Megan Totka says, “A positive sales culture can make or break your business. When a sales culture is healthy and present, it can attract sales talent and help your team feel content and engaged in the office setting. Of course, a more motivated sales team will result in more deal closings and a better company bottom line. There are very obvious signs the culture in your sales organization is negative – and this type of culture can damage your business. Signs that you need to rethink your sales culture include high sales representative turnover, resentment and rivalries among the reps,... [...]

Danny Wong says, “Understanding the trends in sales is half the battle when it comes to designing a plan of action. Keeping up with the news also encourages everyone to stay flexible in a quickly changing world. You’re fighting to schedule yourself in customers’ already filled calendars, and the people that you need to reach are always the ones who have the least time to give. To truly understand where the opportunities and challenges are, it helps to identify the patterns the B2B industry is seeing across the board. Independence in business Hopefully, you’ve already noticed... [...]

Rich Drees says, “Twitter has changed how personal and business brands engage with their followers and fans. Social media has opened the path to a more personal, sustainable and unfiltered interaction between a brand and its customers or followers. Twitter, seeking to continuously increase its market share, is inventing and adapting new technology to further their platforms goal of being a prime-time communication hub. As Twitter comes out with more automated and paid features to improve social engagement, exposure, and interaction with its millions of users; it is essential to consider... [...]

Jordan French says, “Digital marketing has become a gigantic part of marketing over the past decade. Using data and trends, digital marketing agencies can target the perfect group for your product. In a lot of ways, the internet has facilitated the growth of entrepreneurial startups and businesses. With all that marketing, you would assume that any business can succeed – so long as they have a strong marketing plan. After all, marketing expert Dan Kennedy once said to spend “90 percent of the time on marketing the product” to create a successful business. The truth is that your marketing... [...]

Beth Worthy says, “Companies dedicate teams to work in social media. What happens when you only have one person? Provide opportunities to ensure growth and hone the skills listed below. This person has the potential to be the most dynamic contributor in the company as a writer, designer, videographer, and a data nerd. Using both sides the brain to an equal ability, social media lone wolves balance creativity with analytics. Unfortunately, social media is routinely met with fluffy stereotypes. This is why some companies are slow to adapt in the space, and before they know it the competition... [...]

Eric Samson says, “Social media has created an expectation in which having a high follower count equals high monetary value. As Google continues to place greater weight on social metrics like shares and followers, digital marketers are more and more looking towards social media marketing as a useful and cost effective SEO tactic. After all, if you can spend $75 to post a video on an Instagram account with 20,000 followers in your niche, that’s a pretty great deal. The only problem is if those 20,000 Instagram followers are fake. Why are there Fake Instagram Followers? As content marketing... [...]

Angela Ruth says, “The world of business will always be a constant stream of ebbs and flows. Even if you have a product or service that appears to be loved by your loyal following, there will come a time when you hit a wall with sales and start to experience stagnation or a dip. Instead of panicking, consider the proactive approach and alternative strategies that can counteract those dismal sales projections and inject new life into your revenue stream. Check out these six strategies aimed at rightsizing your sales figures. 1. Track your time. Evaluate what you’ve been doing and where... [...]

Beth Worthy says, “One of the keys to building credibility with search engines is to keep creating fresh content. But not every website owner has time to create the quantity of quality content favored by search engines or like-minded thought leaders. Here are ideas to speed up the content-generating process without sacrificing quality. Avoid fluff Rule No. 1 when trying to produce several 500-1,000 word articles per week is to not fall into the trap of creating fluff that doesn’t benefit anyone. Users certainly won’t keep coming back to your site if all you give them is useless... [...]

Derek Pando says, “A few years ago I started a new job where I was tasked with the sales enablement portion of a major product launch that was set to happen just a few months after my start date. Very quickly after starting my job I realized that the sales reps were in a state of panic. The reps did not know how the new product worked or how to sell it. The reps were reaching out to the support team, marketing and product team flooding them with questions. Each of these organization started having trouble working effectively because of the constant interruptions. Not only was this a drain... [...]

Bruce McKenzie says, “Explainer videos trying to sell a product, service or idea typically rely on voiceover narration to deliver a big share of the message. The better the narration in your marketing video, the better the viewer experience. Here are some questions you should ask early in the video production process. 1. Deciding on a male or female narrator  A recent study at ConversionXL found that female voices were considered a little more “trustworthy” by viewers of a promotional explainer video. The video itself was pretty matter-of-fact. A 2006 UNC study of “speaker persuasiveness”... [...]