Mike Schultz's Blog, page 10

Infographic: 8 Ways to Maximize Sales in 2023

2023 is shaping up to be a challenging year for sellers. With economic uncertainty and organizations everywhere tightening their belts, sellers are hard-pressed to stay efficient and keep revenue flowing.

So how can you and your sellers stay on track and cross the finish line strong?

There are plenty of ways to get the most out of the team you already have. In this infographic, you'll find 8 areas of focus for 2023, each a category where Top-Performing Sellers excel compared to The Rest. Only 18.7% of sellers qualify as Top Performers, so there's always room for improvement!

How to Make Hybrid Sales Training Work

With the rise of virtual training, hybrid workforces, and self-directed learning, what is the role of in-person training? Is in-person sales training dead?

Yes and no.

It’s true the global pandemic radically changed how sales organizations think about live events, including salesforce onboarding, education, and SKOs that were once the norm. The pandemic challenged sales teams to try new and creative solutions for training, most of them digital-first.

The 6 Essential B2B Sales Funnel Stages

Interesting tidbit: the concept of a sales funnel dates back to Chicago meatpackers in the late nineteenth century. Even then, the Armours, Swifts, and Morrises of the world were tinkering with the best strategies for selling their products to other businesses.

In many ways, the fundamental challenges of selling remain the same for the modern B2B sales funnel. That is, how to strike a chord with potential buyers—how to find alignment, create value, and deliver—instead of putting them through the same generic steps.

3 Best Cold Calling Scripts and Tips

Many people want to believe that cold calling doesn't work because they don't want to have to get on the phone. Indeed, there are many ways to do it wrong and fail. Many cold callers use deceptive tactics to get through and leave a bad taste in buyers' mouths.

14 Sales Training Techniques for Building Elite Sales Teams

During a now-famous interview on the Pierre Berton Show in 1971, Bruce Lee shared a simple philosophy: “be like water.” As fitting as Lee’s advice is for sellers, “be like a sponge” works just as well.

To stay ahead, sales teams must continuously absorb new information and develop skills. Ongoing training and coaching and sustained effort over time is crucial. Otherwise, sellers (and their managers) risk not reaching their potential. Fortunately, there are sales training techniques that even the most experienced teams will soak up.

30 Sales Training Ideas for Top-Performing Teams

For sellers, routine can be a blessing and a curse. It’s true that doing the same things day in and day out provides structure. It requires discipline, too. But it can also turn into a comfort zone in which many sellers stagnate.

This is what makes recurring sales training programs so valuable. Yet even after the most engaging, resonant sales training programs, sellers tend to revert back to what they’re accustomed to doing. Which puts a heavy onus on sales managers.

Infographic: 10 Key Roles of the Best Sales Managers

How much control do sales managers have over the performance of their teams?

More than you might think. A RAIN Group Center for Sales Research study found that Elite and Top-Performing Sales Organizations prioritize sales coaching significantly more than other organizations, and they have more skilled and motivating sales managers.

Sales Training Topics to Drive Results

If you’re responsible for designing or implementing sales training for your organization, you know the effectiveness of training varies greatly.

It might not be implemented properly, land well with participants, relevant to sellers’ daily work, or it might be forgotten completely in the days and weeks following the training. Sales training fails more often than it succeeds.

But, for those who get it right, the payoffs are substantial.

7 Tips for Differentiating in the Selling Process

Differentiation often starts with marketing, but it truly comes alive in the selling process. Even if your company’s products and services are superior to all others, this means nothing if you can’t convey that to your buyers. Differentiating in sales is more than a good pitch—you need to differentiate in the right areas, adapt to your buyer’s needs, and build value.

10 Tips for Valuable Sales Coaching

Sales managers tend to believe they do a good job helping sellers solve problems and coaching them to build their capabilities. However, only 32% of sales managers are effective in getting maximum performance from sellers.