Sales Skills

Explore top sales books to elevate your skills and advance your career. Essential insights for every sales professional. Start reading today!

We all hate note-taking, but strong sales call notes can help you impress your customers (and can even affect your bottom-line)! Learn how to improve and automate your sales notes.

Sales objections can feel like the end, but you can turn them around. Learn these objection handling techniques to win more deals.

Explore the shift to permanent remote sales work post-COVID, how to find and excel in these roles, and the rise of remote sales jobs in the U.S.

Want to learn the newest sales tactics and supercharge your sales skills? Then find the top 18 sales conferences you need to attend.

Thinking you might pursue a sales career? Learn the roles, skills, (dis)advantages—everything you need to know about the industry.

Discover how to craft engaging job descriptions with our guide, featuring expert tips and templates for attracting top sales talent in just 14 seconds.

Salespeople that quit learning quit growing. Discover the top 35 sales podcasts and learn from high-performance experts around the globe.

In a world steering away from transactional relationships, businesses now turn to relationship marketing. Here are 7 tips for 2024.

Discover key presentation tips for 2024 to enhance your business pitches and connect effectively with your audience. Elevate your pitch game now!

Want to supercharge your sales? Learn the 7 soft skills salespeople need for success and actionable tips on how to help improve them.

Want to start your journey as a sales professional or step up your sales game? Here are 15 great sales courses to consider.

Rejection is never fun—especially when it comes in the late stages of a deal. Fortunately, these tips will help you deal with sales rejection effectively.

Are you a good listener? As a salesperson, nothing is more important. Learn how to improve your listening skills with these 8 practical tips.

What is an account executive? This role is a crucial part of the sales team, with responsibilities including acquiring and managing new clients & customers.

Sales discovery meetings are like the first dates of the sales world. Use this 7-step agenda to guide your meeting and make a memorable first impression.

Learning key sales skills is a never-ending process. Here are 24 skills every sales rep should work on leveling up.

Ready to level up your sales career? Then it's time to master these 14 sales associate skills! Read this article for the inside scoop.

What does it take to become a sales manager? Here are the top skills you need to take your sales career to the next level.

Inside Sales vs. Outside Sales: is one option better? In short, no—you need to see which is best for your specific company & sales goals.

Want to know how to get past the gatekeeper? Don't stress! Do your research, provide value, and show them respect. (More tips inside!)

Facing a price objection? Remember—it’s not always about the price. Learn 18 strategies used by sales professionals to overcome price objections & win deals.

Effective sales presentations are relevant and personalized to the prospect. Learn 11 top tips, plus get our sales presentation templates.

Looking to land a new sales role? This sales assessment test guide will help you show you're the right person for the job!

Ready to boost your results this quarter? Learn essential sales advice from today's top sales leaders, including Jill Konrath, Noah Kagan + more!

So, you crushed your SaaS sales demo and want to close the deal. Learn next steps and how to follow up after the product demo.

Social media is rapidly changing how prospective buyers and salespeople communicate. Learn how to take your social selling strategy to the next level.

You can't add more time, but you can use time more efficiently. Learn proven sales time management tips that will improve efficiency and close more deals.

Want to improve your sales career? Here are the top sales blogs to keep learning: 1. Sales Hacker 2. Close.com 3. Sales Gravy 4. SalesFolk

Use these simple sales persuasion strategies to increase your close rates.

A great sales negotiation leaves both parties happy. Learn how to take control of the process and close more deals.

Master this set of 15 sales training techniques to improve sales, communication, and client retention. Updated for 2022.

High-performing sales reps all tend to share the successful skill of active listening. These key sales questions will have your leads talking themselves into saying yes!

Learn the benefits of prominently listing cold calling on your resume, and how to do it in a way that hiring managers will take notice + free resume templates.

Getting a job in software sales requires tenacity, friendliness, and a bit of grit. Get the lowdown on what recruiters look for in software salespeople.

Improving your sales acumen will help you close more deals and progress faster in your sales career. Here's some practical advice on how to make it happen.

Want to get certified in sales? Here are the top 18 programs from Close, Northwest University, LinkedIn, MEDDIC Academy, and more.

Win-win situations aren't a fantasy. Learn how to create them by doing your homework, asking questions, and flipping the script.

Negotiation is part of sales. Learn the 5 types of negotiation, and how to make sure you and your prospect both walk away happy.

The anchoring effect is a key heuristic in the sales negotiation process. It's part of every purchasing process—whether you know it or not.

LinkedIn is a multifaceted platform that can also act as a sales funnel when used efficiently. Learn these top-5 tips to enhance your profile, streamline outreach, and engage leads.

In this hyper-competitive market, your sales team has a need for speed. Customers expect it, companies demand it, and if you aren't keeping up with those expectations and demands, you'll only find yourself falling behind. Plus, it boosts productivity and decision making-- what more could you want?

In the midst of the Great Resignation, top talent can be more selective. You want to make sure they're selecting you. Here are five actionable ways to attract and retain the best sales talent in the market.

Want your reps to qualify better, get leads to open up about their true needs, and close deals faster? Discover the top 21 sales training questions you should be teaching your reps, and see how asking the right qualifying questions can help reps succeed.

If you love building other people’s skills and confidence, you may be considering a sales trainer job. But to do that, you’ll need to do more than train new reps—you’ll be expected to build and implement a structured plan for sales training across the team, plus measure and report on the results.

The right sales training quiz acts as a support to your training program, helping reps assess their own abilities and knowledge and learn where they need help. Use our free sales training quiz, including 10+ free resources (videos, articles, and more) to help reps learn as they go.

Ready to make sales training fun? Try gamifying your cold calls, playing prospect detectives, starting an ongoing competition for the latest and greatest news, and more!

Call monitoring allows sales managers to listen to their team on live sales calls and give valuable feedback that helps close deals. With listen, whisper, and barge technology at your finger tips, here are 9 scenarios when you can use each mode.

Your resume could be rock-solid, but what really matters when you’re interviewing for a sales position is whether or not you nail the mock sales pitch. Learn how to use company and customer insights to boost your sales pitch in the interview, as well as creative ideas to help you stand out.

From pleading for attention, to yelling on a cold call, to assuming the prospect is sitting at home binge-watching Netflix: these hilarious sales pitches are some of the worst we’ve ever seen. Have a good laugh while you learn how to avoid making the same mistakes with your own sales pitches.

The first step to create a sales pitch video is to do your homework—that way, you understand who your audience is and what will appeal to them. You’ll also need to choose the right style for your video, as well as the tools you’ll use to record, send, and analyze the results.

Struggling to plan a remote sales schedule that’s actually productive? We’ve been there. Learn from the experts how to set the foundation for a productive day, when to schedule time blocks for focus work, and which communication tools can foster a better remote schedule across your whole team.

When the opportunity comes, will you be ready to give a 15-second sales pitch? To do so, you’ll need to be prepared with a clear benefit and unique value prop, and back those statements up with data. Learn more tips and ideas to help you nail the short sales pitch and know when to use it.

Want to know what a good sales pitch one-liner looks like? Learn 13 of the best sales pitch lines we’ve seen, plus how to use these same principles in your own sales pitch.

Sometimes it's hard to figure out if a sales candidate is actually qualified and not just skilled at interviewing. Here are questions and tactics you can use to discover if the candidate actually has what it takes to excel in sales.

Excuses suck. Nobody wants them. If you’re not holding up your end of the bargain, your manager/founder/CEO doesn’t want to hear you blaming something or someone other than yourself.

If you want to connect with senior level decision-makers, LinkedIn is the place to be. Here's how you can quickly establish trust and credibility on the platform.

Ready to turn your ideal customer profiles into something that actually helps your sales team close more deals? Discover our customer profile analysis hacks to gather & understand data, and use it to boost revenue.

Learn five elevator sales pitches that'll help you break the ice and present your product without pushing a hard sale and chasing a potential business ally away.

Sales teams can achieve dreamy results when they nap at work—if they do it right.

Content marketing is more than just a tool for building brand awareness. It has the potential to be your key driver for conversions, if you're willing to invest time. Here's a guide to help you get started.

There are many things you need to screen for when you’re hiring people in a remote company. But the most important thing? Remote culture fit. Here's what to look out for.

The world is shutting down. Things are changing every day. And although I don’t have any clue what’s going to happen, I do have experience selling during a downturn. This is how I keep selling during a crisis, and you can too.

It’s an understatement to say that salespeople don’t have the best track record when it comes to trust. For the average person, we’re sleazeballs who will say anything to close a sale.

The idea of a company creating a brand is common today. Think about some of the biggest companies in the world. From the golden arches at McDonald's to the "Swoosh" symbol for Nike, brands have become a large part of our surroundings.

I hate to break it to you, but when it comes to inside side sales training, you’re going to spend less time reading and more time interacting with people. Investing in an effective inside sales training system within your company can pay amazing dividends.

Conference season is here, and I'm excited about traveling to different cities and meeting others who are committed, as I am, about succeeding in sales.

Sales reps want more and more prospects in their pipeline each day. And they want to close every single one of them. You know it. I know it.

The world, as we know it today, is much more fast-paced than it once was. Technology is making it so that we can work remotely and reach people across the world just as quickly as we can someone just down the hall.

The best part about competition is that we discover what we're capable of achieving—and how much more we can actually do than we might have believed. It’s an internal passion for competition that inspired many executives to start their careers in sales.

There’s an old saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. In other words, if someone has been doing something a certain way for years, they’ll never abandon those methods, no matter how outdated they become.

If you're selling anything more complex than paper clips, your product can be intimidating. It could be software, or office equipment, or social media management. Any of those things can seem very complicated.

Sales networking is one of the most painful activities in the business world. It usually involves awkward, over-enthusiastic pitches to people who are tired, impatient, and just want to get to their next panel discussion.

We’ve all been there: you’re in the middle of a sales call, and you start rambling. You only realize it after you’ve been going on for a few minutes. You kick yourself, try to focus on the topic at hand, and wonder why you always have trouble sticking to the topic.

Let me tell you a story about a friend of mine. We’ll call him Alexander.

Dealing with sales objections is always difficult. But if you sell a product or solution that your clients could create for themselves, in-house, you face a unique objection:

The last thing any inside sales rep wants to hear when they pick up the phone is: You suck!

So you’re looking to build out your inside sales team and you’ve lined up a full day of interviews with potential new hires.

“Sorry. What was that?” It’s every salesperson’s worst nightmare. You’re deep in your pitch. Your prospect is hanging onto every single word you say. And then wham! It turns out their silence wasn’t because they were so blown away, but because they didn’t understand a word you were saying.

Picture this: You’re the founder of an early stage SaaS company. You’ve been prospecting and going after your first few clients, when all of a sudden, a massive enterprise company starts waving cash in front of you. They found you and they want to buy what you’re selling.

If you’re like most well-adjusted people, the term business networking probably conjures images of awkward conversations, uninvited solicitations, and way too many sweaty palms. But your career, and more importantly, your business, relies on your ability to nurture relationships.

Ahh... the life of having a cushy sales job.

When you talk to prospects about switching software, you almost always encounter resistance. So how can you manage—and overcome—that resistance?

If you want to build a prospect’s trust, stop acting like a sales hero.

When I was 18 years old, I used to think that selling was all about talking.

We all want to build strong, long-lasting relationships with influential people—whether they’re CEOs, investors, advisors, or your personal heroes.

There’s no question that inside sales can be a challenge.

For some founders, aligning sales and marketing is an uphill battle

Early in my career, the majority of my business contacts came from my immediate circle. They were people who wrote about the things I wrote about. Thought about the world the way I did. Did the kind of work I did and even spent the majority of their time at the same events I went to

How often are your deals derailed by the unexpected?

I’m not gonna lie: I’m a great salesperson. Humbleness aside, I've pretty much always been. But as long as we’re being honest, I’ve got a confession, too: I was a terrible sales manager.

Here’s a simple truth: The world has too many mediocre salespeople, and not enough great ones. Which makes hiring the great ones really, really difficult.

You’ve heard me say it before and you’ll hear me say it again: Sales is changing, fast, and nowhere is this more evident than in the decline of field sales.

Ever been in a sales conversation that's been going nowhere? A negotiation that's been stuck? There's a magic four-word-sentence that can resolve these situations and help you get a real dialogue going. Just say the words: "Help me out here."

Show up. Follow up. Follow through. The Hustle Formula. If there’s any real “secret” to success, that’s it.

So you want to join a sales team. But not just any sales team: You want to join the right team, the best team. And that’s great! But how do you find that team? I’ve got the answer, but you’re not gonna like it: It depends.

Imagine yourself telling a difficult prospect, “You've enlisted my expertise and you've rejected it to go on the way you've been going. I'm not interested in that.” Before you can walk away, the once reluctant prospect is now anxious to do business with you.

You’ve qualified a prospect and know they’re a good fit. It would be in their own interest to buy from you, because no other product or service will provide as much value to them as yours.

Hustling is about showing up, following up, and possibly messing up until you hear "yes". But success isn't just about hearing yes—it's also about learning to say "no". Learning to say that one word is the difference between hyperfocused and successful startups vs distracted and failing startups.