Best Sales Advice of 2018
Quotable’s mission is to bring you the best sales advice and tips to improve your sales career — whether it involves inside sales, artificial intelligence, cold calling, prospecting, you name it. Here, we’ll take a look at some of the most popular articles from 2018. Be sure to check out the Quotable podcasts and subscribe to our newsletter. We can’t wait to bring you even more in 2019.
Break through to buyers using multiple methods.
“The prospecting power comes when you combine methods and build attraction campaigns using multiple tactics and reaching out to buyers multiple ways over time. … Breaking through the clutter takes hard work, but it can be done. Eighty-two percent of buyers have accepted meetings with sellers who proactively reached out in the last 12 months. You can be that seller.”
From “The Top Prospecting Methods (According to Your Buyers)” by Mike Shultz, President, Rain Group
Quotas aren’t the goal.
“The best sales reps I know never use their quota as their goal — it’s their starting point. … In the last decade, sales has changed from an individual pursuit to a team sport. In order to overachieve your quota, you’ll need to be the one who inspires a shared vision, leverages your extended team, and solves customer problems.”
From “Five Ways to Overachieve Your Sales Quota” by Colin Nanka, Senior Director, Enablement for Commercial Sales, Salesforce
Think about what artificial intelligence really means for sales.
“There’s actually a race to the bottom if an organization thinks, ‘Wow, I don’t have to have people like that on staff at all. AI can cover this work at a fraction of the cost, and we realize a huge chunk of value.’ Really, a company should turn this thinking on its head and ask, ‘How do we use AI to put value back into our employees? How do we turn the people who were doing a lot of this rote work before into creative components of my company?’
The future of global competition is about creativity and talent. … I’ll say this blatantly: Build better salespeople. That’s the way to win in the long run.”
From “What Artificial Intelligence Means to the Present and Future of Sales” by Dr. Vivienne Ming, Theoretical Neuroscientist, Entrepreneur, and Author
Reflect on why you’re selling.
“Sellers must be true believers in the value that they offer. Instead of becoming frustrated in trying to crunch the deal, close the prospect, and rush quota, they need to move away from all of that aggression and simply understand what they’re really battling. It’s not the customer; it’s not really even the competition. It is instead their own fears of rejection and the apathy that resides in most customer organizations. … At the heart of successful selling is a commitment to making a positive difference in the lives of customers, both personally and professionally.”
From “Why the Sales Profession Is Broken and How We Can Fix It” by Tony Hughes, Speaker, Author, and Consultant
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