As iPads® and tablets become more prevalent in the sales world, there is a lot of buzz around the many ways in which they could be useful. With more and more sales organizations adopting these technology, one thing is clear – the potential impact these devices can have on a sales rep is immense.

Whether as a state of the art presentation platform, or a tool for accessing the latest sales collateral in the field, iPads and tablets allow for easy access to information as well as increased efficiency.

Given the volume of app options though, it is important to find out which of the thousands are actually worth downloading. Whether it’s cutting long lines at the airport, or pulling together a presentation on the fly, there are a number of great apps that every sales rep should know about.

Read More »

Wonder why you’ve seen increased Inside Sales turnover in your organization recently? Is it because reps are dissatisfied with their compensation package or working environment? Is it their relationships with immediate team members and managers? What about career opportunities?

As our members have recently shared on our Talent Management Discussions Forum, providing clear growth opportunities in the organization is key to keeping your Inside Sales reps satisfied and engaged.

What exactly does “flexible career opportunities” mean though?

Inside Sales is a position that often has undefined next steps for advancement. What about those Inside Sales employees who, over time, may want to work in the field or transition into a management type role? Read More »

At last week’s annual Sales and Marketing Summit, “Inside the Customer’s Purchase Decision,” the keynote address was delivered by Dr. Robert Cialdini, author of the well-known book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

Dr. Cialdini’s work on persuasive techniques is always an interesting read for sales professionals, but what made his speech especially timely and relevant for the summit was that it was about persuasion during times of greater information overload and uncertainty.

Faced with more information than ever before, stricter budgets and approval processes, and greater internal consensus requirements, customers are increasingly uncertain about making purchases today.

According to Dr. Cialdini, people exhibit several possible responses when faced with decisional uncertainty:

• Freezing—a reluctance to act or make a choice until the uncertainty is resolved
• Loss Aversion—a tendency to prefer choices designed to prevent losses over choices designed to obtain gains
• Heuristic Choices—when choices are made, they are based on a single, relevant factor rather than a set of relevant factors

It’s no easy feat for sales forces to contend with customers exhibiting these behaviors. Reps can help customers overcome their decisional uncertainty and hesitancy though, by using some key principles of persuasion and influence. Read More »

There seems to be an almost unlimited array of smartphone apps out there, and many are geared to the business traveler.  Here is a sampling of my favorites—the apps I most often use while out on the road, all of which can be downloaded for free.

The apps are organized by common (at least in my case) travel challenges.

Challenge #1: “Wait, so for how long is my flight delayed?”

App that can help: FlightAware

If you’re traveling after the first flights of the day, the time of your departing flight is likely to be determined by when the plane you will fly on arrives from another airport.  Many times, the departure boards don’t accurately reflect this.  So ask the gate agent for the flight number of the arriving flight for your plane, and FlightAware lets you track that flight live while it’s in the air.  You can search easily by flight number as well as flight route (departing and arriving airports).

***Note – don’t stray too far from the gate area even if your arriving plane is delayed.  The airline might switch planes to get your flight off earlier.

Challenge #2: “I hope there’s more than a snack machine near my gate!” Read More »

(This is a guest post by Dana Clifford of the Communications Executive Council, our sister program for communications professionals.)

They may be experts at setting strategy and managing an organization, but unfortunately not all CEOs can walk up to a podium with confidence and truly engage their employees, investors, or audience.  How about your CFO? CIO? Are they able to give a presentation that captures and keeps the audiences’ attention and teaches them something?

Being an effective presenter is the key to any sales pitch and a prerequisite as you move up the corporate ladder.

Recently, the oh-so-talented team of executive advisors at the Corporate Executive Board gathered for a few days of training (yep–we’re trying to make our presentations more engaging and effective for our members as well!).

Below are 10 of the top tips from CEB’s masters of effective presentations. Share them with your teams in your next coaching session!   Read More »

Summer, for most of us, is a time to recharge our batteries, to relax, to enjoy some calm before the demands of life pick up again.  Unfortunately, investors have made that a good deal harder recently as they collectively removed over a trillion dollars in value from financial markets over the course of a few days.

Why the sudden volatility?  Consumers haven’t suddenly changed spending behaviors, nor have business customers. And suppliers look healthier than in some time, beating earnings estimates and sitting on plenty of cash. Credit availability has drastically improved. Inflation is hardly threatening.

The answer seems to lie in the health of developed economies. While many appeared to be on the mend for the past year (albeit slowly), it’s become clear the recovery is far more fragile than was thought, especially in the US.  We’re not in a recession, but we’re also not in a recovery that is self-sustaining.

In such an unstable place, most signals (economic data) are too weak or confusing for investors to proceed with confidence.  Even small pieces of information have outsized impact and prices gyrate.  Markets, after all, are just groups of people trying to discern future value and in this case they are struggling.

So, what are executives doing in the face of this volatility?   Read More »

Organizations have perpetually struggled to drive collaboration and knowledge-sharing across their different functions, business units, and geographies. In recent years, many have looked to social media as a potential solution, but hesitated given privacy concerns and protection of proprietary information.

That all changed with the launch of Salesforce Chatter, a platform which promises to bring the benefits of social media to sales organizations.

For those unfamiliar with the platform, Salesforce Chatter is like Facebook, but for organizations. It allows employees to collaborate at work—establish networks, share files and status updates, follow people, information, and groups—all within the company’s private and secure internal network.

In our conversations with members, we’re often asked how organizations are leveraging Salesforce Chatter to drive better collaboration and knowledge-sharing. Here are five tips that can help you unlock the platform’s value: Read More »

With all of the SEC’s available resources, it can be tough to know where to begin—so why not get started with some Financial Services fan-favorites?

We compiled a list of the most downloaded SEC resources that your peers in the Financial Services and Banking industries are using to help them excel at their jobs.

Here are a few must-reads to add to your list:

Top 3 SEC Resources for FS and Banking Sales Professionals: Read More »

When it comes to embracing new technology, sales reps often are the last to get on board. Attempts to introduce new technology often fail, as reps go back to their tried and tested ways of selling.

It’s no wonder, then, that reps’ recent interest in using iPads has caught most sales organizations by surprise. In fact, many companies are reporting that reps are proactively purchasing personal iPads to use in the field. Encouraged by the positive feedback from early adopters, a number of companies are in various stages of launching more pilots and arming their broader sales force with iPads, and some are even creating dedicated applications.

But, what makes the iPad such a powerful sales tool and why are reps so drawn to it?

3 Things Reps Love About iPads: Read More »

(This post was written by Tim Stafford of our Finance and Strategy Practice.)

Last month we looked at how everyone can learn to be more influential in their roles, but we have also seen from our work with executives that there are some straightforward lessons that will help managers be more influential.

As well as helping to get tasks accomplished effectively and quickly, these four tactics are useful ways to get more from your team without offering financial incentives.

Four Ways to Get More From Your Team

1)  Get personally involved: One of the biggest lessons we’ve learned from talking to managers all around the world is that employees invariably respond well to personal interaction. One former CEO wrote recently about the power of face-to-face meetings. Managers tell us what a big difference it makes when they make a trip to meet team members or, even better, convene the entire team in one place for a few days.

People respond much better to questions and requests when they’ve had a chance to put a name to a face. Also meeting each other in person gives the whole team a chance to better understand personalities and context for the hundreds of phone calls, emails, and videoconferences that will follow in the months ahead.   Read More »