Archive December 21, 2023

Why Do Salespeople Avoid Prospecting?

By in Human Resources, Sales, Self Improvement Tag

BY GEORGE BRONTÉN for MEMBRAIN If there’s nothing else to do, salespeople should default to prospecting. That’s a pretty decent rule of thumb, one we’ve all heard more than once. After all, effective prospecting is the key to keeping the pipeline full and sales results consistent. But do salespeople use their downtime this way? Not usually. In fact, making “cold calls” is often the most-avoided critical task in sales. We procrastinate, we delay, we get busy, and we ignore its necessity. The result is a roller coaster pipeline, up and down, and unpredictable sales forecasts. But why? Paul Fuller, our CRO, had an interesting conversation with Frank Kniekamp recently, and…

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For AI-Driven B2B Customer Experiences, You’ll Need These Four Strategic Investments

By in Sales Tag , ,

by Matt Roberts for MarketingProfs Generative AI is huge, and it's everywhere. Bloomberg predicts AI spend will hit $1.3 trillion by 2032. Microsoft is investing $14 billion in Open AI. And Netflix has hired a director of AI at $900K a year—which shows me I'm clearly in the wrong profession. And which corporate function will be most affected by AI, across all industries? You may (or may not) be surprised that it's Sales and Marketing. How will the incredibly promising technology hit Marketing? Although some fear jobs will be lost to AI, most marketers are taking a rosier view. A full 71% of them say AI…

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Link Prospects’ Personal and Business Data to Engage and Convert: The Awesome Power of B2B2C Linkage Data

By in Uncategorized Tag , , ,

by Scarlett Shipp for MarketingProfs In today's complex and dynamic digital landscape, made up of countless advertising channels and disparate identifiers, achieving a reliable understanding of your ideal audiences can be a challenge for businesses and B2B marketers. Many solutions purport to have the ability to break down the often bewildering many-to-many connections into a manageable one-to-one identifier of individual customers. But B2B marketers must still overcome a considerable hurdle: connecting the personal and professional facets of a person's life and online presence, then tailoring their marketing based on the B2B2C insights that are uncovered. Linking those two aspects of your…

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Gmail Purge Alert: How to Avoid a High Gmail Bounce Rate

By in Email Marketing Tag ,

BY LIVIU TANASE for INC. It’s coming: In December, Google will start deleting inactive accounts to prevent security threats like spam, account hacks, and phishing scams. If an account has been idle for over two years, Google may delete it along with all its content across Google Workspace, including Gmail.  If your business uses email to stay in touch with customers, Google’s update means it’s time to investigate the health of your database. If you’re emailing subscribers who never engage, you risk getting high bounce rates starting this month-;and having your future emails go to the spam folder. Here’s how to be proactive…

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5 Crazy Weird Products From 2023

By in Uncategorized Tag ,

BY ALI DONALDSON for INC. Food and beverage brands got weird in 2023. Several companies rolled out truly wacky products this year, most of which were limited-edition brand collaborations likely designed to generate public buzz in addition to revenue. According to Samuel West, a psychologist whose corporate clients include Ikea, Johnson & Johnson, and Mars, these fun and playfully intentional self-owns by companies started popping up within the past decade, around the time Swedish Fish-flavored Oreos hit store shelves. West, who studies corporate failure and even founded a museum on the subject, says these purposefully strange products are designed to get our attention. That strategy certainly worked. Here are some of the…

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Google’s 2023 releases: A B2B marketer’s review

By in Marketing Tag , ,

by Laura Schiele  for Search Engine Land As 2023 draws near a close, marketers have to admit this about Google: they’ve been busy. Between Bard/SGE headlines and antitrust lawsuit admissions of auction gaming, Google has produced its usual share of releases. Sadly for B2B, most are either aimed at ecommerce/B2C or represent minor improvements that don’t make up for the advertising controls Google has stripped or the glaring lack of transparency behind auctions and pricing. With that as the backdrop, I’ll review some of Google’s bigger releases in 2023 before adding a plea for a few updates I think could actually help B2B marketing…

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When Your New Hire Is in Jail on His First Day

By in Human Resources Tag ,

And three other tricky workplace dilemmas. BY ALISON GREEN, INC.COM COLUMNIST Here's a roundup of answers to four questions from readers. 1. When your new hire is in jail on his first day My company hired a new person on my team. He was scheduled to start on a Monday but he pushed back a week at the last minute, and he didn't notify us until minutes before he was expected in. The next Monday he didn't come in, and no one could get in touch with him. We eventually discovered he was in jail. He claimed he was pulled over on the…

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5 Leading Talent Acquisition Trends Taking Storm in 2024

By in Human Resources Tag ,

By Brianna Rooney for HR Daily Advisor It’s hard to believe that 2023 is nearly over, marking now as the time when HR professionals and organizational leaders should start planning for the next year, including their plans for talent acquisition. The work and hiring landscape is rapidly evolving, especially following the pandemic and the Great Resignation. Today’s job seekers bring a wealth of unique skills to the table, which also means they’re looking for better benefits and more flexible positions. As a result, HR teams and staffing professionals will need to grow out of their previous recruitment strategies to consider these…

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Kick Scrooge to the Curb to Make Your Holiday Marketing Numbers Soar!

By in Marketing Tag ,

By Michael Brenner for Marketing Insider Group It’s time to start thinking about your holiday marketing campaign. No matter what your business, there’s always a way to work in a little holiday cheer into your end-of-year marketing. There’s one character, though, you don’t want to creep through. Scrooge. But what if your employees think you’re a bit of a Scrooge? How engaged are they at work? Only about 30 percent of the nation’s employees are engaged on the job, according to a Gallup survey. And if they’re not, all you need to do is glance at the mirror to see Scrooge’s shadow.…

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4 Tips for Closing a Deal That Has Hit a Wall, According to a HubSpot Sales Director

By in Sales

by Ben Kassiff for HubSpot Some deals hit walls — that‘s just an unfortunate fact of sales life. As wonderful as it would be to have every sales engagement run smoothly end-to-end and amount to an amicable, productive resolution, that’s just not how things work. As a salesperson, you‘re almost guaranteed to have to handle this kind of situation at some point in your professional life. So to help you best approach this dilemma when the time comes, I’ve put together a list of four key tips I've learned over my career for closing a deal that has lost steam.…

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