Mark Donnolo says, “Organizations change, as do sales strategies. As those strategies are modified, sales roles either evolve or fail. When companies grow from year to year, they don’t grow in a straight line. Typically, companies retain revenue from current customers, gain revenue when current customers purchase additional products or services, and add new customer revenue. The revenue type is important because it takes certain types of talent to procure certain types of revenue. Going after brand new customers — hunting them down — is a different talent and job than selling... [...]

Larry Kim says, “When it launched last year, Twitter Analytics marked a solid (if long overdue) move towards greater transparency and measurement abilities for users. And since then, Twitter has continued to make upgrades to the tool, most recently by adding analytics access in its mobile app. Though users now have more insight into their Twitter account metrics, many aren’t using them to their full potential. They’ve poked around the Twitter Analytics Dashboard and figured out they can track impressions and metrics by promoted or organic activity … and that’s... [...]

Ginny Soskey says, “Pretty much all marketers are pressured to do more. Get on more social networks, write more blog posts, send more emails, run more reports, generate more sales … And sometimes, doing more works. Blogging more, for example, can increase traffic and leads. But other times, doing less is actually a much better idea. Adding more and more and more to your plate can stretch you thin and make your marketing activities less effective. And with only so much time in the day, you’ve got to figure out how to get more results without actually doing more work. This... [...]

Emma Snider says, “The term “sales pitch” might be a little old school, but the concept is not. At its core, a sales pitch is just a way to explain your product or service’s value to the buyer. Call it what you will, but convincing prospects of an offering’s worth is still central to sales. What has gone out of style are sales pitches that are long, product-focused, and boring. Twitter has effectively shortened our attention spans to statements that contain 140 or fewer characters. If buyers can find the time to hear your sales pitch at all, it had better be compelling... [...]

Ginny Soskey says, “Sometimes, I wish Google would just read my mind. I usually have this thought after trying variation after variation of pretty specific search terms, like “recent social media statistics,” without finding what I’m looking for. You’d think those search terms would return relevant results — it’s not like I typed in “cool shoes” and hoped for the best. But they don’t — and after a few attempts, I just want to hand over the reins to Google and say, “Can you please just find me what I’m looking... [...]

Rohan Ayyar says, “Every single day, 196.3 billion emails are sent or received. That’s about 26 emails per day for every single human being on the planet — and since, of course, not everybody on the planet is online, the number of emails per head per day is actually a lot higher. The frequency of email sends, and the pressure many people feel to check their email constantly, makes it an appealing channel for marketers trying to reach their customers and prospects. Along with its pervasive reach, email also offers the highest ROI on marketing dollars among all other digital channels,... [...]

Emma Snider says, “If you’re a sales or marketing leader, you’ve probably already wrapped up strategy planning for 2015. (Or you might still be in the thick of it if time hasn’t been on your side. No judgment — I’ve been there.) But a new infographic from Implisit which reveals the most and least effective channels for customer conversion might prompt you to crack the newly approved plans open once more and make a few revisions. For instance, if you intend on finding customers through events and purchased lead lists in the new year, you might want to think... [...]

Marc Herschberger says, “Our marketing agency Revenue River’s blog was boring. Scratch that. It was boring and ineffective. As an inbound marketing company that specializes in creating custom, beautiful websites for our clients in HubSpot’s COS, we were embarrassed when we looked at our blog compared to the designs we had implemented for others. When we looked at the old design, all we saw was: An outdated, generic layout that didn’t match the quality of content that we were posting on it Too much of a focus on CTA’s in the right column instead of promoting what the reader wanted-... [...]

Ross Crooks says, “No matter your message, including data to support your claims enhances the validity and impact of whatever you are communicating — but only if your data comes from a reliable source. Too often, individuals cherry pick data from a variety of … let’s say “questionable” sources, cobbling together a few statistics that are incomplete — or worse, completely irrelevant. Whether you’re communicating to your boss or your consumer, all data starts with a good data source. In this post, I’ll go over what a good data source looks like. Then, I’ll... [...]

Len Markidan says, “In theory, the “tricks” to delivering awesome customer service are pretty straightforward: Empathy Appreciation Helpfulness Seems pretty easy, right? Just develop these three skills, and you’ll be set. Sure, you can tune these by mastering the “thank you,” or by understanding how things like tone and word choicemake a difference in support. But in practice, delighting customers isn’t so straightforward — what actually works doesn’t always reflect what most of us would assume. There are quite a few counterintuitive truths that can make... [...]