If you want to stay afloat in today’s cutthroat business world, it’s important to stay one step ahead of the competition. For this, you need to turn sales forecasting into an art form. This can be challenging for small and new businesses. Entrepreneurs are often optimistic about the future of their businesses. Yet, many are…
One of the most incredible AI forecasting success stories I know is from Target, the Minneapolis-based retail giant. Back in 2002, when Target hired statistician Andrew Pole, Target’s revenue was $44 billion. By 2010, its revenue had soared to $67 billion. Target achieved this by using customer data to forecast buying behavior and corner the…
Maybe you sell furniture. Or enterprise software. Whatever you’re commercializing, you likely face the same challenge as most sales pros: Finding the right words to get folks invested in what you’re offering. Sending cold emails, leading prospects through sales calls, and following up all take time and articulation. Thankfully, sales teams everywhere are starting to…
Solution selling is one of the more prominent sales methodologies. First popularized in the 1980s, it rests on a pretty simple premise: Prospects want to be solved for, and salespeople are uniquely equipped to be the ones who solve for them. It‘s a particularly involved method for salespeople — one where they take an extremely…
We’re pet people here at Trends, and we’ve sure covered the space a lot. But this recession-proof goldmine of business opportunities just keeps on giving. The secret sauce? Pet humanization — the more we treat them like our family, the more we’ll spend on new solutions to better their lives. Unsurprisingly, the biggest growth area…
Sales engagements are pretty strange interactions when you really think about them. They involve an element of friendliness, but the endgame isn‘t making friends. Shocking as this sounds, you’re actually trying to sell something when selling. That means you have to strike a balance between approachability and authority — but that’s easier said than done,…
A sales rep business plan is kind of an odd concept. It’s not quite a sales plan, which allows a sales team to detail and guide its broader sales strategies. It’s also not a conventional business plan, which guides a business on an organizational level. What I‘ll be describing here is more focused and individualized…
In June, I attended the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin with hundreds of diplomats, investors, private donors, and more. I made friends with a handful of key people and even a minister — but I lost eight business cards either in my car, at home, or in a bag. If only I had had a…
Leaning on forecasting models is a necessary – sometimes tricky – part of preparing for the upcoming fiscal year, especially for my sales folks. You see, if you work in sales, you already know that you can’t use a crystal ball to predict the future (even if you’re expected to), so you’re left analyzing quantitative…
Cold calls are awful. They’re inherently intrusive, naturally uncomfortable, and — according to a study from Cognism — unsuccessful roughly 95.2% of the time. With that said, that same study found that 49% of buyers actually prefer to be contacted through a cold call. That‘s why they’re still central to many orgs’ sales processes. If…