We’re excited to announce a new podcast that’s all about sales acceleration. The “Sales Acceleration Show,” hosted by Gabe Larsen and Steve Eror, focuses on the science of selling across the areas of demand generation, sales and sales operations. This show is about doing. The focus is real problems, real solutions and real people —…

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*This was originally called the Sales Acceleration Podcast but was renamed to the Playmaker Podcast. There are a lot of buzzwords in the sales acceleration space: big data, gamification, social selling, etc. Although we may use these terms not everybody understands what we are referring to. In this episode, we define what Sales Acceleration means…

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I’m a marketer at www.insidesales.com and I’m hijacking the sales blog today. I’m writing on behalf of marketers everywhere, and I’m calling out sales professionals. The Goal of Inbound Marketers First, let me say that I like my job and I take it seriously. I strongly feel the need to produce more leads for sales.…

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Cloud-based hosted CRM and sales force automation (SFA) systems live fairly far downstream in the actual customer buying cycle. Beginning with broad-level marketing and demand generation, there are a number of elements that can now be added to a CRM or SFA that provide real results in leading customers down the buying cycle. Demand Generation…

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Tuesday evening at Dreamforce, I got into an interesting Twitter conversation with Left Brain Marketing’s Adam Needles (@abneedles on Twitter) discussing marketing’s relationship with sales. In Adam’s mind, he felt that the presenters of the Sales/Marketing alignment session were pushing marketing back into a sales support role, one that he felt didn’t align with the…

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mailbox-greenYesterday we looked at how the communication medium of the telephone constrains the process and effectiveness of how we make contact on a sales call.

Today I thought we’d briefly follow-up and take a look at one of the other ubiquitous sales communication media—The Targeted Email. Understanding the “message” of the email medium can help reps write better email content, and reach more contacts.

Point one: for marketing emails, data, statistics, and facts carry better than pure emotion—but don’t ignore the emotional impact either.

In spite of the fact that hundreds of millions of them get sent every single day, we occasionally forget that an email is still, in its purest sense, a written document.

This is important, because a written medium carries a much different “sense” than other forms of media. It can be seen, referenced, re-scanned, reinterpreted at will, as long as it is front of the reader. Written text is generally perceived as more formal than other modes of communication. We naturally assume that it carries more weight—as long as it’s worth our time to begin with . . . .

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Can you lose a sale simply by having a bad Web offer?

I think we’ve all had the experience of following a link someone sent us on Twitter or Facebook only to discover that it’s just another poorly disguised attempt at hucksterism.

You land on the page and get bombarded by a long, endless page of marketing drivel, punctuated with flashing neon sign graphics, and a late-night infomercial vibe.

While most B2B Web marketers are much more professional in their approach than this, it doesn’t mean that the concept of “the Bad Offer” can’t apply.

No matter the context, a Bad Web Conversion Offer slows down the sale, gives potential buyers a bad taste, puts them off, or even sends a good buyer to a competitor.

So what makes a Bad Web Offer?

  • It doesn’t provide any value to the visitor.
  • The process to get the perceived value (the whitepaper, webinar, free trial) takes too long, or requires too much user input.
  • There’s no compelling difference between your offer and what they could get elsewhere.
  • The presentation is sub-par, unprofessional, difficult to navigate, or just plain boring . . . .
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whistle-nIn yesterday’s blog post, we discussed the idea of considering a sales appointment as an extension of a regular corporate meeting. We looked at understanding the type of meeting you should engage in and the purpose for it, and the first of two critical components, having an agenda.

Today’s post will cover the need for a meeting to have an effective referee, and the culture you should establish for your sales appointments with your prospects.

In Review:

Part I

1. Decide whether an appointment is about alignment or creation.
2.1. “A meeting has two critical components: [one of them is] an agenda.”

Part II

2.2. “A meeting has two critical components: [the other one is] a referee.”

First, let’s be clear: the onus always falls on you, the sales rep, to be the referee of a meeting, because you control the flow of information . . . .

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