Back in November 2017, Collin Sexton and his college basketball team at Alabama were forced to play 3-on-5 for more than 10 minutes against the University of Minnesota. Due to injuries, ejections, and disqualifications, Alabama could only put three players on the court. The crazy part, behind 40 points from Sexton, Alabama almost won the game, ultimately losing 89-84.

Sales teams have typically not been early adopters of technology, but generative AI may be an exception to that. Sales work typically requires administrative work, routine interactions with clients, and management attention to tasks such as forecasting. AI can help do these tasks more quickly, which is why Microsoft and Salesforce have already rolled out sales-focused versions of this powerful tool.

Something top performers – i.e. reps who hit 150% of quota – do twice as often as their peers? Research. Meaningful, deep research into their prospects to find out about their business, their interests, and what’s driving them, both intrinsically and extrinsically.

Sales is a business about people and getting the right talent is vital—companies must reconsider their talent strategies and the sales roles they need to continue to drive growth.

Learning and development (L&D) leaders face a plethora of challenges when planning, designing and developing sales enablement initiatives. Products and services are evolving faster than ever. Technology like artificial intelligence (AI), sales analytics software, customer relationship management platforms and sales collaboration and workflow tools are more entrenched across the sales cycle.

Many large, multinational companies fail to reach and profit from middle-market customers. Yet the opportunity is enormous: In the U.S. alone, middle-market companies purchase more than $6 trillion a year in goods and services. Sellers with a big middle-market customer base can grow along with their clientele. The fundamental problem is that many multinationals don’t have a full-fledged strategy for selling to midsize companies, as they usually do for sales to enterprise and small business clients.

Some of my long-term problems had such simple solutions. If only I had thought of the obvious solutions first. For example: For decades, I could not drive for much longer than two to two and a half hours before my eyes would get so heavy that I risked falling asleep at the wheel. Day or night, year after year, all of our trips were based on how far I might have to drive. And then I discovered the solution. Sunglasses.

Sales leaders often default to a binary view when stratifying or tiering their customers, leading to the creation of two broad account categories — key accounts and “non-key” accounts. Many times, the “non-key” accounts are further stratified into sub-tiers focusing on different engagement strategies or resourcing models.

We’re in one of the most frustrating economies in recent memory. It’s not a full-on recession yet because, despite layoffs in tech, unemployment is generally low. But inflation is high, interest rates are high, and people aren't buying like they used to. And it's causing some serious sales slumps.

As the pressure for sales teams to succeed increases, so too does the need for sales leaders to develop their sellers’ skills and potential. But there are a couple of problems preventing them from doing so. First, many sales leaders rely on an outdated sales leadership approach.

Today, there is hardly any more popular topic than artificial intelligence (AI) — its current capabilities, its future possibilities, its benefits and dangers. While AI will certainly be helpful and impactful, not even experts and scholars know what the “AI revolution” will look like ten or twenty years from now, nor when the true “year of AI transformation” will be.

A study of B2B companies found that just one in 20 was able to consistently grow sales faster than sales and marketing expenses. As companies seek to cut costs in an uncertain economy, increasing this commercial productivity is a smart strategy. Research shows the three ways companies can do this are to refine the go-to-market model, turn every rep into an A player, and make sales and marketing support more efficient.

Few things can be more critical to your company's growth than your sales process. But when you step back to evaluate your team's methods, you may wonder whether your process is more of a hindrance than a help. After all, as important as traits like persistence and having good people skills can be in sales, they aren't going to be enough to create a winning process on their own.

I don’t know about you, but I’m relieved to see high-pressure sales tactics get dumped in the waste bin of history. The popular thinking used to be that the only way to succeed was to talk fast, instill fear, and constantly push for a close. None of that is conducive to a great experience for buyers OR for salespeople.

Sales leaders' roles will undergo significant changes due to the integration of AI in sales processes. AI is going to have a major impact on sales professionals and sales leaders need to increase their digital literacy and experimentation in using AI to modernize their organizations, not only will AI impact inside sales, direct sales and also customer service operations.

Persuasion is not a speech, it’s a process — a process of learning about your audience, earning their trust, and building a case that takes into account their interests. These skills are important in any situation, and essential in times of limited resources

Sales reps never seem to have enough days in the month for all the phone calls, emails, meetings they need to have with buyers. Add to that the management and administrative tasks that go with every sale, and even top performers may end up exhausted and frustrated. They need help improving their productivity—to maximize sales results while reducing the cost, energy, and time spent on each deal.

Objections are unavoidable on sales calls, but encountering one doesn’t necessarily mean an end to the conversation. If you’re able to anticipate what your prospect’s objections will be, you stand a better chance of overcoming them. At Trellus, their AI sales coach detects objections, provides real-time suggestions to guide reps during the call, and measures the effectiveness of those suggestions based on different metrics.

It has always been essential for businesses to maintain a solid reputation. However, this has taken on another level of importance in the modern context. Social media, 24-hour news cycles, and the ubiquity of information have put reputational issues at the forefront of any organization’s strategy. Efforts must be made in terms of public relations, brand management, and leadership reputation, but it cannot stop there.

Businesses are bound to make mistakes and disappoint their customers. But how you build your apology message and your careful attention to executing it appropriately can make the difference between losing those customers or increasing their loyalty. When delivered well, your apology message can improve the customer relationship to the point where it is stronger than if the mistake had never happened — a phenomenon known as the service recovery paradox. In this article, the author outlines five steps for writing an effective apology message and explains why it’s important to share the apology process internally and with external stakeholders. It not only shows vulnerability from the organization but also shows other customers that the company can be relied upon in times of distress.