Sales training is an essential part of any successful sales enablement program. However, not all sales training initiatives are created equal. While some programs may produce short-term results, they often fail to deliver long-term success.

What Does a Sales Manager Do? 10 Essential Management Roles

Mary Flaherty
July 19, 2023

If you’re a sales or enablement leader charged with training sales managers, you’ve likely been asked, or asked yourself, “What are the core skills and competencies our sales managers need to effectively coach and develop our sellers?” As you dig into this question, developing effective sales managers can seem like a daunting challenge.

10 Tips for Selling in Economic Uncertainty

Mary Flaherty
May 31, 2023

Closing sales in today’s environment is a real challenge. If you’re in sales or sales leadership, I expect you’re nodding your head. Sales cycles are getting longer, more opportunities are being lost to no decision, and the economy is unpredictable at best.

How Sales Reps Can Adapt to the Hybrid Selling Environment

Mary Flaherty
May 3, 2023

Have you met Morgan? A terrific sales rep. Except recently, Morgan has slipped out of the top tier of the leaderboard and I think I know why: she struggles to adapt to the new selling environment.

Sales Competencies of Top Sellers

Mary Flaherty
April 5, 2023

You’d be hard-pressed to find an organization that didn’t want its sellers and sales teams to meet their goals in the face of challenging conditions and do so with high win rates and strong pricing. Sales training is one obvious way for organizations to build such teams. While sales training often fails to meet its promise, our research shows that highly effective sales training is correlated with higher win rates, sales goal attainment, and premium pricing.

The 9 Advanced Skills Missing from Your B2B Sales Process

Mary Flaherty
February 22, 2023

The world of B2B selling looks far different than it once did. Top sellers know they must go well beyond discussing features and benefits. They need to be closely tuned in to the buying process for each member of the buying committee while consistently meeting buyers where they are throughout the cycle. That’s a tall ask, as it turns out. According to Gartner, as many as ten decision makers might make up a B2B buying center. Additional data from CMO Council shows that B2B customers actively research and compare solutions, often completing 50% to 90% of the work before contacting a sales rep. Long story short: complexity is a hallmark of B2B sales.

15 Sales Training Techniques for Building Elite Sales Teams

Mary Flaherty
October 12, 2022

During a now-famous interview on the Pierre Berton Show in 1971, Bruce Lee shared a simple philosophy: “be like water.” As fitting as Lee’s advice is for sellers, “be like a sponge” works just as well. To stay ahead, sales teams must continuously absorb new information and develop skills. Ongoing training and coaching and sustained effort over time is crucial. Otherwise, sellers (and their managers) risk not reaching their potential. Fortunately, there are sales training techniques that even the most experienced teams will soak up.

30 Sales Training Ideas for Top-Performing Teams

Mary Flaherty
September 28, 2022

For sellers, routine can be a blessing and a curse. It’s true that doing the same things day in and day out provides structure. It requires discipline, too. But it can also turn into a comfort zone in which many sellers stagnate. This is what makes recurring sales training programs so valuable. Yet even after the most engaging, resonant sales training programs, sellers tend to revert back to what they’re accustomed to doing. Which puts a heavy onus on sales managers.

Sales Training Topics to Drive Results

Mary Flaherty
August 17, 2022

TL;DR? Download the PDF and save it for later. If you’re responsible for designing or implementing sales training for your organization, you know the effectiveness of training varies greatly. It might not be implemented properly, land well with participants, be relevant to sellers’ daily work, or it might be forgotten completely in the days and weeks following the training. Sales training fails more often than it succeeds. But, for those who get it right, the payoffs are substantial.

15 Ways to Get Referrals

Mary Flaherty
September 9, 2021

Wouldn’t it be great if every single new prospect trusted you and your organization? Referrals are among the top ways sellers get leads and new business, but many struggle with generating them consistently. Often, this is because they haven’t thought about why buyers should refer them. They don’t have a system in place for generating referrals. If you’re providing a quality experience for your buyers, you’re already halfway there. Word of mouth is bound to generate new business, but a deliberate referral marketing plan will drastically improve the frequency and quality of the referrals you receive.

10 Ways to Improve Your Networking Skills

Mary Flaherty
November 6, 2015

Much of sales is about making connections.

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