Mike Schultz's Blog, page 24

6 Common LinkedIn Selling Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

LinkedIn is a powerful prospecting and sales tool. It’s a great way to connect with new buyers, stay top of mind, and engage with your network.

5 Steps to Prepare for Sales Success

Sales success doesn't just happen. Sales winners aren't born with special knowledge or abilities that others don't have. Maybe it looks that way when you watch top performers from the outside, but they've worked to hone their skills, constantly learning and improving.

And guess what? The secret to sales success isn't, as Blake says in Glengarry Glen Ross, to "Always be closing."

The secret to success is all in the preparation.

The Sales Training and Enablement Revolution

The cliché of clichés to open an article like this is to say change is afoot. So I won't open with "change is afoot."

In the world of sales training and enablement, change is explosive.

There's a revolution going on in training and sales enablement that organizations can no longer ignore.

How Do You Build Rapport with Customers?

Everybody's brain has two different processing centers: emotional and rational. The emotional brain is old. It developed millions of years ago, first with raw instincts—like fight or flight—that all animals have, and then into more complex emotions for us humans like anger, aggression, desire, fear, hatred, passion, love, disgust, sympathy, and so on.

Then there's the rational side, which developed more like tens of thousands of years ago. This part of the brain is more deliberate, analyzing and studying, and thinking about the future consequences of various possible actions.

[New Guide] The Complete Guide to Sales Training Success

Sales training is often approached with a car wash mentality: You're in, you're out, and you're ready to sell.

But this isn't how real learning happens. This isn't how you help sellers raise the bar and change how they sell.

It's time for an entirely new approach to sales education; an approach that overhauls the way sales training is conceived, designed, and executed over the long-term.

An approach that drives real behavior change and results.

7 Questions to Uncover Impact and ROI

Show them the impact.

Make a strong ROI case.

Sell the value.

Sales pros tout the benefits of making a strong ROI (return on investment) case all the time. Yet we see sellers time and again who don't know how to calculate and communicate the impact of their solutions.

They focus on features in their conversations and highlight the benefits, but don't convey what it means for each individual buyer and the difference it can make for them—financially, personally, and emotionally.

[Infographic] 10 Ways to Achieve Your Top Sales Priorities

We recently surveyed 423 sales and enablement leaders and discovered their top 10 sales priorities for the year ahead:

3 Productivity Tips for Your Remote Salespeople

This RAIN Group article was first published on Selling Power.

Sales managers face a myriad of challenges managing remote sales teams.

When seller and manager are in different places, though, one challenge stands above all else: ensuring sales productivity.

Seventy-one percent of companies don't believe their sellers manage their time and days effectively. If you want your remote sales team to be productive, this has to change.

Here are three habits from our Extreme Productivity System (XPS) to help your remote sales team control its time, get in the zone to be highly productive, and achieve the best possible results.

6 Steps of a Successful Sales Process: Understanding the Buyer's and Seller's Perspective

How would you rate your organization's sales process?

Ad-hoc: No consistent process
Emerging: Some consistency and planning framework
Defined: Guides sellers to plan for—and win—opportunities
Managed (adoptive): Well-defined and easy to use, offering specific details and guidance for selling
World-Class (adaptive): All of the above—and then some!

World-class sales processes aren't built overnight. And they never remain stagnant.

They are measured and improved regularly, with best practices for strategies and tactics outlined clearly across all six phases of the sales cycle.

5 Essential Facts You Need to Know About Sales Prospecting

This RAIN Group article was first published on Selling Power.

When it comes to sales prospecting, sellers are frequently told the following:

"Cold calling doesn't work."
"It's impossible to get through to buyers cold."
"With all the information on the Internet, buyers do their own research and reach out later in the sales process."
"You shouldn't pitch your capabilities."

But rarely do sellers stop and think, "Is any of this true?"

According to 488 buyers (who get prospected to all the time) and 489 sellers who outbound prospect, these generally accepted-to-be-true statements are, in fact, false. They're sales prospecting myths that too many sellers follow, and it's hurting their results.

Here are the facts when it comes to sales prospecting: