How To Tell If Your Customer Profiles Are Broken

One of the most common – and perhaps most concerning – gaps we see in B2B sales organizations is the lack of true customer insight. We certainly understand that this is a complex topic, as the discipline of researching and validating customer perspectives is genuinely a full-time endeavor. Markets change, competitors innovate, and customers evolve.
https://www.membrain.com/blog/how-to-tell-if-your-customer-profiles-are-broken

How to get your salespeople to actually listen

It’s no secret that customer focus is one of the key differentiators of highly effective sales teams. In fact, in her conversation with us last year, Tamara Schenk of CSO Insights shared that 94% of world-class sales teams work a “customer core” approach versus 39% of all respondents.
https://www.membrain.com/blog/how-to-get-your-salespeople-to-actually-listen

Imagine: A World without Sales Managers

We all struggle occasionally to keep things in perspective. In particular, we start to take things around us for granted - things that are so embedded in our daily landscape that we stop recognizing them as being uniquely valuable.
https://www.membrain.com/blog/imagine-a-world-without-sales-managers

Should the theory of constraints change the way you sell?

In the mid-2000s, Eliyahu Goldratt, a consultant and author of the bestselling business “novel” The Goal, developed a framework to help individuals and organizations achieve positive change. The theory centers around using constraints within the system to answer three key questions:
https://www.membrain.com/blog/should-the-theory-of-constraints-change-the-way-you-sell

HBR is Wrong Again - Social Selling is not the Remedy for Lousy Salespeople

A while back, the Harvard Business Review Blog ran this story on how social selling will benefit B2B Selling. Really? Aside from the fact that it's old news, the story contained some misleading information!
https://www.membrain.com/blog/hbr-is-wrong-again-social-selling-is-not-the-remedy-for-lousy-salespeople

Can a joke change the course of a sale?

In Robert Cialdini’s NY Times best-selling book, Pre-Suasion, he argues that the success of persuasion often depends on what happens before the act of persuasion, as much as on the act itself.
https://www.membrain.com/blog/can-a-joke-change-the-course-of-a-sale

In complex B2B sales, you face 3 types of competition

Most B2B sales people have a narrow sense of competition. They usually restrict their thinking to other vendors in the same market sector. But this absurdly narrow definition of whom or what they are really competing against is causing them to ignore some of the most significant forces that often stand in the way of a sale.
https://www.membrain.com/blog/in-complex-b2b-sales-you-face-3-types-of-competition

Why ‘building consensus’ is the crucial skill your sales team needs to master

Tell me if this has ever happened to you. I while back, I walked into a meeting with a prospect I thought was very close to signing a contract...
https://www.membrain.com/blog/why-building-consensus-is-the-crucial-skill-your-sales-team-needs-to-master

Optimizing Part Of The Selling Function, Sub-Optimizing The Whole

Recently. I read an article in which the position was put forth, “Inside sales does not have the responsibility for creating pipeline, only the responsibility for selling. They should never pick up the phone and make a prospecting call!”
https://www.membrain.com/blog/optimizing-part-of-the-selling-function-sub-optimizing-the-whole