Swift sales

INDUSTRY NEWS

Swift sales

Good luck finding tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras tour. The concert sold out in seconds as legions of Swifties jumped at the chance to belt out their favorite songs in perfect unison. As a sales leader, you may never experience that level of fevered devotion about your product, but there is a lesson to be learned. Swifties are shelling out thousands for a single ticket, and it all comes down to alignment around buyer value. Aligning across sales, marketing, and product is a critical process that goes beyond getting everyone singing from the same songbook. According to Dave Frankland, VP and Research Director at Forrester, revenue teams should align along five key dimensions. If at first you don’t succeed, shake it off and try again.

Upping your enablement game

If the Lakers had any shot at beating the Nuggets in the NBA WC Finals, they needed everyone playing at the top of their game – and that includes players and coaches. Winning in sales is no different, and the game has gotten trickier. Buyers are no longer following a linear journey. They are jumping back and forth between channels and buying steps. To keep up, revenue organizations need to move from sales enablement to revenue enablement to ensure that everyone touching the customer has the know-how, skills, and tools to succeed. According to Gartner Sales Research Director Michael Katz, you can begin your revenue enablement journey in three steps. Just don’t do it on a basketball court – you’d be called for traveling. 

Workplace rizz

We have all been on the receiving end of an unwanted acronym. When your coworker hits you with the “FWIW” or “AFAIK,” you may be left feeling lost and confused. These seemingly innocent strings of letters leave many scratching their heads to try and unravel their elusive meanings. Did they say something offensive or helpful? In the quest for comprehension, it seems that deciphering acronyms often requires the wit and tenacity of a linguistic detective. If “ELI5” makes you think that you are out of the loop on the latest hit movie series, it might be time to brush up on your texting vocabulary. Inc. breaks down the 27 commonly misunderstood acronyms and slang expressions. No more SMH moments in the workplace – IYKYK.

IN THE GROOVE

Playbook feelings

TFW your opportunities slip through the cracks is not a good one (see previous article for acronym assistance). Do you invest precious time into sales trainings and still see sellers not following your playbook? You’re not alone. We are here to change the status quo with an innovative new capability coming this summer. With Groove Plays, Groove is delivering on our vision for connected sales execution, where teams, strategy, and technology all come together in one actionable platform. Soon you will be saying, “TFW my team is crushing their quota!”

LEARN SOMETHING NEW

Anchors for salespeople

Sailors know the importance of an anchor to hold a ship in place. But on land, anchors can be useful for salespeople too. We are talking about price anchors, of course (we don’t recommend salespeople use anchors to tie buyers down to a demo time). Whoever makes the first offer in a negotiation is setting the price anchor, which can greatly influence the outcome of the negotiation. But what do you do when the buyer makes the first offer? The Sales Readiness Group provides proven counter-negotiation tactics to use in this situation. Our advice? Grow some sea legs; lifeboats aren’t included. 

The art of sales charcuterie

Building your sales skillset is like creating a delicately balanced charcuterie board. It’s all about variety and filling in the gaps between the cheese – I mean sales skills. A mouthwatering board isn’t just a chunk of aged gouda; it includes fruit, meats, nuts, crackers, etc. to achieve that perfectly tailored flavor and aesthetic. Just like charcuterie, every seller needs to round out their skillset board with a variety of tasty sales ingredients. If you are looking to elevate your professional development, Cynthia Barnes, founder and CEO of the National Association of Women Sales Professionals, offers up several helpful recommendations for building an authentic, unique and non-cheesy approach to training.

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