speed of Light and President of The 56 Group, LLC. More »
Gavin Heaton is the author of one of Australia's leading marketing blogs. More »
Jill Konrath is a recognized expert in B2B sales and the author of Selling to Big Companies. More »
Kendra Lee is author of the awward-winning "Selling Against the Goal" and a popula speaker on sales prospecting/lead generat More »
Mike Merriman is Director of Strategic Service at MZinga and has an extensive background in product development and management. More »
Natalie Petouhoff Dr. Natalie serves as the Chief Strategist for Social Media, Digital Communications and Measurement at Weber Shandwick More »
Anneke Seley is the CEO and founder of Phone Works, a sales strategy and implementation consultancy, and an author. More »
- YOU
- Ardath Albee
- Bob Apollo
- David Armano
- Trish Bertuzzi
- Dave Brock
- Brian Carroll
- Krishna De
- Jonathan Farrington
- Josiane Feigon
- Francois Gossieaux
- Charles Green
- Paul Greenberg
- Marc Hausman
- Matt Heinz
- Adam Honig
- Patrick Kitano
- Craig Klein
- Christopher Koch
- Jill Konrath
- Simon Mainwaring
- Christian Maurer
- Paul McCord
- David Meerman Scott
- Sharon Drew Morgen
- Tisha Oehmen
- Natalie Petouhoff
- Augie Ray
- Matt Rhodes
- Lori Richardson
- Kelley Robertson
- Lee Salz
- Todd Schnick
- Anneke Seley
- Koka Sexton
- Paul Simon
- Dave Stein
- Sivaraman Swaminathan
- Dale Underwood
- Greg Verdino
- Mike Volpe
- Dan Waldschmidt
- Tony Zambito
No events listed
“I hope you know how much I respect you personally and professionally Francois, but I have to disagree based on what I am seeing in the market.Last year, and the year before, I was very much in agreement that the term Social Business should not be hijacked and in the process disrespectful of the great work of Dr Yunus. In fact, I wrote about this, spoke about this and occasionally passionately and ...”
“There is a difference between hearing and listening. One problem that sales people make is that they only hear but they do not listen to what the prospect is saying. When talking with the prospect, one should focus on that person alone, understand what they want and what they are trying to say. These 3 things are often ignored but if this is taken by heart, the results will be better.Great ...”