Explore every episode of the podcast The Brandon Bornancin Show

Customers are king and nowhere is that more apparent than in the casino and gaming industry. The retention and treatment of a customer can make or break a company. In this episode, managing partner Cory Morowitz talks about his experience consulting companies on the importance of the customer in the gaming industry.

Transparency is a buzzword but it’s still important. Great companies have figured out a way to be transparent but also be private. Transparency doesn’t mean telling everything but it does mean open and honestly. In this episode, David Karp talks about transparency and how great companies use this tool to be successful.

September 11th was a terrible time for many people and the US as a whole. For many people, it was a day they will never forget as it changes their lives forever. In this special episode, we talk to inside sales executive Jim Donovan about his experience on 9/11 and how his life was transformed.

Everybody worries about prospecting and they should be they often believe things that cause them to fail. Prospecting will always be a combination of art and science but what is most important is what drives results. In this episode, Gord and Dan from the RainGroup talk about myths of prospecting and what you can do right now to start effectively building your pipeline.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• The Five Myths White Paper
• The State of Sales Development

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Exactly when buyers want to talk to sellers in the buying process
• Whether or not buyers find sales meetings valuable
• How C-level buyers prefer to be contacted by sellers
• 6 ways sellers can influence buyers to connect with them
• Whether or not the capabilities pitch is dead
• 5 strong influences on buyer purchase decisions

Are you ready for this? The fight of the century! In the last month, there have been more than 100,000 video views and thousands of comments on LinkedIn debating how sales leaders can best build pipeline with different prospecting methods. Is the phone really dead? Has buyer behavior changed? Is LinkedIn the answer? Can email still be effective? All of these questions plague sales reps and leaders and are debated daily on sales floors across the globe. What is the answer and more importantly what will bring results to solve the biggest challenge in sales – building quality pipeline? Gabe Larsen, VP of Growth at InsideSales.com has taken the stance that the phone is not dead and reps and companies should continue to use it as a tool in their prospecting arsenal. Mario Martinez Jr, CEO at Vengreso argued the phone has its place but using social tools such as LinkedIn must be included. Is one right and the other wrong? Are they both right or both wrong? The answer must be decided and the winner defined and the only way to do it is battle it out. One expert to another, face-to-face, mano-a-mano. In this virtual battle, sales leaders will learn: The seven methods that must be considered in every prospecting situation How leaders can maximize each prospecting method to win a digital sales cadence designed to build pipeline and close more deals

If you’re not using Analytics and AI in your sales tech stack today, you’re falling behind the times and behind your competition. Most high-performing companies are already using advanced analytics for lead scoring, forecasting, and amazing productivity increases. To truly harness the power of predictive analytics in sales, companies need to focus on the areas where they can create the most value, and implement it wisely. In this session, Maria Valdivieso from McKinsey & Company joins us to talk about her learnings and experience with advanced analytics.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• AI Case Study
• Maria's LinkedIn

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How predictive sales software helps you target right customers
• Why software can be better than people at people management
• How analytics reduces churn and maximizes customer lifetime value
• How you can effectively implement advanced analytics

Cold calling? You probably don’t get very far into your call when you hear your first objection. At this point in the conversation, the prospect starts to blow you off for a variety of reasons: not enough time, not enough interest, not enough money, etc.

Most people think you need a different answer for each objection, but that’s not true. All you need is a plan or strategy to overcome customer objections, and it’s actually very simple to create it.

In this session, Jason McElhone, Director of Inside Sales at MarketSource and VP of Growth at InsideSales, Gabe Larsen, discuss the power of cold calling and the best methods for overcoming objections.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Cold Calling Webinar Part Two

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• The number one method for overcoming objections on a cold call
• The strategic points of a cold call and how reps are using them to win
• What makes for a good cold call and why great reps realize cold calling is not dead

Sales can learn a lot from other industries and principles. It turns out that improving sales productivity is very much like a six sigma, lean manufacturing process. In Six Sigma there is a framework called DMAIC that is very applicable in sales as well. The D stands for Define - First define and normalize your sales process. The M stands for Measure - Then measure and benchmark each step of your sales process in multiple dimensions. The A stands for Analyze. Analyze - Then find the root-cause of any performance gaps by talking to people on the front line and by listening to their calls. The I stands for Improve - Implement improvements through technology, training, and coaching. Lastly, the C stands for Control - Control the change by monitoring the data and iterating over time. In this episode, Dominique Levin, Partner at Winning by Design talks about her experience and how sales and learn from lean manufacturing.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Winning by Design

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• What sales can learn from six sigma
• A structure for thinking about sales transformation
• What DMAIC means and how sales can use it

Let me guess, you’ve heard cold-calling is dead, right? I’ll tell you right now, the people saying that are not the people who are actually cold calling. Cold-calling is alive and well and we can prove it. We looked at nearly 1 million phone calls and the ability for a sales rep to convert a call to a conversation is above 10%.

Not bad. But how can you do it better?

Look no further than Jason McElhone, Director of Inside Sales and cold-calling expert at MarketSource. Jason has spent the last 27 years cold-calling and his results are out-of-this-world.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Cold Calling Webinar

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Why cold-calling isn't dead if you do it right
• How experts execute a cold call to win
• Cold calling tips to be successful on your first call

Gone are the days of the simple sale. CRMs, like Salesforce, allow you to document and log key sales information in a world full of complex deal cycles. But you often lack the essential tools to see the big picture, build effective account plans, and operate strategically.

To succeed in sales today, you need to understand hierarchical and political relationships, identify influencers, and decide whom to contact. You need to be able to quickly and effectively show this information in deal reviews and 1:1s. The fastest, easiest way to get an overview of your accounts is to work visually. Influence maps and account maps are visual references that can help you find the fastest path to sale and close your deals faster.

In this podcast, Lucidchart’s SVP of Sales, Dan Cook, will show you how to successfully map your accounts and key contacts and how to use that map to strategize more effectively. With a clear view of your accounts, you’ll be prepared to accelerate the sales cycle and close bigger deals.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Visualize Summit

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• What is account mapping
• Why should organizations be thinking about mapping accounts during the sales process
• Tips to map accounts effectively and how to use that information effectively

Everybody get's a cold-call but not everybody handles it like Ralph Barsi at ServiceNow. Ralph has made a lot of phone calls in his day and rather than giving sales people a hard time, he takes the time to provide coaching. Recently, Ralph received a cold call after an event he visited and the result was a positive conversation about sales reps can best follow up after an event.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Sales Leadership Summit
• The Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Ralph's experience on the phone
• What you should be thinking about for event follow-up
• How you should approach a cold call

Sales reps are taught a lot of things but they are not often taught about how to approach senior level executives. Why? Most people don't know how. In this episode, Matt Conway, founder of MattConway.com talks about the skills needed to prospect to CEOs and why companies can't seem to figure it out.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Sales Leadership Summit
• The Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Why it's so important to go 'high' when prospecting
• Why companies don't go high enough and how they can
• What are some of the skills needed to prospect to CEOs

There are a lot of challenges in sales but there is one that trumps them all. That challenge is building enough quality pipeline. The problem is leaders know it but they don't know how to solve it. They often think it's a people challenge so they hire more people but the numbers don't improve. This makes for an interesting dilema among leaders and one that doesn't appear to be going away anytime soon. In this episode, CEO and Founder of InsideSales.com, Dave Elkington talks about the biggest challenge in sales and how an AI system of growth can play a role in solving it.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Sales Leadership Summit
• The Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• What data and research prove is the biggest challenge in sales
• What role AI has in solving sales challenges
• What is an AI system of growth

If you don't hire and retain you will wither and die in today's market. The problem most people don't know how to do this. In this episode, we discuss how to select candidates, on-boarding, and training.

Times are changing and companies need to change with it. In the modern era of selling customers are buying different and sales reps are selling different. For companies to win they need to understand the latest selling trends and modernize their sales team to compete in an era of constant change and disruption. ​In this session Alli, Amy, Katie, and Jim discuss digital sales strategies and discuss how organizations win and lose with or without them.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Sales Leadership Summit
• The Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• The buying experience has changed, how does that make you change the selling experience?
• Digital is often a word associated with marketing not sales but great digital sales teams work closely with marketing. How have you partnered with marketing to be successful?
• How have you designed your sales team around this new digital experience?

Your sales process doesn't have to be broken. Data can be used to drive the sales process forward and predict the result of the sales process. In this episode, Ed Garry talks about the importance of gathering the right data and making sure it is accurate. In addition, Ed hits on the pitfalls of sales management and data and why reps should be data-driven.

Inside Sales is here to stay but not many people know how to build a killer team. Well, Sid Kumar from CA technologies does. Sid joined CA Technologies with the specific purpose of building a flourishing inside sales team and he did just that. Sid went from 0-300 reps in 30 months and in this episode, Sid talks about his secrets to success.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Sales Leadership Summit
• The Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• The importance of modernizing your sales team
• Why you should map your customer journey with your sales process
• Key learnings across people, process, and technology

Not everybody has a sales operations team but every leader still needs to manage their business based on numbers. When sales leaders are left alone there are basic ways they can still run their team using numbers but it does take work and determination. In this episode, Debra Senra, VP of sals at Harris, talks about how she coaches companies to use data to mange their business - especially if sales leaders are going at it alone.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Debra's LinkedIn
• Sales Leadership Summit
• The Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Why it's important to run your business based on numbers
• What numbers are important to be thinking about
• How numbers can be used to coach and push your people

There are a lot of things that can derail sales reps time. Time management is one of the most important things a sales rep can do. In large deals, the ability to figure out if a deal is good or not can mean a lot to the company's sales numbers. Caroline Robinson is the Director of Sandler Training in Cambridge and knows a thing or two about sales. In this episode, she talks about how reps get lost in the deal process through the three areas of client issues, sales team issues, and financial issues.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Caroline's LinkedIn
• Sales Leadership Summit
• The Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How sales reps waste time with client issues
• How sales reps waste their time on sales team issues
• How sales reps waste their time on financial issues

There are always debates. One that is starting to pick up more speed is whether or not sales reps should respond to inbound leads. I took the time to put down my top ten secrets to responding to inbound leads and it's a solid list.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Top Ten Secrets Webinar
• Lead Response Tips
• The Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Don’t Break the Law of Immediacy
• Balance speed and score Don’t Starve
• Your Sales Team Be pleasantly persistent
• Avoid Sales Reps
• Account-Based… Engagement equals response
• Yes, You Need a Chat Bot
• Don’t Be Afraid People Want You to Respond
• Fix Your Process

Should every sales person be a thought leaders? What role should content play in sales? Will Barron leads the Salesman podcast, the largest B2B sales podcast in the world and he's one who has mastered the idea of content. In this episode, Will discusses his rise to fame and how he thinks sales people should think about giving value to progress the sales process.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Will Barron on LinkedIn
• Salesman Podcast
• The Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How can content help a sales rep become a thought leader
• The purpose of giving value to get value when selling
• Key learnings when creating content to help you sell

What is a sales playbook and how should companies think about it? The answer may seem easy but it's not. In this episode, Daniel Baunds, CEO of Vendas B2B Academy, talks about his experiences with sales playbooks. He highlights the importance of making them custom centric and having them follow a methodology that can be scaled to fit your business.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• AI System of Growth Case Study
• State of Sales Infographic

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• The importance of a buyer-centric playbook
• The power of closing early
• Why you need to make it scalable
• The importance of mapping out your methodology
• Implementation hacks

You can't replace in the human in selling, it's just not possible. Authenticity goes a long way and it just can't be faked. In this episode, Shari Levitin, founder of the Levitin Group discusses the human interaction and how important it is in training and coaching.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• AI System of Growth Case Study
• State of Sales Infographic

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Why the book Heart and Sell was created
• How do you structure a training program so it produces ROI
• How do you know if your training methodology is effective
• What's the best way to scale a training program

Every organization changes but not every organization handles change the right way. Kat Andruha is the director of sales development at Apttus and she's experienced her share of change. In her own words, Kat takes us through lessons learned and ways she's found toe successfully manage changing in the organization you're in.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Sales Development Summit
• State of Sales Report
• InsideSales Labs Best Practice Training

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How to think about change in your organization
• Best practices in communication for change
• Tips on how to mange top down and bottom up

We need to change the way we sell. We can't sell our products anymore. There are two many products but there are not enough solutions. Buyers have problems and they need solutions but not in the way you think you need them. We need to change the message in sales to get buyers to change vendors/product. Salespeople tend to focus on the gain by asserting to the customer that they will save $x money (but this isn’t the best way to create change or motive a buyer to take a risk, i.e. buy your product). Salespeople should shift focus to the loss, which motivates people to be more risk-seeking/risk-taking to improve their situation. So rather than claiming (A) “we can save you 10% (framed as a gain), you should claim (B) “you are spending 10% more than you should be (framed as a loss). In this episode, we talk about prospect theory and how it can help you move from product selling to solution selling.

GlassDoor changed the way employees pick companies and online review shops are changing the way customers are buying. In the B2C space it's obvious. As consumers we go online to review and buy and now B2B is following suite. In addition, rather than gathering information from typical customer satisfaction surveys, companies are finding these review portals to be authentic accurate representation of what customers really think of them. In this episode, Olivier L'Abbé , VP of Sales at G2Crowd, talks about the power of reviews and how customer buying behavior has changed.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• InsideSales.com on G2Crowd
• Olivier L'Abbé on LinkedIn
• InsideSales.com Labs

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How customers are buying today in B2B
• The power of customer reviews in marketing, sales, and product
• What you can do to start influencing the real way customers buy

Garbage in and garbage out. That's true every where and it is especially true in sales. Even if you're the best sales rep, if you don't have good data, you're toast. In this episode, Noah Spirakus, CEO at Prospectify talks about data, the importance of getting clean data, and how companies are winning with strong data strategies.

• Sales Development Summit
• State of Sales Report
• InsideSales Labs Best Practice Training

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Why companies should be concerned about their data hygiene
• What does good data mean for your sales team
• Tactics and strategies you can use now to make your data work for you

We recently did a research study and asked 721 sales people how they spend their time. The results were really surprising. They spend 35.2% of their time selling and 65% on everything else, but not selling. The next question is why and what can companies do to change this. In this episode, we dive into the research and talk about the problem and the solution.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• LinkedIn Post with Infographic
• Time Management Study

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• The research on how sales reps spend their time
• Why sales reps are spending so little time selling
• The two things companies can do to improve the time spend selling

We all want to get more sales but that is hard to do if you're not targeting the right accounts, in the right way, and the right time. Matt Amundson, VP of marketing and sales development at EverString knows a few things about account targeting and on this episode Matt dives into the need to find your optimal customer profile and explains the importance of prioritizing your best accounts as part of your sales strategy.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Sales Development Summit
• State of Sales Report
• InsideSales Labs Best Practice Training

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How to determine your which prospects you should target
• The importance of good data and the role it plays in the sales process
• The power of prioritization and how companies can do it

Life is short so why not learn from the experts. Jake Reni, is a master when it comes to helping companies, including Adobe, think through a strategic go-to-market approach for building an optimizing sales and sales development teams. In this episode, Jake and I debate and discuss some of the trends and debates around what is need to get to a winning state for your sales teams.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Sales Development Summit
• State of Sales Report
• InsideSales Labs Best Practice Training

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How teams should be thinking about building segmentation and structure for their business
• What technology stack you should or shouldn't be considering
• Is account-based sales for you or not

We all talk about sales cadence but that doesn't mean we know what it is. We've talked about sales cadence on this show before but this is different. We recently completed additional research on sales cadence where we analyzed 1.5 million activities across nearly 500,000 different cadences - all focused on outbound selling. In this episode we dive into the research and discuss what companies need to be thinking about to be successful in building pipeline and winning with their sales cadences.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• The Definitive Guide to Sales Cadence
• Sales Cadence Webinar

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• What is the definition of a cadence
• What are the five pillars of a cadence
• How can companies build a cadence to increase pipeline

We can talk about leadership all we want but it's not easy. Great leaders are born and developed. If you think you can't be a great leader, you're lying to yourself, anybody can be a great leader but it takes work like everything else. In this episode, Dionne Mischler, tells us some of the secrets to being a great leader and provides some real advice on how leaders are developed.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Time Management Article

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How great leaders leads
• Are leaders developed or born
• How you can develop leadership qualities today

Building a global sales organization is no easy task but Gideon Fourie, VP of strategy and sales operations at First Data, knows how to do it. Gideon oversees operations in 34 countries with an extremely complex sales motion. In this episode, Gideon explains some of the challenges of managing a global sales operations function and explains his recipe for succeeding despite the complexities that are involved.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Time Management Article

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• The challenges faced when building a global sales organization
• Thoughts and strategies on optimizing a sales structure
• Key strategies used to succeed supporting and enabling an organization across 34 countries

Most people don't know the difference between training and coaching and even if they do, they don't know how to coach. In this episode, Shimon Lazarov, CEO of LiveCoach, talks about the importance of coaching, how people should coach, and why you might want a coachLinks and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• AI System of Growth Case Study
• State of Sales Infographic

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• The difference between training and coaching
• Why everybody needs a coach
• The power of coaching

Let's face it, CRM sucks to use, especially if you're a sales rep. But, we use it because we have to. I promise that statements like that won't last though. Something has to happen to make CRM valuable and I'm not talking about SMART CRM as that is more of the same. We need to not just give to CRM we need to get from CRM. The next evolution of CRM is a system of growth and it combines CRM with AI and sales technologies to help sales teams sell more.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• LinkedIn Post
• AI System of Growth Case Study
• State of Sales Infographic

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• The truth about where reps are spending their time
• How CRM is not living up to it's promised benefits
• What is an AI System of Growth and the future of selling

Sales Operations is a known function for many organizations but it is often underutilized. In this episode, we discuss how sales operations can be most effectively utilized by using big data, understanding the customer lifetime value, and collaborating with other parts of the organization.

Top trends are something that anybody can put out there but they are not always right or interesting but that's not the case with Gaetano, VP of marketing at SalesHacker. Gaetano wrote a guest post on the InsideSales.com blog and he killed it. He outlined some of the top trends for 2018 and if you haven't seen it, you need to as it will help you prepare for 2018.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Gaetano LinkedIn
• Top Trends Blog Post
• State of Sales Infographic

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• What trends you must be watching in 2018
• What trends you should prioritize to make you stand out in the crowd
• How you can take these trends and put them into action

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the new buzzword du jour. It seems everyone has “AI” software or services that promise to help your wildest dreams come true. But you run a sales team. And you have to deliver solid sales results this quarter and next and next. You don’t have time for marketing hype or sales software solutions that over promise and under deliver.

When implemented correctly, Artificial Intelligence can help businesses increase revenue up to 30 percent and take your business to the next level.

Here’s a simple way to think about how to build AI into your sales growth strategy simply and easily, without risk.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• NeuralScan
• Webinar Version of This Recording
• Case Study of Real AI

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• What Artificial Intelligence can do for business revenue growth
• The four steps of AI implementation in a sales organization
• The pitfalls of AI implementation and common issues to watch out for

Sales is changing for some odd reason the education of sales people is staying the same...well mostly. There is one pocket of people doing things different and that is happening at the University of Houston. For years now, Joel Le Bon, has been leading a sales program, ranked top in the country, to help students succeed in sales-and it's working. In this episode, Joel talks about the program he's created and the success it's been having.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Sales Development Summit
• State of Sales Development Research
• State of Sales Infographic

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Why schools don't teach sales
• What the University of Houston is doing to make sales people succecssful
• What you can do to help push the profession of sales forward

If you don't know how to communicate your story then nobody on your team does. Your elevator pitch and the importance of having everybody at your company understand and know it by heart, is crucial for success. J.J Peterson is the Chief of Staff at StoryBrand, a company that focuses on clarifying companies' messages so customers engage.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Sales Development Summit
• State of Sales Development Research
• State of Sales Infographic

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• What is a story and what makes a great story
• The elements of great stories
• Why companies should spend time building their stories

Leaders are not born, they learn through experience. Vinay Bhagat is a serial entrepreneur who has started and run multiple successful companies. In this episode, he talks about his leadership success principles and details how companies can start thinking about customer advocacy and how great companies are proactive in their approach.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Vinay's secret to great leadership
• Why companies shouldn't just trust analysts but should also trust their customer opinions
• How companies can start building a customer advocacy program today

It's fun to talk and hear from thought leaders but it's also fun to see how people really do it. Jim Debald is one of those guys who really does it. He's transformed the sales team at CoreDial by focusing on people, systems, and process. Jim's focus on numbers and persistence in testing helped create an amazing culture and results during his tenure at CoreDial.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Sales Development Summit
• State of Sales Development Research
• State of Sales Infographic

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• How a real business leader thinks about transforming his company
• The importance of the sales process and why you need to figure out what works for you
• Technology and a focus on numbers are both key in making companies great

This guy is the real deal and if you haven't seen him you'll need to check it out. Morgan Ingram runs the popular #TheSDRChronicles Youtube shows that highlight the life of a sales development rep. Morgan has been an SDR and manages SDR teams, so when he speakes he knows it from experience. In this episode, Morgan and I debate some tough topics around SDRs, like will SDRs survive the AI movement? Where should SDRs report into? And what makes SDR successful. . . .

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Sales Development Summit
• State of Sales Development Research
• State of Sales Infographic

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• The future of sales development
• How AI will effect sales development
• What sales development reps need to do to be successful NOW

Carrie runs a multi-million dollar business by outsourcing prospecting work for companies. When it comes to prospecting strategies Carries knows all the tricks of the trades and when you talk to her you get it straight - no B.S. In this episode, Carrie talks about sales development trends, puts to rest the cold calling debate, and enlightens us with best practices for sales development leaders.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Sales Development Summit
• State of Sales Development Research
• State of Sales Infographic

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Key to managing a sales development team
• When you should think about outsourcing your prospecting strategies
• Why cold calling is not and will never be dead

The end of the year is a time of reflection both personally and professionally. Most companies work with their sales reps to nail this time period and make a strong plan to achieve quota going into the next year, while other companies fail. In this episode, Annie Matthews VP of Sales at TechTarget, talks about her strategies for the end of the year and the lessons she's learned over her sales career.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• State of Sales

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• What you should be thinking about for the end of the year
• Lessons learned for end of year sales planning
• What reps should do to plan for appropriately for the next year

53% of sales reps don’t hit quota and most sales leaders don’t know what to do about that. At the end of the year there is a conversation between a manager and a rep and that conversation is summed up usually as “do better.” That doesn’t work and sales leaders know it but what can they do differently? Some leaders turn to their CRM and try to determine why some reps achieve quota while others don’t but the exercise typically brings minimal benefits. To solve this challenge, sales leaders need REAL visibility into what their reps are doing and not doing to build pipeline and close deals and that’s where we come in. InsideSales.com has recently created an assessment called the Sales Effectiveness Quadrant™ (SEQ). The SEQ is a prescriptive assessment that turns your bottom performers into top performers by analyzing and segmenting your sellers on characteristics that lead to pipeline creation and more closed deals.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Get a Free SEQ Assessment
• The State of Sales Development Report
• Vote for the Sales Development Thought Leader

In This Episode You'll Learn:
Industry benchmarks for pipeline management
What behaviors may be leading to low quota attainment
What companies are doing to solve the quota challenge
What is the Sales Effectiveness Quadrant™ and how can it help sellers

Sales Development is an important role in many companies but many teams still struggle to figure out how to coach and train reps to be successful. In this episode we discuss the importance of sales development and the top three skills needed to be successful. Conversation starter Lead Management Qualified lead/opp transfer to sales

Sales development is a tough role but it's an important role and one of the most innovative roles to emerge from sales in the last decade. The problem is, the research has been weak and so has the best practices. That ends today. InsideSales.com in partnership with a half-dozen companies have produced the largest study ever on sales development. The study focuses on Structure, Systems, People, and Pipeline.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Sales Development Summit
• State of Sales Report
• InsideSales Labs Best Practice Training

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• What is sales development
• How 1000+ companies are building and executing successful sales development teams
• The structure, systems, people, and pipeline of successful sales development teams

Inbound leads are what they are. The question is, what should you do with them? In a rebuttal to an article questioning if companies should respond to inbound leads, yours truly, lays out a handful of reasons you might want to think about responding quickly to inbound leads at your company.

Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• LinkedIn article
• 2017 Lead Response Study
• Sales Hacker Article
• Time Management Article

In This Episode You'll Learn:

• Respond to High Priority Leads in Under Five Minutes ... Unless You're an Idiot
• Find the Balance Between Speed and Score
• Don't Ever Reach Out and Start Your Conversation With 'May I Help You'
• Know This: People Who Download Your Content Will Most Likely NEVER Read It
• Prospects Rarely if Ever Want to Talk to a Sales Person
• Prospects Are Impressed with Hustle
• If You're Going to Reach Out, Do It Immediately-Don't Wait Multiple Days
• Account-Based Doesn't Have to Equal Slow Response

What good is hiring great people if you don't train them? Sales onboarding is still broken and many companies think they can solve the problem simply by having one rep shadow another. That's not going to work and it doesn't work. In this episode, Ryan Reisert, Lead Instructor at Sales Bootcamp, talks about what he's learned about onboarding sales reps and shares his secrets to success.