Neil Patel says, “Some of the pages on your website are more important than others. Okay, many of you probably find that fairly obvious — but I’m surprised how few people actually apply this knowledge to their websites to improve conversions. I’m all about low hanging fruit; about undertaking the easiest tasks that will have the biggest results. What I’m about to describe in this article has the potential to improve your site dramatically with just a few, critical changes. Let’s get right into it. Every website is different, bu generally speaking, here are the four... [...]

Jeremy Ellens says, “This past weekend, I went to a dueling piano bar in San Diego. What I quickly learned while watching this show was that the people performing were very talented musicians, but even better businessmen. This particular duet consisted of a male and female, who used their genders to garner a sense of rivalry in the room. “Ladies, can we get some Taylor Swift requests going tonight?” the woman yelled into the mic. Next thing you know, a $5 bill was placed on the piano with a Taylor Swift request. “Gentlemen, let’s get $6 up here for some Guns N Roses! Let’s stop... [...]

Brooke Freedman says, “Having worked on the HubSpot sales team as both a rep and a manager over the past four years, I’ve had the privilege to learn new sales skills from extremely smart people, tighten up old skills, and create repeatable processes alongside my peers. As the year draws to a close, I thought I’d share some of my favorite sales tips that I’ve picked up. Our playbook is your playbook, and our growth engine is yours too. Hopefully these will help you make 2015 your best year ever. To me, the major sales funnel stages are Lead, Opportunity, and Closed Customer.... [...]

Jess Marranco says, “Imagine walking into your favorite coffee shop. It still looks and smells the same, but something is off. As you approach the counter, ready to order the usual, it hits you – this place is being run by robots. These particular robots don’t care that you’ve been coming there every day for the past six months, or that you’re lactose intolerant. They’re not interested in talking with you about your morning or giving you a little something extra because you’re a loyal customer and you deserve it. Nope, these robots were programmed to do one thing and only thing... [...]

Gail says, “Getting started writing anything – a book, an article, a brochure or video sales letter – means you are faced with a blank page, lots of white space and racing thoughts. Somehow you need to put those thoughts into words on your white space so they make sense to your readers. As a content creator I get phone calls and emails about how to get started writing or asking for help to relieve the pervasive fear that the writing won’t be good enough, won’t get read or won’t be interesting. A couple of years ago I was introduced to a video that Bob Newhart did even more years ago.... [...]

Joe Chernov says, “If I were to ask you to define a successful career, there’s a 46% chance you’d cite “money” as the measuring stick. Yet despite the emphasis placed on income, marketers are going about maximizing earnings in a flawed manner. I’ve managed marketers for the past decade, and most see career growth as “incrementally hierarchal” — progress unfolds linearly as the person climbs from one level of seniority to the next. A coordinator becomes an associate, an associate becomes a senior associate, a senior associate becomes a manager, and so on. It looks something... [...]

Kathleen Celmins says, “Blogs are like tattoos: you can’t stop at one. You think you can, but there’s an irresistible pull toward yet another one. So you hire someone whose primary job is to focus on content. Then you start adding blogs. It’s easy to do, really. Once you have the systems in place to create high-quality content for one blog, it’s really just a matter of design and scheduling to create another. Each of our three company blogs has a different target persona, so we’re writing to different audiences. But we’re a sales strategy company, and all our target personas... [...]

Emma Snider says, “The pen is mightier than the sword. Which is good, because you probably don’t want to threaten prospects into buying at sword-point. As the primary “weapons” to convert prospects into customers, words are incredibly important to salespeople. How sales reps deliver their messages and converse with contacts can have a dramatic effect on the outcome of a conversation. Using the wrong phrase might cast a negative shadow on the proposal, while tweaking just a few words in the pitch might induce a client to buy immediately. The underlying message is certainly critical,... [...]

Jason Richman says, “In 2009, the Washington Wizards completed one of their worst seasons in the franchise’s past 50 years. But since then, the professional basketball team has undergone a complete transformation. Last year, they made it to the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals, and they’re currently in second place in the Eastern Conference. Being in sales, I’m always interested in how miraculous turnarounds are achieved. After I researched the steps the Wizards took to reverse their fortunes, it became clear to me that many of these actions are also applicable to sales... [...]

Glori Blatt says, “While many etailers view themselves as in competition with Amazon, it’s more effective to use Amazon’s success as an example and learn from it. We did that when we looked at three strategies to borrow from Amazon. Now, here are four strategies that you can use to optimize your differences to Amazon to provide your customers with an unbeatable shopping experience. 1) Curation Amazon has a huge product assortment, one that’s difficult even for the largest corporate retailers to compete with. Instead of trying to compete by offering consumers a product assortment... [...]