Understanding Sales Operations Ever since Xerox first pioneered the concept in the 1970s, sales operations (or sales ops for short) has been an integral part of most organizations’ overall sales strategy. However, the concept is somewhat broad, and the term…
The Role of the Sales Representative While people sometimes think of a sales representative, or sales rep, as a clerk in a retail capacity, the term means something very different in technology sales. If you work in a technology company…
Sales Quotas: Your Target as a Salesperson There’s nothing that good salespeople think about more than how to meet and exceeding their sales quotas. Sales quotas are the goals assigned to an individual sales representative, team or company for a…
The Sales Playbook: Your Guide to the Game of Sales The term sales playbook takes its name from the world of sports – where a “play” is a set of activities a team or athlete pursues to get a desired…
Sales Metrics From A to Z Sales metrics are any of the various metrics that sales management uses in their sales forecasts to see how much sales revenue they can expect to close in a given period. In particular, managers…
Sales Training: Taking Your Team to the Next Level While monitoring sales pipeline and ensuring adherence to your company’s sales strategy are both important, the primary focus of good sales management should always be on sales training and coaching. Managers…
Sales Revenue: Your Key Metric As a salesperson there’s nothing more important for you to focus on than sales revenue: the amount of money your company gets from sales activities. After all, generating sales revenue is the entire purpose of…
Leveraging the Sales Process for Success Your sales process refers to the way in which you put your sales strategy into action. A sales process map will plot a prospect’s journey from when they first hear about your solution to…
Mastering the Sales Pipeline The term sales pipeline is often used interchangeably with sales funnel. While they both refer to the process by which sales leads move from discovery to close, there are subtle differences between the two. A funnel…
Sales Leads – The Backbone of Your Sales Organization Nothing is more important to the success of your company’s overall sales strategy than having enough sales leads. Sales leads, or just “leads,” are individuals to whom you would like to…
Thinking about a Sales Career When thinking of a sales career many images can come to mind – from a door-to-door salesperson to someone working in retail. However, for the sake of simplicity, when we refer to a sales career…
Sales Calls: The Backbone of Selling Sales calls are the backbone of sales activity – they refer to any calls made by salespeople to prospects or customers. Typically, when people refer to sales calls they’re talking about cold calls. Cold…
The Importance of Sales Forecasting Sales forecasting refers to the process of predicting the revenues and costs associated with your sales activities for a given period of time (a quarter, year, two years, etc). It should be noted that sales…
Harnessing Sales Activities Sales activities can refer to anything salespeople do in the process of trying to close deals. This includes making cold sales calls, sending out cold emails, following up with prospects, presenting demos and negotiating price. One of…
The Power of Sales Management The term “sales management” is used to refer to one of three things: the actual sales managers at a company, the business discipline of sales management or the process of sales management itself. For the…
Understanding Sales Analytics Sales analytics is a term that frequently gets tossed around in the industry but can often be very vague. Generally speaking, sales analytics refers to any measurement of metrics related to customer procurement and retention. This can…
Thinking About Your Sales Strategy If you’re selling any kind of product or service chances are that you have at least a minimal sales strategy in place. A sales strategy refers to the collection of methods sales teams use to…
What is a sales funnel? A sales funnel is a simple visualization that helps you picture your customers’ journey from lead to payment. This takes the form of a “funnel” because it’s wide at the top and narrow at the…