Selling to people has not changed dramatically over the past hundred years. You have a product or service, identify a pool of prospects and then discover how many of them you can help. Sure thats over simplified but when it boils down, those are some of the key components. What has changed a great idea over the past few years is not so much the overall process but the details of how to sell to people.

Most sales people do not have the opportunity to walk into the offices of their prospects, see the awards on the wall, photos on the desk and bag of golf clubs in the corner. These were the details a salesperson would use to break the ice, find some common interests and start a conversation. Without these insights, a salesperson is left to their own devices and would be left with being just another sales guy with a pitch. Get beyond the contact data of someones business card and get to know your prospect as the person and not just a contact in your CRM.

People buy from people. Business is done not necessarily with the company with the best product but more often with the salesperson who has found a connection with their prospect through a shared interest or a referral. In the post on the 8 ways to increase sales we outlined some best practices to follow.

More than 90 percent of executives never respond to cold-call sales or unsolicited emails.

Sales intelligence can identify connections between colleagues within an organization and prospects to reveal opportunities for meaningful sales contact. By arming sales professionals with actionable information from social sources, media outlets, company information and changes in business dynamics they are more likely to trigger sales. Sales professionals can quickly identify relevant connection points and build profitable, trusted relationships with prospects and customers that win more business and drive revenue.

‘It’s like watching an Ancestry.com commercial’

You’ve seen the commercial, a site that starts connecting the dots between you and your family and then builds a map of your entire family tree. It lets you see your connections to people you may never have known existed just by following the trail of connections through out history.

How can that apply to B2B sales?

• What if you could identify connection across multiple social graphs and include people you may not be connected to through a social network?
• How valuable would it be to have social streams from your prospects so you could see the updates, pictures and interactions they share?
• Would it be beneficial to be able to follow these people so anytime they were mentioned in the news or online you would get an alert so you could show you are listening?

Early adopters of People Insights like Network Hardware Resale are already seeing an impact in lead generation, opportunities and revenue.

“Social media mapping is my favorite feature. It’s just so cool. It’s almost like watching that Ancestry.com commercial- it’s like ‘I got a leaf!’ It’s when you find that connection that absolutely breaks you into an account; and once you’ve done that, your energy in looking for more of those connections goes WAY up. That becomes your best lead gen strategy ever. Now you want to have and create personal relationships with people through social media so that you can leverage those relationships.” - Michael Lodato, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing at NHR

Leveraging people insights isn’t just a good idea, it’s the only way you will increase your lead generation and create new opportunities in 2012. As explained in the post 5 ways sales intelligence can increase revenue, research shows that:

• 59% of the best in class companies have leveraged sales intelligence tools to identify or disqualify prospects with more accuracy
• 53% of companies have been able to identify existing customers that have upsell/cross sell opportunities
• 48% of companies have increased the quality of leads intheir pipelines
• 28% use technology to capture and share sales knowledge internally.
• 21% of companies reduce the amount of time doing sales research

For salespeople and sales leaders, understanding how to sell to people not contacts will be the difference between hitting or missing your number.

Congratulations to David Greenwald of PGi for being our 5000th follower! David has been using InsideView to make him more productive for years. It’s awesome to have customers like him making an impact by leveraging sales intelligence. PGi is a developer of video conferencing software that has a pretty slick interface. They were the first video conferencing platform I saw that integrated social networks into their product, and you all know how much of a fan I am when it comes to B2B use of social networks.

As a Global Sales Executive, David can really benefit following our tweets as we generally like to reach out to sales people around the world to better their skills and selling methods. Give him a follow @nexgentechsales. Thank you David!

We would like to take this opportunity for those who are reading this blog post and follow InsideView through any social media channel, to say thank you for all of the tweets and feedback you have given us over the years…You truly are our #1 fans.

There are two types of accounts, regular and strategic. Both are important and need to be given the time and resources to be successful but strategic accounts has a larger impact on the company and will get some extra attention. The important thing to remember and be disciplined about is that NOT every account is a strategic account. The most important consideration for what makes a strategic account is whether the account you are working with desires a lasting win-win relationship with your company.

Choosing a strategic account

Accounts that are identified to become strategic for the company must be working for a common goal that will bring growth to both organizations. You need to think of choosing these accounts as a business initiative versus a sales initiative.  If both companies aren’t committed to the partnership then you shouldn’t move forward.

Things you should put in place for a strategic account.

• A cross functional team for communication
• Full executive endorsement
• A clear measurement of growth and success.

Working with Strategic accounts

When you have identified a strategic account, the real work starts. Working with and managing the process of gaining a strategic account takes time and resources that you may not be familiar with. Because this account will have a long tem impact on your company, special attention needs to be paid to the process to insure everything falls into place as needed.

• Account specific value proposition
• Find out where each company sees the business relationship today, one year and five years out.
• Create a joint action plan that holds both companies accountable for success
• Roadmaps and future plans must be shared

Both companies should have separate sets of metrics, one that can be communicated with internally and one that will be shared in conjunction with the strategic account.

Internal measurements

• Revenue
• ROI of the project
• Margins achieved

Joint metrics

• ROI from joint investments
• Completed goals in the action plan
• effectiveness of the communication channels

If the strategic account falls apart then it’s safe to say that it wasn’t the right company for your business to be working with. If either of you are not achieving mutually beneficial goals then the relationship needs to be re-evaluated, fixed or disolved. This will happen as you work with more strategic accounts but should be minimized as much and as often as possible. Every strategic account that falls apart should be systematically analyzed to see the causes and understand what and more importantly when these red flags could have been identified to make the needed adjustments in the future.

You all know and love that middle of the afternoon feeling when the coffee seems to wear off and all of life’s endeavors seem to focus on the goal of making it to 5p.m. (All future and present employers please disregard that last sentence) One fantastic way to get through this midday funk is to find a really inspiring quote. I often find that tweeting a great little quote will find more retweets and responses than any other tweets. I gathered 25 quotes in sales I find to be very powerful and motivating. I hope you can take at least one to heart because there are some great ones in this list. 

Shoot us a tweet with your favorite sales quote! – @insideview

1. “You don’t close a sale, you open a relationship if you want to build a long-term, successful enterprise.” ~Patricia Fripp
2. “Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress stops.” ~Thomas J. Watson Jr 
3. “Everyone lives by selling something.” ~Robert Louis Stevenson
4. “In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can.” ~Nikos Kazantzakis
5. “How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.” ~Gilbert K. Chesterton
6.  “As you travel down life’s highway…whatever be your goal, you cannot sell a doughnut without acknowledging the hole.” ~Harold J. Shayler
7. “Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.” ~Zig Ziglar
8. “And old Dave, he’d go up to his room, y’understand, put on his green velvet slippers – I’ll never forget – and pick up his phone and call the buyers, and without leaving his room, at the age of eighty-four, he made his living. And when I saw that, I realized that selling was the greatest career a man could want.” ~Arthur Miller (1915 – 2005), Death of a Salesman, 1949.
9. “A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one.” ~Mary Kay Ash
10. “Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.” ~Karl Marx
11. “On any given Monday I am one sale closer and one idea away from being a Millionaire.” ~Larry D. Turner
12. “It’s just called ‘The Bible’ now. We dropped the word ‘Holy’ to give it a more mass-market appeal.” ~Editor, Hodder & Stoughton The Daily Telegraph, 30 Dec 1989.
13. “It used to be that people needed products to survive. Now products need people to survive.” ~Nicholas Johnson
14. “Most people think “selling” is the same as “talking”. But the most effective salespeople know that listening is the most important part of their job.” ~Roy Bartell
15. “If you work just for money, you’ll never make it. But if you love what you are doing,and always put the customer first, success will be yours.” ~Ray Kroc
16. “I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard.” ~Estée Lauder
17. “A smart salesperson listens to emotions not facts.” ~Unknown
18. “Everyone lives by selling something.” ~Robert Louis Stevenson
19. “Victory is sweetest when you’ve known defeat.” ~Malcolm Forbes
20. “Day by day, what you do is who you become.” ~Heraclitus
21. “The wise man puts himself last and finds himself first.” ~Lao Tsu
22. “Good ideas are common – what’s uncommon are people who will work hard enough to bring them about.” ~Ashleigh Brilliant
23. “Falling down is how we grow. Staying down is how we die.” ~Brian Vaszily
24. “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” ~Albert Einstein
25. “The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed.” ~Martina Navratilova

Welcome to the year 2012! I hope the first couple of weeks is everything and more you could have hoped for in terms of sales and getting jazzed for a fresh start. I compiled a list of some blog posts I thought you all might find interesting. They outline a lot of really great best practices to get you up and running this year. For those who didn’t quite hit your marks last year, now might be a good time to start switching things up a bit. Spend the morning or afternoon reading these from some truly influential figures in sales.

1. Personality Study of 1,000 Top Salespeople-Harvard Business Review - Heavy Hitter Sales Blog
2. 12 Ways to Increase Sales – Inc.
3. Being True To “You” – Paul Castain’s Playbook
4. Optimism is a Selling Skill. Is Your Glass Half-Empty or Half Full? – Salesopedia
5. How to Create an Enchanting Pitch #OfficeandGuyK – Guy Kawasaki
6. 5 Leadership Tips for Sales Managers - Better Closer
7. Seven Steps to Sales Transformation – Selling Power
8. 8 Ways to Increase Sales – InsideView
9. Want the Sales? Watch What You Say… – Joanne Black
10. The Beauty of Imperfection – Jill Konrath

Shoot us at a tweet @insideview if you like our collection of blog posts!

How a few shifts in your sales process can have a huge impact on sales revenue.

I read a great article on Inc. yesterday on 12 ways to increase sales. The author Geoffrey James pointed out some of the most important things a salesperson or sales manager should do to increase sales in 2012. He hit the nail on the head when it comes to why these 12 ways to increase sales revenue will work, I want to tell you how to do it in 8.

1. Reduce the number of opportunities you pursue. It’s not a numbers game. By focusing your sales energy on fewer opportunities that have a higher chance of closing, you can give these customers more of your time to move the deal along. Leveraging traditional sales drivers and trigger events you are aware of, you will know which prospects have a much higher percentage of closing.

2. Increase the percentage of time you spend selling. There will always be admin work. As a salesperson you may not have the ability to hand your busy work off to others but there are ways that you can still increase your time selling. Most sales people on average spend 10hrs a week researching prospects. By leveraging technology and sales intelligence you can cut that amount of time in half and free up some of that precious time to be talking to prospects and customers and sell more.

3. Stop buying technology because it’s cool.

Stop spending your money on the next shiny object. Invest in technology that is actually going to help you sell. Focus on tools that will provide you

• Trigger events that effect your prospects and customers
• Valuable connections through multiple social networks and existing business relationships
• More personal insights that turn your CRM contacts into people you can relate to and add context around
• Highly targeted and intelligent prospect lists

4. Terminate weak engagements–politely but immediately.

Just as your company should have a solid lead qualification process to identify new opportunities you should spend the time to disqualify deals. A sales team should know what their ideal customer looks like and focus their energy on them. If a prospect doesn’t fit the mold, quit trying to force them into it.

5. Hone your lead generation effort.

Sales people need to understand the art of lead generation is shifting to an online world. Stop waiting for your phone to ring and look for the people you can help in real time. Social networks are a goldmine for the socially savvy sales rep. If you know what you are looking for, finding new opportunities with social media isn’t difficult. For example our sales team found this update on Twitter and jumped in.

What’s a good company database alternative to Hoovers? They don’t seem to want to sell me anything.

— Ross Mayfield (@Ross) January 10, 2012

These types of updates are something your sales team needs to be on the look out for. After 24 hours, Hoovers still has not replied to Ross’s update on Twitter. Listening is key. Leveraging connections and personal insights our sales team was able to connect and help Ross with his business needs.

6. Don’t focus on the gatekeepers.

Understand who the real decision makers are. Get to know them as people instead of the contact that makes decisions at XYZ company. Stay engaged with them during the sales cycle by engaging with them outside of the actual sale. Connect with prospects on social networks and try and help them with other questions they may have and add valuable insights on their industry.

7. Stay on top of your opportunities.

Build a watchlist on your opportunities so you can be fed news and other alerts to things that are changing within their company. Leveraging technology to keep your finger on the pulse of your opportunities will insure that nothing slips by you and you can even stay a step ahead during the sales process.

8. Outflank your competition.

I say it during my speaking engagements: Be different, Be better. Your prospects are getting 100+ emails a day and called as many times a week. This tactic may work some of the time but don’t do what your competitors are doing. Stand apart from them by leveraging your connections to get the introduction, connect with the decision makers on social networks to have more engaged conversations in a medium that they are already spending time in.

It works!

2012 is here folks. New goals and high ambitions are in place as the slate is cleaned for the new year. It’s time to stoke the 2011 coals and fuel the 2012 fire. Here are 15 posts I put together with some very interesting predictions and strategies for this coming year. Hope you enjoy it and best of luck for this fine year!

1. 30 Social Media Predictions for 2012 From the Pros – Social Media Examiner
2. 5 Sales Management Questions We Answered in 2011 – Selling Power
3. 8 Great Marketing Infographics To Inspire Your 2012 Objectives – B2B Marketing Insider
4. 11 B2B marketing trends to watch (or wish) for in 2012 – Customer Think
5. How to Get Your Prospects to Call You Back in 2012 – InsideView
6. Sales Discussions That Need To Disappear in 2012 – Paul Castain’s Sales Playbook
7. Things I’m Wishing For In 2012 – Insider Sales Experts Blog
8. Social Media: Five Facts to Bank On in 2012 – Ad Age Digital
9. CRM 2012 Forecast – The Era of Customer Engagement – ZDNet Blog
10. SaaS Predictions for 2012 – Smart SaaS
11. Top 7 Critical Sales Trends for 2012 – Heavy Hitter Sales Blog
12. 12 Sales Trends for 2012 – Barrett Sales Blog
13. Bring on 2012 – Salesopedia
14. Your 2012 Marketing Plan: Tell Me What to Do – Business Grow
15. How to Create an Enchanting Pitch #OfficeandGuyK – Guy Kawasaki

This is the final post in a study we created along with Focus.com to discuss the best practices to leverage social media for sales teams. After talking to eight of the top thought leaders in sales training and sales technology we wanted to bring their insights to you. This is going to be a 3 part series that covers what successful salespeople are doing to leverage social media in lead generation and accelerating their opportunities. Some of these experts are listed in our post on the 25 most influential sales leaders. Much appreciation to these experts for taking the time to address the question “How do your successful salespeople leverage social media for selling?“

• Miles Austin
• Marge Bieler
• Dave Brock
• Barbara Giamanco
• Matt Heinz
• Carlos Hidalgo
• S. Anthony Iannarino
• Craig Rosenberg (AKA The Funnelholic)

Cultivate your own personal brand on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and beyond.

“The one thing I learned early in sales is that the most unique thing you are selling is not always the company or the product, but it is always you. Social media provides you a unique opportunity to build your brand — as well as endless opportunities to ruin your brand. The first thing anyone does before meeting with someone is to check their LinkedIn profile. Successful social salespeople carefully and thoroughly complete their LinkedIn profile, including a picture. All their social bios (Twitter, etc.) are meaningful, unique and memorable. Limit access to your Facebook if it has any offensive or borderline offensive photos.” (Rosenberg)

“Many sales managers dont think Twitter is a place for sales people. I disagree. With social media exploding as a form of communication, there are going to be more and more people leveraging the channel for business conversations. Not just brands but real people that want to solve business problems by asking others online. Learning how to listen and track people on Twitter will be a goldmine of information in some cases for salespeople.” (Sexton)

“Social media provides platforms for the individual sales rep to stand out from the crowd like never before. To be the one who is providing the most helpful information, the best references, and what is going on in that industry/market. I recommend that sales open their consideration more broadly than just the big three of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Each has its place and purpose in an overall social strategy that must be in place prior to any active social media use for a company or an individual producer. How about a personal landing page for you as an individual where prospects/customers can go to learn more about you? Take a look at creating an http://about.me page, and then highlight all of your other online activities with links to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and even your company website for example.” (Austin)

Establish your expertise by contributing to conversations — without selling.

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand how the science of sales intelligence has an effect on driving revenue. In addition to knowing more about yur industry and prospects than your competition, you will be able to lock yourself in as an expert of your market. By not just being a salesperson, you will open more lines of communication that will lead to more opportunities.

“Step 1: Figure out where your buyers are. Step 2: Be there Step 3: Contribute without intruding on the safe social environment people are interacting in. You hear a lot of stories of vendors finding leads in social platforms, but a lot of salespeople are just ‘there’ — contributing and building both trust and reputation. This approach serves them well. Many people are not just turned off by sales in general, but are absolutely repulsed by salespeople invading their online conversation to sell them something. My advice to salespeople is to get ‘in the mix,’ but don’t sell. Join the community and have conversations with industry leaders, peers and end users. There are salespeople who have built their online presence to the point where prospects have reached out to them for advice. That’s a big win.” (Rosenberg)

“Directly share information, become an expert, and generate a following. You are an expert. You understand your market, your customer’s problems, and the information they need to be more successful. You read the trade publications and regularly (possibly daily) find articles that your prospects and customers should read.” (Heinz)

“If our customers are already there (as research would indicate), then we as salespeople can’t afford not to be there and participating. Initially, salespeople should use social media (blogs, discussion forums, websites, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) primarily for listening and learning—what are the customers saying/asking, what is competition doing, etc. They should be engaging customers there, as well as using traditional channels. They need to be taking part in social conversations, they need to be representing their products and solutions in those conversations.” (Brock)

“With all the talk in the market about the importance of customer/buyer engagement, it is vital that today’s B2B rep use social as a means to dialogue with their buyers and customers. As reps thought the dialogue must change from one of pure sales to one of helping shape the discussion and to establish themselves as thought leaders and knowledgeable about their market, their buyers’ challenges and seen as a resource for answers. The best way to do this is via social, and the more reps understand that their involvement in this medium and having an active part in the discussion is key to the buying decision, the more they will begin to engage.” (Hidalgo)

“Become an industry source of knowledge by using one or more of the many curation tools that are now available, many at no cost.” (Austin)

• Miles Austin
• Marge Bieler
• Dave Brock
• Barbara Giamanco
• Matt Heinz
• Carlos Hidalgo
• S. Anthony Iannarino
• Craig Rosenberg (AKA The Funnelholic)

The first step and one that was consistent across 100% of the successful salespeople was to get connected.

Use your existing connections and networks to actively pursue new introductions.

“It’s so easy, on sites from LinkedIn to Facebook and more, to see who your existing ‘friends’ and connections already know. On LinkedIn, for example, you can quickly search for contacts you want to meet based on which of them are already connected to people in your existing network. This is one of the best ways to get referrals and introductions, not by asking your network to ‘keep you in mind’ but, instead, periodically asking for specific introductions. By getting specific, your conversion rate goes up and you’re talking to the people you specifically want to meet and sell to. In your existing organization, there is the sales team, but I’m thinking the rest of the company is a gold mine of potential introductions — especially founders, longtime employees and others who have spent a long time in your industry. They know people, people know them, and they’re more likely to help you make connections and new introductions.” (Heinz)

“Every time they receive a referral, email or leadership content, salespeople can highlight names mentioned in document, then research mentioned leaders, clients and customers — even competition — and send a note or invitation asking to join their conversations via LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms. By connecting with each other, you then can offer assistance or referrals and also build a trusted network of individuals to help build your referral base. Most people are thrilled you took the time to reach out to them when reading their books, viewing their videos, etc.” (Bieler)

“Successful salespeople are also using social media to identify the relationships that their prospective clients have to other people they already know. Successful salespeople aren’t afraid to leverage their relationships, to ask for introductions, and to rely on the people they know and what they know to open these relationships. Because these social media connections exist, what was once invisible is now visible; it’s easy to identify relationships and leverage them to find a way in. But it’s important to remember that your prospective clients are also using the tools to learn about you. Recently, I called on a major prospective client. After our meeting, he searched for my name on the Internet and found that we had a common connection on Facebook (his best friend from high school). He called his friend to get a reference on me before deciding whether or not to move forward. Fortunately, his friend recommended my work. Social media is no longer something salespeople can opt out of. It reminds me of what President Richard Nixon used to say about foreign affairs: ‘You might not be interested in the world, but it’s interested in you.’ ” (Iannarino)

Use Twitter and other social channels to build deeper, early relationships with new prospects.

“Here’s exactly how you do it (at least with Twitter, but other social channels can likely be done in a similar fashion). Build a list of the prospects in your territory or market. With the help of an admin or an outsourcing service like eLance, go and collect the Twitter handles of each company and as many of the individuals as you can find. Using your own Twitter account, follow those companies and individuals. Then, using a tool such as HootSuite, set up a separate column where you can specifically watch activity from those prospects. This makes it easier and faster to engage with them on a regular basis. Answer their questions. Share a resource. Retweet their articles. In other words, use their attention to this social channel to build value by interacting where they are already spending their time and looking for information.” (Heinz)

It can be a pain in the rump trying to find a couple of blog posts worth spending your morning reading and jump-starting the week. Literally hundreds and thousands of sales blogs with self-proclaimed “best sales solutions” trying to cram their way into your Twitter feed, Google search results and your existence. Fret no more as I have done the searching for you and found what I deem some great sales blog posts. Take a look and have a phenomenal week.

1. The Secret Lesson Hiding in Nucleus Research’s ROI Study – CRM Outsiders
2. 5 Steps to Create a Killer Google+ Business Page – BrainSell Blog
3. Are You Lost In a B2B Sales Lead Paradox? – Marketo Blog
4. New Study Says Customers Think Companies Don’t Give a Damn ABout Their Time…Just Their Money – Brent’s Social CRM Blog
5. Customer Relationship Innovation for the Emergent Social Business - Brian Vellmure’s CRM Strategies Blog
6. Eight Business Apps That Will Change the Way You Work - Emergence Capital Partners
7. How Much Will You Sell in 2012 With Social Media? - Selling Power
8. Video: The Biggest Mistakes Sellers Make – Selling to Big Companies
9. Data Myth #4: Integration Ensures Cleaner CRM Data – DataMyth
10. Three Steps to Develop Yourself – S. Anthony Iannarino; the Sales Blog

• 42% have insufficient knowledge of the business needs of prospects
• 40% do not have the ability to identify the most likely buyers of their product
• 34% complain of having a sales process that is too long
• 21% See an increased customer churn forcing them to focus on filling the funnel

I predict in 2012 that these numbers will not change too dramatically but the results from companies that are actively leveraging technology and sales intelligence as a method of combating them will. Sales managers should be constantly on the lookout for ways to solve these business pressures and based on research by the Aberdeen Group, the top performing sales organizations have built strategies that can drive measurable results in building a sales pipeline and increasing the quality of leads.

• 59% of the best in class companies have leveraged sales intelligence tools to identify or disqualify prospects with more accuracy
• 53% of companies have been able to identify existing customers that have upsell/cross sell opportunities
• 48% of companies have increased the quality of leads intheir pipelines
• 28% use technology to capture and share sales knowledge internally.
• 21% of companies reduce the amount of time doing sales research

This research is important because it’s showing that companies that are having the problems listed above are able to continue achieving results by leveraging sales intelligence in traditional and non-conventional ways. Top performers in lead qualification teams understand that moving less qualified prospects out of their view has more value than dumping a volume of under vetted opportunities on the sales team. By not relying on data but the contextual news and social profiles of the companies and people you are contacting, better decisions can be made on which prospects to pursue and which leads to abandon.

The research study on the science of sales intelligence goes a long way in showing that companies that want to increase revenue quickly with your existing sales team can do so by leveraging technology to speed up the sales process. A strategy around using sales 2.0 applications to identify strong/weak prospects should be a key focus for your 2012 sales plan.

Just a quick poll: Are the issues described above the same as for your company?

1. Converting B2B Sales Data into Social Intelligence – Social Media B2B
2. Five Ways to Measure If Facebook “Likes” Work for Your Business – Selling Power
3. Myth #1: More Data Is Better – DataMyth.com
4. 3 Big Data Myths for Enterprises – Smart Data Collective
5. CEOs on Sales – What Company Leaders Want from Sales Leaders – The Sales Operations Blog
6. Salesperson: Hunter or Farmer? – The New Sales Coach
7. Are Your People Selling What They’re Supposed to Sell? – Partners in Excellence
8. Social, Content & Selling – a Chief Revenue Officer’s Take – Inside Sales Expert Blog
9. Four Keys to a Great 4th Quarter - Salesopedia
10. Six Simple, yet Powerful Benioff-isms – The Sales 2.0 Advocate

1. Selling Successfully in a Down Economy – Selling Power Blog
2. Four Keys to a Great 4th Quarter – Salesopedia
3. What I Learned From Steve Jobs – How to Change the World
4. Deal Stalled? There Is Always More Than One Way. – The Sales Blog
5. Video: The Biggest Mistakes Sellers Make - Selling to Big Companies
6. Who is Killing Your Sales Motivation? – The Sales Hunter
7. Tips for Finishing the Year Strongly – Jonathan Farrington’s Blog
8. Chasing Your Passion! - Sales Playbook
9. Sales Presentations the Don’t Suck [share this with your team] – Inside Sales Experts
10. Are Top Salespeople Born or Made? - Heavy Hitters Sales Blog

LinkedIn has quickly become one of the most effective and business-savvy social networking sites. Sales professionals are able to take advantage of valuable insight about prospects and peers, in turn developing a strong network that translates into increased productivity through resources, tips, advice and much more. By joining these groups, you will gain some incredible knowledge in the world of sales as well as discovering some of the top leaders in the industry.

To help those in the sales industry, the following groups and channels are among the most influential and valuable on LinkedIn.

Social Selling University

Description: Social Selling University is not like social media courses which are typically designed only for marketing departments. This is how to use social media tools like LinkedIn and Twitter for sales people. Join this group to find out how and pass this group along to anyone you know in sales.

Owner: Koka Sexton | 632 members

Inside Sales Experts

This group allows Inside Sales practitioners to share ideas and information, and provides networking opportunities for  global professionals from a variety of industries to connect with their peers.

Owner: Trish Bertuzzi | 11,521 members

SalesBlogcast.com

Description: Sales, leadership, management, marketing, CRM, Salesforce, recruiting, business development, selling tips, lead generation, prospecting, training, networking, jobs, career, Web 2.0, technology, software, strategy, social media, blogging, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and more.

Owner: Doyle Slayton | 36,356 members

The Sales Association

Description: The Sales Association is the premier association for sales & business development professionals. We provide members a powerful means to connect at events and online. Topics: sales, marketing, sales jobs, convention, conventions, jobs, trade show, trade shows, conference, conferences, CRM and careers.

Owner: Troy Davis | 26,483 members

Sales Playbook!

Description: Sales, leadership, management, marketing, CRM, Salesforce, recruiting, business development, selling tips, lead generation, prospecting, training, networking, jobs, career, Web 2.0, technology, software, strategy, social media, blogging, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Owner: Paul Castain | 25,110 members

Sales 2.0

Description: This group is for: sales people, sales managers and business owners who want to: 1. Exchange information about the emerging discipline of Sales 2.0 2. Partner up to help each other sell more, penetrate accounts and exchange leads.

Owner: Nigel Edelshain  4,160 members

Innovative Marketing, PR, Sales, Word-of-Mouth & Buzz Innovators

Description: Innovate with innovative marketing, public relations, promotions sales and selling professionals skilled at using creative marketing methods. Join thousands of members to learn & share best practices & advice. LinkedIn’s largest Marketing & PR Innovation Group.

Owner: Gerald “Solutionman” Haman | 148,010 members

Sales Management Association 

Description: The Sales Management Association (www.salesmanagement.org) is a global, cross-industry professional association for sales managers, sales executives, sales operations, sales trainers, sales enablement practitioners, and thought-leaders engaged in supporting or leading the sales organization.

Owner: Bob Kelly | 15,274 members

Sales Gravy

Description: Sales Gravy helps Sales Professionals, Sales Leaders, and Sales Recruiters gain the winning edge. We discuss sales techniques, sales training, sales jobs, sales careers, sales tips, sales recruiting, sales process. www.SalesGravy.com is the most visited sales content website on the internet.

Owner: Jeb Blount | 15,274 members

Sales Best Practices

Description: Have you some Sales or Marketing skills? Let’s share our experiences: Sales development, marketing, CRM, productivity and trade performance, team management and more.

Owner: Laurent J.V. Dubois | 82,904 members

“Using competitive intelligence to sell more effectively is not a universal practice, but the Best-in-Class include it in their solution mix 36% more frequently than Industry Average companies, and 51% more than laggards”

If traditional sales and marketing methods no longer work, what do prospects respond to? How can sales and marketing reach, connect and engage with prospects effectively in today’s world?

The secrets to successful B2B sales and marketing are simple: Right Person. Right Time. Right Message.

Right Person: The first task is to identify the right person, find relevant information about them and connect with them through someone they know and respect. 84 percent of prospects usually respond to a sales rep when recommended by someone inside the company. Rather than calling a phone number from a list, identify an individual at the right level within the organization. This person should hold a position that gives them the authority to make a decision and makes them likely to have a need for the product or service. Be aware of the prospect’s work profile and recent tweets to easily establish a rapport, and know which colleague or reference customer can provide a warm introduction to the prospect.

Right Time: Know when to call a prospect. Picking up the phone right after a company secures funding, when a new executive has come on board, or when a new regulatory requirement comes into effect matters. Calling the prospect even days or weeks before a competitor does can be the difference between winning and losing a deal.

Right Message: Prospects take it in their own hands to go online to learn about vendor solutions, and they are often aware of the key features and big differences. As a result, they value reps that are more customer-focused and who can articulate how they can address the prospect’s unique business needs. The nuanced message should be about how to help a prospect be successful rather than what a product does.

A recent paper by Aberdeen titled “Understanding the Science of  Sales Intelligence” identified the key areas that companies and sales teams should be focusing on for results.

• Executives/ People Information
• Targeted company details; Financials; Competitors
• Contextually relevant news
• Analyst data on tends
• User generated content (blogs, social media)

As a social marketing associate at InsideView, I like to spend my morning gathering the best sales content to dish out throughout the week. Part of our mission here is to give our fans and other audiences the best sales knowledge they need to get the job done. As a result, I have provided 10 of some of the best sales sites I read every morning when I come to work with my huge cup of coffee. Do yourself a favor and bookmark these sites and learn from some of the top minds in sales. (These sites are not in any kind of ranking or order…they’re all equally awesome) Check out our list of our Top 25 Influential Sales Leaders as well for more on who and what you should be following.

1. Fill the Funnel

2. Your Sales Playbook

3. No More Cold Calling

4. The Sales Hunter

5. Jonathan Farrington’s Blog

6. The Pipeline

7. Sales Loudmouth

8. Heavy Hitters Sales Blog

9. Sales Du Jour

10. Ian Brodie’s Blog

Sales 2.0 is the bread and butter of what we do here at InsideView. Essentially, we want salespeople to incorporate sales intelligence into the new generation of sales where social selling comes into play. Unfortunately, this methodology of sales 2.0 is skewed in various definitions and discussions of its effectiveness. As a result, I have had the privlidge of gathering 15 great sales 2.0 posts that provide some solid definitions, rich in content.

1. Sales Tip: The Social Graph is Your Friend – Nigel Edelshain
2. 37 Character Tweet Led to Huge Sales Opportunity – Anneke Seley
3. 5 Essential Books to Understand B2B Sales 2.0 – Katie Byrnes
4. 7 Forward Thinking Presentations You May Have Missed – Chad Levitt
5. Sales Success Strategies for a Social World – Gerhard Gschwandtner
6. What the Heck is Sales 2.0 (& Why Should I Care) – Pamela Seiple
7. 40 Great Social Media Infographics for B2B - Koka Sexton
8. Sales 2.0: Is Hunter vs. Farmer Theory Outdated? – Claire Moore
9. How to Shorten Your Revenue Cycle – Andrew Hunt
10. 10 fresh Ideas on Sales 2.0 And Sales Process – Marci Reynolds
11. Productivity on Steroids (Podcast) – John Cousineau
12. Lead Scoring is 878% More Effective Than Cold Calling – Paul Rafferty
13. What is Sales 2.0 (And Why You Should Care) – Padalog
14. Statistics Show the Business Case for Sales Enablement - Paul Krajewski
15. Sales 2.0 The Impact on Selling and Sales Process – Tony Cole

Sales Data may be defined as the quantifiable facts and figures about prospects, including company and contact details as well as financials, that can be pulled from a variety of editorial or user-contributed sources. Essentially, sales data is exactly how it sounds: it’s just data. A phonebook is a book of data. A textbook is a book of data. When you Google search a term or word, what you get back are search results which is essentially data. Everything is there but how do you know which are the right nuggets of information?

Sales Intelligence may defined as going beyond demographic and financial data to provide accurate, relevant and timely business insights on their current initiatives and urgent business challenges. This presentation dives into a number of examples of how sales intelligence can greatly impact a sales team’s revenue. With the right applications, sales teams can find the precise insights from the most relevant resources to accelerate the sales performance cycle.

Sales Data vs. Sales Intelligence

View more presentations from InsideView

1. Anneke Seley – @annekeseley
2. Trish Bertuzzi - @bridgegroupinc
3. Joanne Black – @ReferralSales
4. Sam Richter – @SamRichter
5. Jill Konrath – @jillkonrath
6. John Barrows - @KenseiJB
7. Kendra Lee - @KendraLeeKLA
8. Josiane Feigon - @JosianeFeigon
9. Barbara Giamanco – @barbaragiamanco
10. Nigel Edelshain – @nedelsha
11. Nancy Nardin – @sellingtools
12. Don F. Perkins - @donfperkins
13. Paul McCord – @paul_mccord
14. Tibor Shanto – @Renbor
15. Gary Hart – @SalesDuJour
16. Gerhard Gschwandtner – @gerhard20
17. John Cousineau - @jcousineau
18. Kenneth Darryl Brown – @KenE3C
19. Pelin Thorogood – @PelinT
20. S. Anthony Iannarino – @iannarino
21. Eric Blumthal – @EricBlumthal
22. Doyle Slayton - @SalesBlogcast
23. David A. Brock – @davidabrock
24. Miles Austin – @milesaustin
25. Mark Hunter - @TheSalesHunter

For all of you sales fanatics out there scouring the Internet in search for an article, a blog post, a post-it note, anything, for some solid, rich content on how to become a better sales person…you’re quest is over. Below are 10 phenomenal presentations that will make you a better sales person. I must warn you, this is not a magic post so just by reading this blog you won’t wake up with superhuman sales powers. Instead, it is your duty to take all of these lessons into consideration and implement them into your sales strategy. If your numbers are low, you have nothing to lose than to give these presentations a quick glance. If you’re rockin’ the quarter with sales, maybe you want to take the extra mile and really knock your business out of the park by taking a look at this treasure trove of knowledge.

1. A sales man is a sport man