RAIN Group's Best of 2018

Each year, our goal for the RAIN Group Sales Blog is to provide you with research, ideas, and insight to help you unleash sales potential.

From blog posts to new white papers, ebooks, infographics, webinars, and research, we've published a treasure trove of content in 2018 to help sellers, sales managers, and sales leaders reach top performance. 

Below we've rounded up our most popular content from the year that will guide you on your path towards sales success.

Our Most Popular Content from 2018

Blog Post: How Many Touches Does It Take to Make a Sale?
How many touches does it take to make a sale? The simple answer is: more than most people think! According to our Top Performance in Sales Prospecting research, it takes an average of 8 touches to get an initial meeting (or other conversion) with a new prospect. But the initial meeting is just the beginning. It takes a lot more to make the sale. In this article, we share how to generate more conversions in fewer touches, bring more opportunities to proposal and win them, and hit your sales goals more often.

Blog Post: 21 Powerful, Open-Ended Sales Questions
Broad, open-ended sales questions are great for helping you find out what's going on in your prospects' and clients' worlds. They also help you connect with buyers personally, understand what's important to them, reshape their thinking, and create better futures for them. The importance of asking the right sales questions can't be understated. Here are 21 open-ended sales questions you can use that will help you complete the picture of your clients' needs.

Infographic: The Sales Leaders' Guide to B2B Sales Growth 2019 Seventy-five percent of purchases are strategic, meaning the buyer is making an investment and not required to buy. Yet only 14% of buyers discover these strategic opportunities from sellers. If you want to grow your sales in 2019, the opportunities are out there and very few sellers are taking advantage. How can you build a team that closes this gap? In this infographic, we share the biggest opportunities—according to our research from both buyers and sellers—for sales growth in the year ahead.

Blog Post: What is Sales Training?
The global market for sales training is approximately $4.6 billion, yet most sales training fails to deliver lasting results. This is because most companies do not define and approach sales training properly. To deliver effective sales training, you need to redefine what sales training is. You need to focus on changing your sellers' behaviors to drive results and reframe training as a change management initiative. In this article, we redefine what sales training is and provide important tips on how to deliver the most successful training.

Blog Post: 7 Ways to Build Rapport in Sales and Connect with People
There's a lot more to building rapport and trust than making a positive initial connection with someone, but it sure is a good start. Having a strong connection with someone makes them more likely to share their aspirations and afflictions with you, two things you need to know about your buyer if you want to succeed in sales. When you build rapport, you want to make a sincere connection. Too often, chit-chat before a sales call seems contrived…because it is. Here are 7 ways to build rapport and make genuine connections with people.

Infographic: 30 Must-Know Sales Prospecting Stats and What They Mean for Sellers How many attempts does it take to break through to busy buyers? What offers are most accepted? Do cold meetings convert to new business? In our new benchmark report, Top Performance in Sales Prospecting, the RAIN Group Center for Sales Research uncovered the answers to these critical prospecting questions. With data from 488 B2B buyers and 489 sellers, we've cracked the code on what works in prospecting today. This infographic highlights 30 must-know stats from our research and analysis on what they mean for sellers in today's world.

Blog Post: How to Write a Proposal
"Can you send me a proposal?" Sellers love to hear these six words from buyers. Once you submit a proposal, you can move forward to the win. While a good proposal summarizes what you've already discussed and agreed to, a proposal is, at its core, a persuasive document that communicates to buyers why they should buy, and why they should buy from you. In this article, we share eight key sections to include in a proposal if you want to be in the best position to win the sale.

Guide and Worksheet Download: Goal Setting Worksheet: A Powerful Guide to Setting and Reaching Goals Setting goals keeps you focused, motivates you, and gives you a destination to work towards. However, it's not enough just to set goals—you need to know how you're going to achieve them. You need an action plan and to hold yourself accountable. In this Goal Setting Worksheet, we provide a proven goals framework and action planning process to help you set and meet your goals this year. This download includes a blank worksheet with step-by-step instructions for developing your own goals and action plan, as well as an example of a completed Goal Setting Worksheet.

Ebook and Webinar: The 9 Habits of Extreme Productivity The most successful sellers are motivated, proactive, focused, and goal-oriented. Indeed, they get the most done and achieve the best results in less time. So what makes these sellers significantly more productive? The answer: They're systematic. They attack each day with a similar mindset and process to drive their productivity. Our ebook and webinar will help you do the same. In them, we share how to get more done in the time you have, change your work habits, and maximize your motivation. If you want to spend more time doing the things you love while crushing your goals, the keys, habits, and hacks in these two pieces of content are essential to getting started.

We hope you enjoy this content, and that it helps you on the way to achieving your sales goals. We look forward to bringing you much more in 2019, so stay tuned.