business development

31 articles

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  • business development

  What are the differences between coaching, mentoring, training, and consulting?

  Trainer, coach, consultant, mentor – whose support will be the most useful to your business? How do these positions differ? We present the basic differences that’ll help you choose the right kind of advice services for your company.
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  Useful tools to structure and organize work in a growing company   

  When you’re developing your company and the teams of individual departments start to grow, work organization becomes crucial. Development of your business depends on how you plan your and your employees’ activities, as well as how you’ll monitor their execution. To do this effectively, it’s best to help yourself with tools. What tools can be useful in a growing enterprise, and what aspects of work are they able to improve? Here are 8 tools that will help you order and organize your work at the company.  
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  • for sales leaders

  How to Build a Sales Funnel that Works

  Did you know that a good sales funnel can be the major force behind steady growth? If the answer is no, you’re probably among the majority of companies that have not identified or even attempted to measure a sales funnel. Without it, though, you might find it difficult to convert prospects into loyal customers in the long run. That’s precisely why you should take action and build a sales funnel for your business - and here’s how to do it properly.   
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  Sales Metrics & KPIs You Should Measure to Track Your Sales Performance

  If you’re leading a sales team, you probably know the importance of tracking the performance of all its members. Surprisingly, many businesses have zero or limited means to actually measure how productive their sales teams are. Unfortunately, if you can’t measure it—you can’t optimise it. And this truly affects the effectiveness of your sales process in the long run.
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  • tools
  • for salespeople

  12 Sales Tools Your Boss Wishes You Used

  Succeeding in sales might take a lot of time and effort, but it’s crucial if you care about the growth of the company you work for. Basically, sales equals revenue and revenue covers expenses—which is why it’s important to have a proper sales process in place, and constantly optimise it.  
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  Responsible for a Sales Budget? Here Are The Best Ways to Spend Your Money

  Sales budgeting is crucial for any business. In fact, companies with accurate sales forecasts are more likely to grow their revenue year-over-year and hit quota. Basically, the more accurate your sales forecast, the better for the whole company—as everyone can easily check whether the sales team is on track to reach the targets and increase revenue.
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  Optimizing Your B2B Sales Process [+ expert comments]

  B2B sales process is not all rainbows and butterflies. While it lasts, it lasts, but when sales do not go as expected, finding possible bottlenecks is not always the easiest nut to crack. How to overcome it, and master the B2B sales process?
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  A Beginner’s Guide to Sales Prospecting

  Sales prospecting is considered as one of the first processes of the sales cycle. Even if you work hard day and night generating leads for sales, you shouldn’t stop your sales prospecting efforts and wait for the leads to come pouring in. It’s always been a challenge but definitely still worth trying. You need to capture more prospects every day to make your business reach newer heights.
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  5 Horrible Mistakes You’re Making With Sales & Support

  Both sales and customer support teams play an important role in any business, regardless of its size. Let’s face it: There is nothing worse than having a customer acquired by a brilliant sales rep, only to have him or her discouraged by inadequate customer service right after. And it works the other way round as well - if your sales team is not doing a good job, your customer support agents can’t really prove themselves. That’s precisely why all your teams should meet the same, high standards.
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  How Does Social Media Help with Sales?

  I often meet entrepreneurs who admit that although their brands are present on social media, they have little influence on their sales results. This is due to the fact that marketers and the people responsible for sales, use social media communities differently. But, usually, the former has the greatest influence on what happens, e.g., on the company’s Facebook profile, and are assessed based on the number of likes and fans. In turn, salespeople need something concrete – bases, leads, real people who could buy a product.
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  • crm

  How CRM Helps Insurance Brokers Improve Business Performance

  A sales-focused CRM can help improve business performance for insurance brokers. It helps with prospecting, data quality, renewal rates, measuring effectiveness and many more.
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  5 situations which mean that it is time to implement CRM

  The implementation of a CRM system is never a completely painless task because it means a certain change in the way of work, and every change arouses resistance. This is why we often ask ourselves: “Is it time yet, or can we wait a little longer?”. Let’s take a look at 5 situations that may occur at your company. If they happen, you should not trivialize them – they are a clear sign that it is time to think about a CRM tool.
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  9 ways to automate B2B sales – the superpowers of the integration of Livespace CRM and Zapier

  Optimization of the work of sales teams makes many sales directors and company owners sleepless. The way to overcome this problem may be to use new technologies. An example of such a solution is the integration of Livespace CRM and Zapier, which gives countless possibilities for automating repetitive sales activities. 
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  Optimization of the sales process

  In previous articles, I explained what a sales process is and how to create one. This time, I will suggest how to check the effectiveness of the implemented solutions, and how to use the knowledge about the operation of the sales process.
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  Inside Sales: 7 Steps to Help Build an Effective Inside Sales Process

  Creating an effective sales funnel needn't be difficult. With a little prior planning and research, you can begin building an effective and repeatable sales funnel in no time. The road to success, however, doesn't have a straightforward or easy answer. Not because it’s overly complicated, but because there are a lot of variables to consider throughout the process, so what works well for one company or industry may not apply to you & yours.
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  6 Challenges Facing Insurance Brokers & How to Overcome Them

  As the insurance industry has evolved, so too have the challenges facing insurance brokers. From keeping up with technological advances to maintaining financial stability, through to managing changes in regulations and Brexit – today’s insurance broker faces a myriad of challenges.
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  How to sell more to the same customers: cross-selling and up-selling in the context of a CRM system

  When looking for opportunities to increase sales, we often wonder how to gain new customers. Studies show that it is more expensive to sell something to a new customer than to an old one – even 5–25 times more expensive. Today we will discuss two popular techniques: cross-selling and up-selling. In addition to theory, we will focus on the practical applications of these techniques in working with CRM.
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  • for salespeople

  30+ Sales Support Tools for a Sales Hacker

  When you work in sales, a big part of your job is interacting with other people, building relationships and analysing needs. However, the more you sell, the more activities you need to automate to sell faster, better and smarter. Only then, you can really hope to scale your business. Below, you will find some tools that can help you with that, making your everyday job a lot easier.
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  10 Processes You Can Scale Using B2B Automation

  When your business is ready to grow, there are multiple processes to coordinate. It can be difficult to know where to place your focus, and the demand on your company’s resources can soon outstrip supply. Automation helps to streamline your processes, making them optimally efficient as you begin to grow your brand. This supports the business at a critical time, drives productivity, and ultimately saves you money.
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  5 Ways Defining Your Sales Process Can Benefit Your Business

  Be honest... How well do you know ‘your’ sales process? And could you write down each stage, step and action if asked? A well-defined sales process is crucial in helping your business grow...
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  Why Your Outbound Strategies Might Not Be Working

  A dilemma for all marketing professionals is finding a balance between outbound and inbound marketing strategies. Traditional advertising still has a place, but the advent of social media has developed inbound marketing into a sales machine, allowing SMEs to remain competitive. In this article, we’ll take a look at the reasons why outbound strategies have lost their gleam and the ways in which inbound techniques can offer better results.
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  5 Lessons from Top Marketers That Work for Small Businesses

  You don’t always have to come up with a ground-breaking new marketing strategy to improve your business results.  It can be rewarding to look at the efforts of bigger companies and experienced marketers and translate their learnings into your small business.  Get inspired by the five tips below from experienced marketers and see how you can implement them in your business.
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  How to Support Your Staff in Using Automation

  Automation can have spectacular benefits for businesses of all sizes, in all sectors. Whether it involves new software, equipment, or a combination, automation can drive efficiency, better resource management, and greater cost-effectiveness.
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  Why CRM Should Always Be at the Center of Your Business

  Every growing company continually faces new challenges. In fact, the larger your team grows and the more customers you acquire, more diversified decisions come your way and the more complex they become.
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  DMS & CRM in the Automotive Industry – Do You Need Them Both?

  If you’re working in or around the automotive sector, you will have undoubtedly heard the acronym, DMS or Dealer Management System. 
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  5 Reasons Why Your Company Needs a CRM

  Picture the scene: Mary is a newly-promoted leader on a six-person sales team in an automotive company. She’s ambitious and wants to boost the overall efficiency of her department. However, starting out in any new role is always challenging, especially when your duties involve managing people and establishing your authority.
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  How Is Your Customer Experience?

  Every business and business owner has their own idea(s) regarding the key to their success. All of them must provide, and are expected to provide, an exceptional customer experience.
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  When Should I Make the Move from Spreadsheets to CRM?

  For most start-ups and new businesses, spreadsheets have been king. There are a few tell-tale signs that it may time to make the move from Excel & spreadsheets to CRM.
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  How Customer Expectations Impact the Growth of CRM

  Customer loyalty cannot be taken for granted, and so companies are focusing on delivering a seamless customer journey, with a view to build a relationship with their consumers. Subsequently, organizations across multiple sectors and industries are investing heavily in CRM to help drive an improved multi-channel customer experience.
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  • for sales leaders

  5 Ways to Tell If You Need CRM

  A good CRM system can alleviate many of the headaches that come with managing a business that is poised for fast growth. So how do you know if you need a CRM solution? Have a look at the 5 key areas.
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  • tools
  • crm

  Why Use CRM for Your Business?

  In today's competitive markets, the companies that best manage their customer relationships are more likely to succeed than those that don't. And with the digital age of social media, consumer feedback is now at everyone’s fingertips.