James MeinckeThe CloserIQ Weekly Roundup features a list of the best content we’ve been reading recently. We’ve compiled some of our favorite reads to help you advance in your sales career and build top sales teams.
Featured Article
8 Effective Communications Skills for Sales People
In sales, it’s important to know the market and to know the best-practice techniques, but it’s not everything. At the end of the day, there is no use in knowing the market if you don’t know how to approach a prospect or handle a client. Effective communication is the link between your skills and knowledge and closing a deal. Read more >
This and more of our favorite reads this week…
Tailoring Your Sales Approach for Two Key Variables (Steve Kearns of LinkedIn)
“Salespeople are often advised to lead with insights and ask questions when engaging with decision-makers. Generally speaking, this is how we cultivate a value-driven, customer-centric approach. But that off-the-rack approach misses some crucial nuance.”
Transparency in Sales with Todd Caponi (Kelly Driscoll of JBarrows)
“One of the things that I stumbled on, which was another counter-intuitive thing to me is this idea that we as human beings make all of our decisions based on feeling and emotion. And we only use logic to back it up. Logic is only used to back up a feeling or emotion. And when we lead with logic, we lead with ROI. We lead with data. It’s actually polarizing to an audience.”
10 Better Ways to Cold Call (Alexandra Adamson of WISE)
“In an age when texting and emailing is the norm, it’s easy to see why some people think cold calling is dead. It’s harder to reach someone on the phone and it takes more time than sending a text or direct message. The truth is there are still plenty of opportunities for reaching people via phone, but only if done right. Salespeople just need to be a little more creative in the way they reach out to prospects.”
“Not all sales jobs are created equal. In some jobs, you might earn a decent salary and get a few bonuses here and there, but maybe you never land major clients or experience much excitement. Maybe you find the product boring, or the team isn’t motivating. Maybe you find yourself waiting to leave work after a thoroughly dull eight hours.”
7 Things You Can Do Now to Help Your Job-Search Efforts Later (Lauren Settembrino of TopCV)
“While you may not be able to anticipate when a job search will come around, there are a number of things you can do every day to make sure that when the time does come, you’re ready with the tools you need. While you’re working happily, consider tackling these seven tasks that will set you up for a shorter, more efficient job search.”
How to Improve Recruitment and Retention (Jen Dewar of Jalydew)
“Candidates will pursue other roles or stay in their current roles when faced with a lengthy hiring process. It’s important to understand your most efficient sources of hire so you can double down on those.”
4 Tips to Make the Right Hiring Decision (Nikoletta Bika of Workable)
“If you’re lucky, the star candidate has shined through and they’re an obvious fit for the role. In that case, you just need to prepare an offer to welcome them to your team. But often, you’ll have two or three or more amazing candidates in front of you, each with different merits. Surprise, surprise: this is a ‘good’ problem because it means your talent attraction strategies are working well. ”
4 Questions You’re Not Asking During Your Sales Coaching 1:1s (But Probably Should) (Brian Trautschold of Ambition)
“When it comes to sales coaching, you don’t get an A for effort. Your 1:1s shouldn’t feel like you’re just checking the box. In fact, if you can’t see a direct, measurable impact from your sales coaching program, then you’re doing it wrong — and you’re wasting everyone’s time (harsh, but true).”
Why More Sales Teams Should Embrace a Leaderboard (Steli Efti of Close)
“The best part about competition is that we discover what we’re capable of achieving—and how much more we can actually do than we might have believed. It’s an internal passion for competition that inspired many executives to start their careers in sales. It’s an internal passion for competition that makes many athletes great salespeople.”
If you know any articles that you think we should feature in our next week’s roundup, feel free to reach out to us: content@closeriq.com.
