Sales

You may agree with the notion that “life is a marathon, not a sprint,” but sometimes selling can feel like a particularly long race to the finish line. Unlike a sprint or a marathon, of course, the journey from opportunity to a closed deal doesn’t usually begin with the excitement of a “3-2-1 go!”

If you were stuck in traffic behind a car with a bumper sticker that read, “How’s my scaling going?” you might have to be an entrepreneur to get the joke. The word “scale” is used so often among startups and small or medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that it has almost become shorthand for “growth.”

When a customer buys something, most businesses provide them with a receipt, a bag if they need one, and some kind of “thank you” to close out the transaction. The truly successful companies also throw in a little dopamine. As a natural chemical found in the human body, dopamine acts as a sort of

“Those who lead tend to read.” Keep that phrase in your head and treat it as a mantra of sorts. It’s useful whether you’re a VP of sales, a marketer or anyone else helping coach or guide others in a business. Yes, you learn a lot by doing, but reading great books provides insight you might never

The best reps truly care about their customers — especially when they can sell them something that makes them more successful. The best reps also truly care about their employer. Working for a company that offers valuable products and services makes their jobs a lot easier. And of course, the best

A day at the spa. A weekend retreat to an exclusive resort. A home cleaning service to take on some of the regular chores for a while. These are some of the more typical ways we might visualize the idea of “self care,” but they may be too limited— and for sales people, they might not be realistic.

Fortunately, there are usually plenty of job opportunities available to salespeople. There is also usually plenty of competition. This means when you hear about a potential new role — or if you’ve made the decision to begin actively looking for one — you’ll need to put in the same kind of planning

All leads are gold to the sales team, but some need a little polish before you can tell how much they shine. There might be some leads, for example, that lead to a big sale with a customer who goes on to give you ongoing business. Then there are the . . . other leads. You know: the leads that turn

“Hi [NAME], I see we share some of the same connections and I was hoping we could schedule a call to discuss your business needs in 2021!” People send cold messages through LinkedIn Inmail like this all the time, but that doesn’t mean it’s a best practice for startups who really want to grow their

Press the “Buy Now” button and you can get almost whatever you want online. Click on a link in an email and you can get a free trial of a sophisticated enterprise software-a-service (SaaS) application. Pick up the phone and you can order not only flowers, but a wide array of products and services