Mike Schultz's Blog, page 6

What Is Key Account Management? [+ Checklist]

Your team just won a new logo! Congratulations!

This one has buzz. It’s modest to start, but there’s potential to sell into multiple buying centers, across geographies, and the new product your company is launching will help the customer simplify their processes, increase efficiencies, and reduce strain on their supply chain.

But that’s all in the hands of the key account team now.

What is key account management (KAM)?

Key account management is a systematic approach to managing and growing a named set of an account manager’s most important customers to maximize mutual value and achieve mutually beneficial goals.

The good news is that new business from key accounts is 60% to 70% more likely to close compared to the 5% to 20% likelihood of closing a deal with a new client.

How to Use a Field Advisory Board in Your Sales Enablement Strategy

In the competitive landscape of B2B sales, organizations are constantly seeking ways to improve their sales training to drive better results. One highly effective approach we’re seeing gain traction among our clients is the establishment of field advisory boards.

Sales Interview Questions To Elevate Your Recruiting

TL;DR? Download a PDF of these questions to use in your sales interviews.

As a sales leader or sales enablement executive, you know just how important it is to hire the right sales reps for your team.

The key to raising your hiring success rate, as we’ve written elsewhere, is to follow a process built on strategy, sourcing, screening, scoring, and selling.

But how do you conduct engaging recruiting interviews that help you assess candidates’ skills, personality, and fit for your company culture? What questions should you ask? How can you gauge candidates’ actual abilities?

Rethinking Self-Study for Sales Enablement

Sales enablement teams regularly struggle to provide sellers with the skills and tools needed to get results like building pipelines, closing sales, growing accounts, and increasing win rates.

It's a challenge to ensure sales training achieves desired outcomes, whether sales enablement is a team of one or many. Training programs must be developed, facilitators prepped, and programs delivered. Ongoing reinforcement and support must be supplied so learning sticks and sellers apply what they’ve learned to get results. And all this upskilling needs to be repeated when new sellers join the team.

The Complete Guide to Sales Forecasting and Pipeline Management

Assume you’re a sales manager for a mid-sized enterprise. You’ve just received a call from your chief revenue officer who wants to know how much revenue you expect your team to produce between now and the end of the year.

You pull up your spreadsheet and start reviewing the numbers, but the forecast just doesn’t look right. Sales have been consistent, but there are so many variables at play and it’s hard to predict what the future holds. Market conditions are volatile, sales cycles are getting longer, and your team is experiencing turnover. To make matters worse, the data you’re working with is incomplete and outdated.

You're feeling the pressure to get it right but you’re not confident you can.

Should You Focus On Short- or Long-Term Sales Training Outcomes?

Sales training is an essential part of any successful sales enablement program. However, not all sales training initiatives are created equal. While some programs may produce short-term results, they often fail to deliver long-term success.

17 Sales Tips to Boost Your Success

Wouldn’t it be great if there were a silver bullet that would help you close more deals and make the most of your selling efforts?

I hate to disappoint, but there isn't one. Sales success takes hard work and commitment along with skill and savvy. The best sellers are fluent in every part of the sales process.

While there isn’t a single secret to selling, there are steps you can take to better engage with buyers and boost your win rate. You can start by following these sales tips.

Mastering the Sales Cycle: Definition, Stages, and Tips [+Infographic]

No two deals are ever quite the same, but every seller needs the same set of core skills to win sales. From the first outreach to closing a deal, each of these skills is necessary to move the sales cycle forward.

Keys to Effective Sales Coaching

More than ever, sales teams are struggling with unqualified leads, missed sales goals, and lost opportunities. Increasingly, company and sales leaders are turning to coaching as a solution.

And why not? Executive and personal-effectiveness coaching have historically yielded great results. According to the International Coaching Federation, the average company can expect a return of 7 times the initial investment in coaching.1

Shouldn’t the same be expected from sales coaching?

16 Negotiation Tactics Buyers Use and How to Respond

Good negotiators recognize the negotiating tactics and style of the other party.

While sales negotiations are usually partner-focused (win-win), buyers often use standoffish tactics to gain an advantage at the seller's expense. Even if you have a win-win mindset and approach, you need to know how to maneuver when buyers throw you curveballs. You need the right negotiation skills to bolster your success, stay confident, and avoid caving.