10 Articles to Help Sales Leaders Cure Those End-of-Summer Blues

Boom. It’s the beginning of September, and, just like that, summer is about to say “goodbye.” As a sales leader, you’ve most likely spent the summer cultivating relationships with leads or perhaps even playing the game of tag while prospects (and hopefully you!) took well-deserved vacations during the hot summer months.

While the sluggish feeling during this time is real, it’s actually the most important time to get your sh*t together before you go straight into the selling season.

So, we’re back with a listicle to help you get pumped for fall and ease your end-of-summer blues. The following is a curated set of valuable articles and podcasts. In no particular order, here are our top 10 favorites:

1. “How to Reawaken the Passion for Selling” — Some might call it a mid-life crisis, but about every seven years, people get bored or restless with their lives and work. And, as a sales leader, it’s likely you’ve been at it for a number of years (aka, the same old incentives are getting stale like your bread on your counter). Need to reignite the flame? This Selling Power article from professors at Case Western Reserve University has a match ready for you.
2. “Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions: 3 Times To Step In (& How)” — As a professional performance coach and leader of LogMeIn’s international sales leadership program, Shawn Buxton knows a thing or two about building a strong sales team. His latest Sales Hacker article breaks down the three instances sales leaders need to step in and coach their team.
3. “5 Ways SaaS Providers can Prevent Customer Churn” — While customer churn might not be something sales pros necessarily think about all the time, our own CEO Zvi Guterman wrote an article for Marketo to help sales pros understand the power of providing a great customer experience.
4. “A Holistic Approach to Sales with David Masover” — Andy Paul’s Accelerate podcast is a favorite of our entire team, but his recent episode with David Masover (author of “The Salesman’s Guide to Dating: A Sales Book About Making Connections… With an Unexpected Twist!”) is top notch. It also reminded us to take a holistic approach towards sales: don’t just look at the output.
5. “The Ultimate Guide to Sales Metrics: What to Track, How to Track It, & Why” — KPIs, metrics and goals. Oh my! HubSpot got us again. New to sales leadership or want a refresher? Get the latest on which sales metrics matter — and why — in this e-book.
6. “Why ‘Tell Them Something They Don’t Know’ Is Bad Advice in B2B Sales” – The headline says it all. According to this article from Frank Cespedes and Tracy DeCicco at Harvard Business Review, crafting a strategy based on whom you’re talking to and where you are in the sales cycle, will make or break a deal, and they have data to back it up.
7. “Do Prospects Trust Your Salespeople?” — Turns out that only 3% of buyers trust sales reps. Yikes. Sometimes getting your sales mojo back into gear means getting back to basics. Learn about the power of attunement and how to align your team on it in this article from Colleen Stanley, president of SalesLeadership, on Customer Think.
8. “Enabling Technology Sales: How Do Your IT Solutions Stack Up?” — Managing teams, an overflowing inbox, quotas, detailed reports and data is exhausting. Our VP of Global Sales Sheila Aharoni shares how sales enablement can help leaders in this article from SalesTech Star.
9. “The Do’s & Don’ts of Demos with Rob Falcone” — Sales team members, bartenders, Legos, and iPods all have something in common. We caught your attention there, didn’t we? 🙂 Whether you’re tackling demos or a mock discovery call, this SalesLoft podcast episode featuring Rob Falcone explains how to captivate prospects.
10. “Use These 5 Sales Tactics to Overcome Your Fear of Rejection” — It’s no secret that rejection comes with the territory for sales. But rejection can still sting. We’re human, after all. This Fast Company article offers tactics from Jeb Blount, author of “Objections: The Ultimate Guide for Mastering the Art and Science of Getting Past No,” to help your team develop a thick(er) skin.

And for more great sales enablement and sales engineering content, just head over to our resources section with webinars, eBook, and more!

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