2024

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How to Conquer Imposter Syndrome as a Key Account Manager

Account Manager Tips

Ever feel like a fraud as a key account manager? You're not alone. Get help with this guide to conquering imposter syndrome and banishing self-doubt for good.

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6 Ways to Help Customers Avoid Choice Paralysis and Boost Your Conversions [+Examples]

Hubspot Sales

When was the last time you really looked around the toothpaste aisle? It’s overwhelming. You’re faced with a huge amount of choices — possibly even dozens depending on the store you’re in. Imagine having to actually make a buying decision purely by shopping through the toothpaste aisle. My guess is that you’d either get overwhelmed and choose something that you later regret, or you’d choose to buy nothing at all.

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The Ultimate Guide to Build a Top Performing Key Account Management Team from Scratch

DemandFarm

Do you know how the top key account managers (KAMs) become the top KAMs? They don’t just respond to an account’s needs—they anticipate them, creating proactive strategies that build trust and deepen relationships. Getting there requires more than assuming the role. Top KAMs work proactively to add ongoing value, evolving customer relationships into growth drivers and ensuring account success is always a step ahead.

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Collaborative Ecosystem

Strategic Account Management Association

Jochen Koetzle, Head of Strategic Account Management at Endress+Hauser Group, explores the essence of collaborative ecosystems, their role in driving innovation, providing solutions, and ensuring resilience. He also shares insights on his organization's efforts to highlight the transformative power of collaboration. The post Collaborative Ecosystem appeared first on Strategic Account Management Association.

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5 Ways You Can Win Faster with Gen AI in Sales

Incorporating generative AI (gen AI) into your sales process can speed up your wins through improved efficiency, personalized customer interactions, and better informed decision- making. Gen AI is a game changer for busy salespeople and can reduce time-consuming tasks, such as customer research, note-taking, and writing emails, and provide insightful data analysis and recommendations.

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Implementing the Building Blocks of Sales Enablement: Mastering the Sales Systems

Mike Kunkle

[This post was originally published here , in my Sales Enablement Straight Talk newsletter] Today, I want to delve into the nuances of the systems that support the Building Blocks of Sales Enablement framework. Many of you have asked about these systems – how they differ from the blocks (and support them), and how to maximize their effectiveness.

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Introducing the Upland Altify 9.12 Spring ‘24 Release

Upland

The Upland Altify 9.12 Spring ‘24 release contains major enhancements to transform the customer experience with Altify’s Salesforce-native products, creating a simpler, smarter, and more connected solution. The 9.12 Spring ‘24 upgrade offers sellers simplified and streamlined workflows and optimized user interfaces, smarter in-product guidance, better data readability, and improved connectedness.

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What do you do when your boss is a micro-managing control freak?

Red Star Kim

Sadly, this topic still comes up occasionally during training workshops. Many people have suffered at the hands of a line manager who wants to know in detail what is happening and to control everything. It can be frustrating and disempowering. But there are potentially several reasons for this behaviour – some to do with your manager, and some to do with you.

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Zendesk completes acquisition of Klaus

Zendesk

Zendesk today announced it completed its acquisition of Klaus, the industry leading AI-powered quality management platform. The acquisition of Klaus is the latest addition to the company’s existing WEM solutions which includes Tymeshift, a modern workforce management tool built exclusively for Zendesk. “Workforce engagement management is key to not only meeting, but exceeding customer expectations.

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Enhancing Product Design with AI: A Journey of Creativity and Customer Experience

Customer Think

Image Rights for ECXO: Generated by MidJourney and DALL-E The Transformative Power of AI in Physical Product Design: Enhancing Creativity and Customer Experience Article source: [link] Introduction The advent of generative AI is reshaping the landscape of physical product design, driving innovation, practicality, and enhancing the customer experience.

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Essential People Management Skills for Sales Leaders

The Center for Sales Strategy

Sales leadership is not just about driving numbers and closing deals; it's fundamentally about people management. The success of any sales team hinges on the ability of its leader to manage, motivate, and mentor their team effectively. Although many things contribute to your team’s overall success, there are five essential people management skills every sales leader must master to build a successful and motivated sales team.

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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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Stop Typing, Start Talking: 5 Reasons to Call Your Clients Now

Account Manager Tips

The post Stop Typing, Start Talking: 5 Reasons to Call Your Clients Now first appeared on The KAM Coach Unlock the power of phone calls in client management. Find out why talking beats typing and get tips for effective communication in this essential guide.

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B2B Buyers: The Latest Stats Salespeople Must Know [+HubSpot Data]

Hubspot Sales

I bought a new car in 2021, when the pandemic had virtually eliminated the gap between new and used prices. Car buyers 30 years ago might have shown up at the dealership wanting a truck, a sedan, or something as vague as a “good family car,” and the salesperson’s job was to help steer them in the right direction based on their needs. That process has changed dramatically.

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Return on Sales: What It Is, How To Calculate It, and More

Nutshell

Perhaps you’d like to find an investor for your business or gauge your success against your competitors. Or maybe you just want to know how profitable your business is this quarter compared to last quarter. Regardless of the reason, knowing how to calculate your return on sales ratio is vital. Determining your return on sales gives stakeholders a snapshot of your business’s financial well-being and insight into its potential for growth and success.

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How SAMA’s Customer Advisory Board Influences Best Practices in SAM

Strategic Account Management Association

SAMA's Customer Advisory Board serves as a direct line of communication between SAMA and some of the most experienced and insightful leaders in the SAM community, providing us with critical feedback that shapes both our strategy and the broader SAM ecosystem. The post How SAMA’s Customer Advisory Board Influences Best Practices in SAM appeared first on Strategic Account Management Association.

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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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Salespeople Need Emotional Buyers

Software Sales Guru

Salespeople Need Emotional Buyers The buyer’s journey is a series of emotional states represented by the five squares below. Every buyer starts on the left and moves right, with or without the involvement of a salesperson. Emotion is what moves a buyer forward The root of selling is how buyers decide. This physiology is well-established by scientific research.

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How sellers can use AI to improve whitespace analysis

Upland

When we speak about AI in sales and its potential impact, we would be remiss not to specifically focus on whitespace and AI. AI can be a powerful tool for targeting whitespace revenue – low hanging fruit to the seller. This guide is going to focus specifically on the impact of AI on whitespace. Although we will discuss the background of whitespace in general, you can learn more about the importance of whitespace in our guide on the topic.

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How Good Talent Can Realize Returns from Customer Success

SBI Growth

Knowing who to hire and what sort of traits to foster across an organization’s talent can go a long way in creating value for customers and seeing the business returns of customer success.

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Achieve more engagement and buy-in: Relationships, Plan, Expectations, Benefits, Persuasion and Training

Red Star Kim

At the recent Training – PM Forum on “ Buy-in, engagement and stakeholder management ” workshop we welcomed executive and manager delegates from legal and accountancy firms as well as a delegate from Poland. The session used the 7P model of buy-in to explore rational and emotional tools to achieve buy-in: Plan, Process, People, Psychology, Persuasion, Pressure and Patience.

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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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Zendesk + Ultimate: Setting a new standard of service with AI agents

Zendesk

Zendesk announced today that it will acquire Ultimate, an industry-leading provider of service automation, to deliver the most complete AI offering for customer experience (CX) in the market. The latest CX Trends data shows that unprecedented demand for AI is driving up the speed and frequency of customer engagement. In this new era of AI-powered CX, AI agents can push beyond traditional bot capabilities to help brands transform service into a competitive advantage.

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Innovation in Action: Strategic Experimentation for Enhanced Customer Experience

Customer Think

Introduction Article originaly posted at: [link] Experimentation methods are critical for enhancing Customer Experience (CX) programs by validating hypotheses, identifying improvement areas, and ensuring that new initiatives resonate with both partners and customers. In today’s competitive market, businesses must deliver exceptional CX that meets and exceeds customer expectations.

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How To Know If Your Sales Candidate Will Be Good At Prospecting

The Center for Sales Strategy

The ability to prospect effectively can make or break a team's success. It's the lifeblood of the sales process, the crucial first step that fills the pipeline and drives revenue growth. But here's the challenge—identifying candidates who excel at prospecting is no easy task. It requires a keen eye, the right assessment tools, and a deep understanding of what makes a great prospector tick.

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15 Best Books Every Key Account Manager Should Read

Account Manager Tips

Unlock the secrets of key account management with must-read books that reveal how to master every challenge. To be the best, you have to learn from the best.

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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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Finding the Best AI Presentation Maker, Here's What I Tested.

Hubspot Sales

You know what would have been great to have access to during my days as a teacher? An AI presentation maker. Whether you’re a teacher or a business professional, eye-catching presentations are a great way to spread (and digest!) information quickly. Thankfully, AI presentation makers are becoming popular design tools. And one of the biggest perks of AI for presentations is that it can save you valuable time.

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How to Upsell: 16 Best Upselling Techniques

Nutshell

Upselling is a great way to increase your customers’ lifetime value, strengthen relationships, and even improve a customer’s experience with your business. And when implemented effectively, upselling doesn’t have to be awkward for the sales rep or annoying for the customer. In fact, upselling can be a key component of your company’s growth strategy.

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Account-Based Marketing: Customer-Led, Team-Enabled

Strategic Account Management Association

The first step in next-gen, customer-centric sales By Dominique Côté, CEO & Founder, Cosawi and Principal, The Summit Group, and Kate Burda, CEO & Founder, Kate Burda & Co. Shedding light on the next generation of account-based marketing We can all agree that customer centricity and customer focus are the cornerstone of effective strategic account … Continue reading Account-Based Marketing: Customer-Led, Team-Enabled The post Account-Based Marketing: Customer-Led, Team-Enabled

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Can a salesperson achieve a Work/Life Balance?

Software Sales Guru

Can a salesperson achieve a Work/Life Balance? Common wisdom suggests that if you want to succeed as a salesperson, you must be working 24/7. Prospect wants to talk at 8:30 on Friday night? You better take that call! But the truth is most top performers are not workaholics. They squeeze more out of the same 24 hours we all have. I’ve interviewed many top software.

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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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Altify and Salesforce and What’s Next for Simplified Selling with AI

Upland

The B2B sales landscape is undergoing a seismic shift. Altify and Salesforce, two titans of the CRM and sales effectiveness world, are partnering down to deliver a potent blend of AI innovation that promises to redefine how businesses close deals. But with talk of “Sales AI” reaching a fever pitch, a critical question begs an answer: what’s next?

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How Declining Commercial Efficiency is Holding Back Profitable Growth

SBI Growth

Facing headwinds from inflation, rising wages, and decades-high interest rates, it has been a challenge for commercial leaders to realize their growth ambitions. The way forward doesn’t seem to be any easier: CEOs and CFOs must continue to tighten spending while still allowing for necessary growth investment, requiring full attention from growth leaders to make the right decisions now for growth in 2024 and beyond.

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What is Socratic questioning? (Questioning skills)

Red Star Kim

Long before I learned of the value of Socratic questioning in coaching and counselling, I remember an editor asking me to use Socratic questioning in some writing. Socratic questioning is a way to drive logical argument. It’s helpful in conversations, critical thinking and negotiation. So what is Socratic questioning? (Questioning skills). This article on Socratic questioning follows an earlier and longer post on questioning skills Why are questions so important?

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Heartfelt Connections: The Power of Relationships in Business Success

Nimble Business Success

This Valentine’s Day, let’s celebrate a different yet essential aspect of our professional lives: networking! Successful businesses thrive on networks of relationships that are built over time, which are crucial for sparking new opportunities, forming partnerships, and driving growth. We’ve connected with industry experts who have shared their insights and personal takes on how effective […] The post Heartfelt Connections: The Power of Relationships in Business Success ap

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The Truth About Sales Agility: Separating Fact From Fiction

Speaker: Michelle Vazzana

Every sales organization wants their sales force to be agile. Why? Because the world is rapidly changing, becoming more complex, and making the salesperson’s job harder. Organizational leaders are unsure of the best way to equip sellers to succeed in this new reality. Should they change their sales methodology? Should they adopt better technology tools?