February, 2021

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Strategic account managers (and their bosses) deserve better decision-making tools

Strategic Account Management Association

By William Trail, Co-Founder, Opportunity State. If you have experienced the pain, humiliation and fear of having to tell your manager that you are not going to hit your “blood number,” your commit for the quarter, then I have news for you: It’s not your fault. You don’t have the technology to predict 90 days in advance which deals will be finalized in time.

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8 Key Account Management Skills in Demand Right Now

Account Manager Tips

What skills do key account managers need? Key account management is a profession in demand. What are the top skills companies are looking for and how do you get good at them? Tweet. 0. Share. 0. Pin. 0. Share. 0. All this talk about the digital economy. jobs being gobbled up by new technology and millennials set to make up 75% of the workforce might have you worried.

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Our Latest Podcasts: Hit Benchmarks Early This Year

Force Management

Our January episodes aimed to help sales teams start the year right. Each episode shares insights sales reps, managers and leaders can use to make an immediate impact on the pipeline. Listen, and share with your sales teams to support them in driving better numbers right away this year. Find each episode on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.

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Value-Based Selling: Tangible vs. Intangible

Engage Selling

Creating and maintaining a high-growth, high-profit business in your marketplace—one where sellers, leaders, and customers all thrive—is essential. That’s why, for many years, I’ve advocated putting value-based selling at the centre of your work. Understand, however, that selling from a … Read More » The post Value-Based Selling: Tangible vs.

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State of AI in Sales & Marketing 2025

AI adoption is reshaping sales and marketing. But is it delivering real results? We surveyed 1,000+ GTM professionals to find out. The data is clear: AI users report 47% higher productivity and an average of 12 hours saved per week. But leaders say mainstream AI tools still fall short on accuracy and business impact. Download the full report today to see how AI is being used — and where go-to-market professionals think there are gaps and opportunities.

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Five Things We Learned About Leadership From Tom Brady

The Center for Sales Strategy

Tom Brady is one of those figures that draws emotional responses ranging from adoration to outright disdain, often depending on whose team has had their playoff hopes crushed by him during his long tenure in the NFL. But, say what you want, there is plenty for all of us to learn about how to be an effective leader by observing what Tom Brady does. What he accomplished on Sunday is indeed one of the most profound successes in professional sports as he transformed a young, talented team in Tampa B

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Preparing Your Sales Organization For Success in a Hybrid Workplace

SBI Growth

As 2020 is finally in the rear-view mirror, the workplace as we have known it looks drastically different. Sellers are growing accustomed to the remote working environment, and the top players have quickly transformed their workflows to accompany the rapid.

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5 Ways Your Sales Team Can Recover Lost Revenue in 2021

Hubspot Sales

Though 2020 is (blessedly) behind us, most companies don't have the luxury of taking a breather. Last year took a lot out of all of everyone — and that goes double for business owners and sales teams. A lot of revenue was lost in the unadulterated chaos, unspeakable tragedy, and frantic scrambling that characterized this past year — and now, we're stuck picking up the pieces.

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9 Brilliantly Simple Continuous Quality Improvement Techniques

Kainexus

I often find myself falling into the common trap of believing that if something is worthwhile, it is necessarily difficult. I think we all expect that valuable things are hard. The truth is, however, that sometimes the most effective and impactful things we can do are really quite simple. When it comes to continuous quality improvement, this is absolutely the case.

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4 Strategies to Increase Sales Productivity

RAIN Group

A productive sales team is a successful sales team. Companies all over the world are struggling with sales productivity and the added pressure to hit their annual goals only exacerbates the problem. If your sales team isn’t continually assessing their strengths and weaknesses as strategies shift, you’re doing yourself a huge disservice. Your sales team should always be in a state of growth—keeping existing skills sharp, developing new selling tactics, and maintaining strong bonds with your custo

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Different Types of Sales Organizational Structures

The Center for Sales Strategy

Are you trying to organize your sales team? Are you trying to figure out what the best sales organizational structure is or trying to identify the problem within your current structure? Determining the best way to organize your sales team is important, and we're sure that you're looking to find the most efficient sales structure. Your sales team organization matters, because it can affect the sales that you make and the revenue you bring in.

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AI Strategies for Sales Managers: How to Cut Down on Tedious Admin Work

What if you could help your sellers stop wasting 72% of their day on non-selling activities and focus on bringing in revenue? Incorporating AI in your enablement workflows can help you cut down on busy work, get projects done faster, and let your team (and you!) focus on making a bigger impact. We put together this guide to show you how to use AI to cut time and costs for projects, including collateral creation, development of training videos, and automating tedious processes.

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The Digital Evolution and Its Impact on Revenue Growth in 2021

SBI Growth

One of the main differences this past year was the emphasis on digital strategies geared towards getting closer to the customer rather than traditional cost-cutting. The impact of this is profound, and in industries where getting closer to the customer.

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Back to the Future: F2F selling is returning, but virtual selling is here to stay

Strategic Account Management Association

Jonathan Hughes, Partner, Vantage Partners, and David Chapnick, Partner, Vantage Partners. Just when customer account teams and salespeople were beginning to grow accustomed to virtual-only sales and account management, a return to (some) face-to-face interactions is on the horizon. Customer-facing teams need to continue to up their virtual game, even as they learn how to optimize a balance of virtual and in-person engagement.

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31 Funding Resources for Black-Owned Businesses

Hubspot Sales

When it comes to starting a business, securing capital is often one of the greatest challenges for Black entrepreneurs. Less access to banking in Black communities and a history of discriminatory lending practices have made it harder for Black founders to secure loans or financial assistance. And once your business is open, unexpected disasters like a pandemic can wreak havoc on even the most established business’ bottom line.

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Assertiveness in Your Sales Process

Engage Selling

Could your sales process use a little more assertiveness? A lack of assertiveness in sales often comes in the form of, well, not even asking for the sale in the first place! This, of course, is not a good thing. … Read More » The post Assertiveness in Your Sales Process first appeared on The Sales Leader.

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2024, The Year of the Customer

2023's struggles fueled a shift: companies are ditching wasteful strategies in favor of data and AI-powered growth. Enter 2024, the year GTC takes center stage. Discover 5 ways a customer-centric approach unlocks new revenue and delivers lasting success.

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The Charybdis and Scylla of Key Account Management

KAM With Passion

KAM methodology: Too much or not enough? A legend from ancient Greece tells about Charybdis and Scylla, two terrible sea monsters, wardens of a narrow passage on a crucial sea route. Charybdis was able to draw a whole ship into the abyss. Scilla, with its six heads, would take a toll on each crew by devouring a few of its members. The passage was so narrow, the two monsters so close one from the other, that ship captain’s had to make a tough choice on with which monster they would prefer to be c

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The 8 Essentials to a High Performing B2B Sales Organization

The Center for Sales Strategy

There's a lot to get right if you're trying to build a high performing sales organization. That's because sales organizations are complex systems, like the nervous system. The nervous system contains a network of specialized cells called neurons. Nerve impulses have a domino effect. Each neuron receives an impulse and must pass it on to the next neuron and make sure the correct impulse continues on its path.

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The Role of Strategic Marketing

Software Sales Guru

The Role of Strategic Marketing While sales and marketing are technically separate functions, they must work together seamlessly. In fact, I’ll go so far as to state that the entire sales process begins with a market and markets are based on unmet needs. There can be a market without a solution A radio announcer remarked, “I put balm on poison ivy, not because it works, Read more.

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20 Virtual Sales Relationship-Building Tips

RAIN Group

Virtual meetings are now part of our everyday reality. Even in situations where you’re able to meet with some folks in person, you’re still likely to face a high number of virtual meetings on your calendar. This isn’t going to change any time soon. The way the world does business has shifted drastically in light of the pandemic. Even when it’s safe to do so, we’re likely to see many people continuing to work remotely because technology and processes have been put in place to make it a viable lon

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1st, 2nd, and 3rd Party Intent Data: Which Is Right for You?

How do 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party intent data compare? 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party data each have specific advantages and disadvantages. It comes down to four factors: accuracy, cost, control and quantity. This infographic explains the pros and cons of each and helps you understand which one is best for meeting your business objectives. Intent data can be a great way to fill your pipeline and close more deals.

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12 Tips for Mastering Inside Sales, According to HubSpot Experts

Hubspot Sales

Whether it be ugly ducklings, misfit toys, or square pegs in round holes, some things just don't fit in — but in most cases, it's purely situational. Ugly ducklings can turn into swans. Misfit toys had an entire island to themselves. And not all holes are round. Sometimes fitting in just means shifting circumstances — and that principle applies to different brands of sales.

Sales 136
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Mastering Value-Based Selling: Personal vs. Operational

Engage Selling

All value-based selling—when done effectively—is about correctly defining the benefits of your product or service based on what matters to your customer. As I like to regularly remind sellers and leaders: the only value that matters is what matters to … Read More » The post Mastering Value-Based Selling: Personal vs. Operational first appeared on The Sales Leader.

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Why Start a (True) Key Account Management Initiative?

KAM With Passion

Polarized attitudes towards Key Account Management. True Key Account Management (KAM) or Strategic Account Management (SAM) remains a topic that polarizes the thinking and behaviours of business leaders. Since decades, some of them have boosted their company’s growth by making the capacity to develop privileged relationships with carefully selected strategic customers part of their organisation’s DNA.

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Improving Sales Performance | Media Sales Report | Effects of COVID-19 on the Media Sales Industry

The Center for Sales Strategy

Season 2 of the Improving Sales Performance Series focuses on the data and analysis of the newly released Media Sales Report. Trey Morris, VP Senior Consultant at The Center for Sales Strategy, joined Matt Sunshine on the second episode of the season to analyze the data around the effects of COVID-19 and its impact on the media sales industry. You can stream it now to hear their insight, advice, and initial thoughts after analyzing the data that was just published.

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How to Leverage Intent Data for Better Outcomes

Speaker: Susan Spencer, Principal of Spencer Communications

Intent signal data can go a long way toward shortening sales cycles and closing more deals. The challenge is deciding which is the best type of intent data to help your company meet its sales and marketing goals. In this webinar, Susan Spencer, fractional CMO and principal of Spencer Communications, will unpack the differences between contact-level and company-level intent signals.

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Understanding the Strategies Used by Software Buyers

Software Sales Guru

Understanding the Strategies Used by Software Buyers Software buyers tend to be a knowledgeable bunch when it comes to negotiating deals with vendors. A number of books and programs exist to show software buyers how to use aggressive tactics to get the lowest possible prices out of sellers. Given that a large number of software buyers are taught to take advantage of sellers in this.

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Top Real Estate Influencers That Can Help You Grow Your Business

Nimble Business Success

Why Do Real Estate Agents Need a Personal Brand? Your real estate personal branding strategy is a reflection of who you are as an individual and as a real estate professional. It’s an opportunity to stand out from the crowd of other real estate agents and secure more business opportunities. If you execute your real […]. The post Top Real Estate Influencers That Can Help You Grow Your Business appeared first on Nimble Blog.

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10 Sales Tactics Brands Should Avoid This Year, According to Experts

Hubspot Sales

2021 will bring sales professionals a host of new challenges and trends to consider, and it could be tricky to adapt. Of course, reps will need to add certain strategies into their repertoires, but "adapting" doesn't stop there. Several salespeople are coming into this new year holding onto some dead weight — outdated strategies that are bound to undermine sales efforts instead of enhancing them.

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Building A High-Performance Sales Team

Sandler Training

Ask any sales leader whether they want to build a high-performing team, and the immediate answer will be “Yes.” But what are the specific best practices that support this goal? Here are three that we have seen in organizations that are thriving in 2021. The post Building A High-Performance Sales Team appeared first on Sandler Training.

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The 2023 Supply Chain Crystal Ball: Challenges and Solutions

Speaker: Olivia Montgomery, Associate Principal Supply Chain Analyst

Curious to know how your peers are navigating ongoing disruption? The supply chain management techniques that dominated the last 30 years are no longer supporting consumer behavior or logistics and manufacturing capabilities. So what’s working now? What should your plans for 2023 include? By researching the supply chain challenges and solutions that businesses – especially small and midsize businesses – are currently experiencing, we’ve learned what’s working and what’s not.

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The 3 Pillars of Key Account Management

KAM With Passion

Build your KAM initiative on rock-solid principles. Are you in charge of a true Key Account Management initiative? By “true”, KAM initiative, I mean a programme that aiming at accelerating innovation and growth with a few carefully selected customers. If this is the case, here is a very simple approach that can help you tremendously as you design, implement or improve your KAM initiative.

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The Key to Developing a Strategic Q1 Quarterly Action Plan

The Center for Sales Strategy

At the beginning of a new year, it's tempting to set goals for the next 12 months. After all, you'll have your results from the prior year and can identify where you fell short and where you want your company to improve. However, try to resist the urge to create annual goals that are too detailed and contain too many action items. If you fall behind, it's hard to catch up.

Sales 131
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Look Outside Your Sales Organization | Sales Strategies

Engage Selling

Far too many sales organizations focus only on the internal KPIs (the things that drive your performance): sales velocity, sales process, your funnel, your pipeline, the number of calls you make, the number of conversions you make, your closing ratio, … Read More » The post Look Outside Your Sales Organization | Sales Strategies first appeared on The Sales Leader.

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Who owns customer experience in a company?

Freshworks

In many organisations there is an ongoing debate, and power struggle, about who should own the customer experience – is it marketing, operations, or does it sit with the CEO? There are advantages and drawbacks to it being owned by a specific function, and many people have started to question if only one function should be leading this. Knowing its importance, this article looks at what the best approach is for owning the customer experience and the implications it has on customers.

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The GTM Intelligence Era: ZoomInfo 2025 Customer Impact Report

ZoomInfo customers aren’t just selling — they’re winning. Revenue teams using our Go-To-Market Intelligence platform grew pipeline by 32%, increased deal sizes by 40%, and booked 55% more meetings. Download this report to see what 11,000+ customers say about our Go-To-Market Intelligence platform and how it impacts their bottom line. The data speaks for itself!