Brutal. Boring. Excessively defensive. Seemingly endless. Sunday’s big game had a lot in common with the worst sales cycles—and that’s exactly why we curate the smartest sales content week after week. Here’s what you need to know in order to make your next deal a lot more lucrative and a lot less hard to watch.
Top Stories This Week
Enterprise Sales Beliefs That Will Be Obsolete in 2019 (DiscoverOrg)
Jake Dunlap, CEO of sales consulting firm Skaled, joined the DiscoverOrg podcast to bust some myths about enterprise sales, along with some emerging trends and changes to buyer behavior. It’s an insightful episode, a compelling conversation, and at just 24 minutes, it’s the perfect listen for your next commute.
New Thomas Report Reveals Industrial Buyer Habits (Thomas)
With over a hundred year’s worth of experience working in B2B, Thomas knows a thing or two about customer buying habits. Though these insights mostly apply to industrial buyers, there’s plenty here for salespeople to learn from that can translate to their own industry. There’s a lot to learn here about buyer behavior, no matter what industry you’re selling into.
Why Value Degrades Over Time (The Sales Blog)
Anthony Iannarino delivers a smart POV on customer retention in this piece. He makes the very salient point that the value your solution delivers comes from its ability to address one specific pain point—but pain points change over time. How can you earn loyalty and retain your customers? The answer: by constantly providing new value.
66 Sales Statistics That Will Help You Plan Better Deal Closures in 2019 [Infographic] (Salesmate)
Here’s something pretty share-worthy that we’re bookmarking for future reference, with plenty of juicy stats about sales emails, sales calls, referrals, and closing. The one we found most interesting? A huge 80 percent of sales require five follow-up calls after meeting.
The Art of Creating Customer Surveys They Will Answer (CMSWire)
You’re probably already sending emails and surveys to customers to gauge their satisfaction, but how well are they responding? If you’re not getting enough answers to glean anything useful from their responses, then your surveys probably need retooling. Fortunately, there are tips and tricks you can employ to make sure your surveys reach the Goldilocks ideal for maximum responses: not too long and not too short.
Hot Job Listings This Week
Behind on your New Year’s resolution to further your career? We can help you catch up. Here are some of the hottest sales jobs we’ve found this week.
VP/Director-level roles
- Cylera: Vice President of Worldwide Sales (NYC)
- Gracenote: Vice President of Sales and Client Solutions (San Francisco)
- Kenshoo: Director of Sales (NYC)
- Clarivate Analytics: Vice President, Sales North America, Life Sciences (Philadelphia)
Manager-level roles
- Microsoft: Principal Solution Specialist – Azure Apps and Infra (Detroit)
- Advantech: IoT Sales Representative (Irvine, CA)
- Red Hat: Sales Account Manager (Remote)
- Fiserv: Senior Sales Executive (Washington, D.C.)
Account executives
- Gartner: High Tech Sales – Account Executive (Irving, TX)
- Dropbox: Account Executive – Education (Austin)
- Tealium: Senior Account Executive (Minneapolis)
- Qubole: Account Executive – Field Sales (Seattle)