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Top 5 Most Popular Inside Sales Blog Posts of 2011

Posted by Geoff Alexander on Tue, Jan 03, 2012 @ 10:02 AM
  
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describe the imageFor the past several years, I’ve been publishing roughly one blog post per week on inside sales effectiveness.  Every year end, I publish my most popular blog posts created during the previous year, and here are my Top 5 for 2011, in terms of visitors. Price negotiation, stalled proposals, and selling dilemmas are inherent issues to just about everyone carrying a quota in inside sales, but affect business development reps too, who often get commission “bumps” when the order is closed, or when a suspect converts to a prospect.  

Among my customers, 2011 was a stellar year, sales-wise, and pipelines are booming, looking into 2012. So take a look at my top 5 most popular posts from last year, and ensure that you’re well-positioned in a company that you love, that’s taking care of its customers, and is maintaining a culture of innovation that will foster an increasing revenue stream for the foreseeable future. 

So here’s a quick “refresher course” on my top 5 blog topics for the past year: 

1) 5 Basics to Handling Sales Objections

2) 3 questions to put you in charge when your proposal is stalled

3) 5 great steps to selling a Commodity: Differentiate it like it’s not a Commodity

4) Price Negotiation: 3 Ways to win with purchasing managers

5) 10 critical inside sales errors that will fail to increase sales

These issues are endemic to the business of inside sales, and reading through them will give you some great ideas, and give you some answers to situations that you might be dealing with right now. So work hard, work smart, and go out and have a great 2012!

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Comments

Thanks for the list, Geoff! I really enjoyed reading the Price Negotiation post. It's great that you come from a buying background - firsthand experience always helps!
Posted @ Friday, January 06, 2012 4:07 PM by John
Glad you liked the post, John. The ironic part of "the rest of the story" is that I eventually applied for a buying position at a high tech company, because I was a pretty good negotiator. It paid a lot of money. I also interviewed at a company for a sales position, because I wanted to gain more "intelligence" I could use as a buyer. To my surprise those sales folks I never intended to be a part of offered me a job on the spot, and they were nice people. I told them to give me 24 hours, called the purchasing company that I'd already interviewed with, and told them I'd have a to make a decision with 24 hours, and they'd have that much time to make a solid offer. They didn't beat the deadline, so I took accepted sales job at less pay. 2 days later, the puchasing company called back with a significant offer, but I stayed with the sales job because I'd given my word. 
 
 
 
The rest is history. It turns out I loved sales, and again, points to the adage of life being full of ironies. I'll bet loads of great salespeople fell into it by accident, like I did, too. Thanks for bringing up a warm memory, John.
Posted @ Friday, January 06, 2012 11:39 PM by Geoff Alexander
Wow, life is full of ironies indeed! I guess it was meant for you to be in sales. I've been in sales for a while, which also wasn't my goal at first. The most important thing is to love what you do, that is the only way to succeed, especially if you are in sales - a lot of motivation comes from being passionate about your job.
Posted @ Tuesday, January 10, 2012 2:37 PM by John
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