What’s Happening: the Covid-19 Pandemic has fundamentally changed the world of sales prospecting — likely forever. A McKinsey survey found 70-80% of B2B decision-makers say they prefer remote interactions to in-person. Hence, video calls, emails, chats, and social media conversations are replacing lunches, dinners, drinks, and other forms of in-person entertainment as a salesperson’s primary relationship …
Is there anything worse than a boring PowerPoint presentation? Actually, yes, a poorly designed one. And according to Microsoft, it’s costing companies big.
...B2B Sales leaders need to rethink how they manage their sales organizations in terms of content, data, technology, processes and people to effectively compete in today’s social distanced, hybrid work; self-servicing world. Today and in the future, the best informed bird wins the sale. Why?70% or more of buyers are conducting pre-purchase research online50% or more …
Effective PowerPoint presentation deck design isn’t just about making your slides look great—you need to engage your buyers, hold their attention, and deliver a clear message they’ll remember and that motivates them to take action.Look over the last dozen presentation decks you’ve created or sat through and ask yourself: are your presentations up to the …
The COVID-19 pandemic changed the public’s outlook on many aspects of life. More specifically, the outlook on remote work and the future of the workplace in general was altered dramatically. Employees alternating between working remotely and working in the office isn’t just a temporary pandemic blip, but according to most research, a cultural shift that …
Love it or hate it, virtual presenting is here for the long haul and YOU need to be good at it. That’s what the smart folks over at Gartner Research think. And honestly, after looking at all of the various data I’ve seen published since the COVID-19 pandemic began, I think they’re right. But don’t take my …
Have you ever been at a networking event and met someone you really hit it off with, but there was just something off-putting about them that made you hesitant to work together? They had the connections, the skills, the product, the charisma…but man, their breath just stank? Now, the nice, reasonable guy in me would …
“What are the best ways to build rapport with customers or prospects during a virtual sales call or meeting?” – a great question answered in this post.
...On a recent virtual selling webinar we delivered one of the attendees asked “Do you have any suggestions on how to cut through the high-volume message clutter and information overload suffered by potential prospects?” Rather than limit my answer just to that individual, I thought I would share it with you too. So here are …
This week, the Wall St. Journal proclaimed “Business Travel Won’t Be Taking Off Soon Amid Coronavirus.” In the article, numerous CEO’s remarked they intend to maintain a smaller travel budget, field fewer face-to-face sales calls and in general, continue leveraging the efficiencies of virtual selling for the foreseeable future, if not forever. This shouldn’t come …
NEW Research strongly suggests that Social Selling and digital sales tools, which have been steadily becoming more central to successful sales prospecting over the last 10 years will continue to dominate post Covid-19 outbreak. Read More…
...Are you a first time Zoom user? If you’re like any of my friends, chances are the answer to that question is YES. Or maybe your team has chosen Facetime Calls, or GoToMeeting or Google Hangouts or Skype or any host of other video calling platforms to meet during this time of social distancing. It …
Recently I ran across and interesting discussion on LinkedIn about the effectiveness of cold calls — or maybe better stated — lack of effectiveness. One comment in particular jumped out at me and really got me to thinking about a future where the cold call could again be an effective outbound sales prospecting tool. Every …
Marketing has always had its 4P’s, and now Sales has its 5P’s – a proven relationship first approach to consistently closing more deals with less work.
...The single biggest mistake sales teams make today is focusing exclusively on prospects and ignoring these social agents who will introduce you to prospective customers both offline and online.
...Is Patience simply a virtue or is there real profitability in a patient sales prospecting/closing approach?
...What are the 5 most important questions to ask on a first sales call in order to write a winning proposal?
...This week RSW/US released its New Year Outlook 2020 Survey Report and based on the content, I think smaller, independent and/or specialist agencies will need to step up their biz dev game and learn to Sell Greatly this year or get left behind. Let’s talk about why. Clients Plan To Shrink Their Agency Rosters Charts …
Are you properly prepared to develop stronger interpersonal relationships with your sales prospects to improve the effectiveness of your lead nurturing?
If not, read on…
...To Sell Greatly, a salesperson has to be relationship first. And the most important skill in building strong, enduring relationships is the ability to be a good listener. Ironically, most of us are terrible listeners. It’s like we completely understand the importance of listening well, but we just can’t bring ourselves to actually do it …
How does the Millennial style of communication hold up in the world of sales, which depends so much on interpersonal relationships and the soft skills that make sales happen? More on that here.
...Every year the Content Marketing Institute publishes a seminal report on the state of the Content Marketing Industry. This year, we thought we’d share it but through the lens of sales prospecting and using content to Sell Greatly. Content Marketing Still Focused on The Top of The Funnel. Few content marketers report they use it …
Today’s post is inspired by the KSHMR, Nevve song Do Bad Well. It got me to thinking about how salespeople approach sales training today. So often, instead of trying to learn how to do good, the training just reinforces how to do bad well. Stick with me here… it will all come together. Doing Bad …
Let’s face it. Every second you spend sales prospecting that doesn’t result in a sale or the creation of a long-term Social Agent relationship is basically wasted time. So today, let’s talk about the four things you can do immediately to improve your sales prospecting success rate. Never Talk To a Stranger As a salesperson, …
What Are The Advantages of Face-to-Face Meetings? While everyone loves the ability of technology to scale our sales efforts, save time and my personal favorite, call on sales prospects all around the globe while sleeping in my own bed each night, the simple truth is, nothing closes a deal like a great face-to-face meeting with …
Prince wasn’t just a great singer, he was also a great sales prospecting philosopher. Don’t believe me? Let’s look at two of his songs and how he contrasts the painful traditional ad agency business development process vs a painless prospecting process preferred by agencies like Converse Digital. Traditional RFP Based Business Development Are you familiar …
Getting and maintaining a consumers’ or sales prospects’ attention. It’s the single hardest and most important step in any sales process. So how, in a digitally centric, content overload world do you actually do it? Getting A Sales Prospect’s Attention People will take interesting calls. – David Droga Getting A Consumer’s Attention Attention spans are …
For people that wish they could Sell Greatly, here is a a simple process for quickly creating empathy-based connections with sales prospects that creates conversations that turn into customers.
...Three things that you should NEVER do in sales prospecting and three sales prospecting gems you should live daily.
...If you hate sales prospecting… making cold calls… sending cold emails… and interrupting folks in their social media inboxes… then you should read this post.
...