Raintoday's Sales Tips & Techniques Podcast

Whether you are a sales leader or customer service manager, all business leaders face four common challenges: innovation, talent management, communication, and globalization. Listen as Alan Cutler, author of Leadership Psychology, explains those challenges, discusses challenges unique for sales managers, and offers advice for motivating employees.

When you know how to use LinkedIn, it becomes a powerful sales and lead generation tool. Listen as social selling Kevin Knebl explains how to use the social media network to prospect for new customers, as well as attract buyers to you.

When you are a widely known expert on a topic, your and your firm's opportunities increase. What was once a passion of yours becomes highly sought-after expertise that people are willing to pay high fees for. To get to that level, though, you have to increase your visibility. Listen as Lee Frederiksen, co-author of The Visible Expert, explains the qualities of visible experts and the process to become a visible expert.

Government contracts: it's great work if you can get it, many contracting firms say. It's the getting it that can be challenging, for often agencies stick with their preferred vendors. Listen as David Frazier, author of A Survival Guide for Government Contractors, discusses how to get initial government contracts and the pros and cons of doing contract work for the government.

Recording of Scott Armstrong's Oct. 9, 2014, RainToday webinar.

Thanks to the Internet, buyers are more informed than ever when they go to make a purchase. It's tempting, therefore, for salespeople to go for the quick sale when customers call. After all, they've already done the research and they're ready to buy. There are repercussions to going after the quick sale, though. Listen as Mark Hunter, co-author of Advisor Selling, explains what they are and why B2B salespeople should consider following an advisory selling approach.

Making sure sales teams receive qualified leads can be a challenge. The problem can be alleviated if marketing teams take these three steps in their online marketing campaigns: focus on measurable objectives, focus on the customer, and monetize engagement with prospects. Listen as Scott Armstrong discusses each of those, as well as explains what to include in an online marketing program.

Recording if Mike Schultz's Sept. 23, 2014, webinar.

Salespeople are often taught to offer buyers rational-sounding reasons for them to buy something. The reality is decisions are made on an emotional and unconscious level. And sellers can use language patterns to affect buyers' decisions. Listen as Peter McLaughlin, author of Becoming the Customer, discusses how to use language patterns alongside sales techniques to persuade customers.

Lack of confidence can be a huge detriment when negotiating deals with buyers. But even if you have all of the confidence in the world, you might still make a mistake that negatively affects the outcome. Listen as Mike Schultz discusses the two most common mistake sellers make during negotiations, as well as offers advice to improve your ability to negotiate deals.

People often mistakenly think that by providing a lot of information, buyers will make a decision based on that information. The truth is you could have really impactful information, but if you don't direct people to take action, that information has no influence. Listen as Juliet Huck, author of The Equation of Persuasion, discusses the difference between informing and persuading and explains how to be more persuasive in your presentations and conversations with buyers.  

For a business to grow, it must have a strategy and that strategy must be aligned with sales. The problem is often companies don't have a strategy, or if they do, there's a gap between that strategy and what their sales teams are doing. Listen as Frank Cespedes, author of Aligning Strategy and Sales, discusses what make a good strategy, how to reduce the gap between strategy and sales, and how to improve financial performance.

You can't assume because you do good work that clients are going to find you and hire you. You need a marketing system that will work for you seven days a week, consistently generating new leads and nurturing those leads. Listen as Mark Satterfield, author of The One Week Marketing Plan, discusses how to create a system in just five days that does that, as well as builds trust and credibility.

People incorrectly assume content, thanks to the prevalent use of the term "content marketing," is the marketing department's sole responsibility. What they don't realize is salespeople can use content at every stage of the sales cycle to help buyers through the sales journey and ultimately buy. If salespeople share content that adds value and helps prospects do their jobs better, they'll speed up sales process and increase conversions.

Many firms experience boom/bust sales cycle. They go through periods of high sales followed by no sales. But those cycles don't have to exist. They are completely self-inflicted, and companies can easily get themselves out of them, says Colleen Francis, author of Nonstop Sales Boom. Listen as Francis explains what companies can do to break those cycles and ensure consistent sales.

You know the benefits companies achieve from doing content marketing—viral videos, jumps in website traffic, increased number of leads. None of those can be achieved, however, if you don’t follow a few basic rules of content marketing. Listen as Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, explains what those are, as well as discusses content marketing trends you should be aware of.

If you're involved in sales, getting a meeting with a prospect is one of the hardest things to do. And if it involves cold calling, people hate it so much they will do what they can to get out of having to do it. Fortunately, there are ways to turn cold calls into warm calls and improve your chances of getting a meeting. Listen as Tim Hurson, co-author of Never Be Closing, explains what you can do.

Traditional marketing and sales approaches that focus on pushing out a campaign or pushing a particular service no longer work. Instead you need a more direct approach in which you educate prospects, have interesting conversations with them, and solve problems. Robert Rosenthal, author of Optimarketing: Marketing Optimization to Electrify Your Business, explains why the indirect approach is better and why firms can't be afraid to try imaginative marketing ideas.

Recording of Helen Overland's July 17, 2014, webinar.

Most businesses don't to online lead generation well. Their websites have bounce rates higher than 80%. And sometimes they have response rates lower than 5%. They fail to convert visitors into buyers because the websites don't fulfill their need—they don't help solve the problem that sent them to the search engine in the first place. Listen as Helen Overland discusses what successful lead generation websites do that convert visitors into customers.