The term “prospecting” has its origins in the California Gold Rush. Forty-niners (named for the year these fortune seekers began to arrive in droves) would sift through rocks and dirt, keeping their eyes peeled for the shimmer of precious metals. Over 170 years later, most of the “prospectors” in San Francisco rely more on their laptops than on their pickaxes. But the sales prospecting methods they engage in today are still aimed at uncovering golden opportunities.

We’ve all been the victim of a bad sales script. Whether in a cold call or a company follow-up, it’s painful to sit there while an uninformed sales rep fumbles their way through information you don’t need until you hang up out of mercy. Sales scripts have a bad reputation. But the fact is, a strong sales script can be a game-changer for your company and your sales team.

It’s the holiday season, and this year is looking like one to remember. Thanks to supply-chain issues, popular items were out of stock or delayed before the shopping season even began. I bought a fancy scarf online in October, thinking I was going to beat the rush. Within a week, I had a backorder email. Two weeks later, no word—until about a month had passed, and my order was finally canceled.

There’s a lot of debate as to what makes a business “successful.” Is it money? Is it household-name branding? Is it longevity? All may seem like markers of a successful company to the general public. But what makes a business succcessful in the eyes of other businesses? A soaring sales growth rate.

We’re well into the final quarter of 2021, and that means it’s time for the fiscal year to wrap up, year-end statistics to flood in, and 2022 strategizing to begin. Just like last year, though, sales are in a unique place as buyers continue to work remotely, online sales increase, and the pandemic leaves companies on edge. Despite everything, your company’s goal for the coming year is probably the same as always: to grow and increase sales revenue.

For many businesses, migrating support operations to new help desk software can be intimidating. That hesitancy can be rooted in fears that the process will be too challenging, expensive, and time-consuming. And when using old help desk platforms, companies often ignore the flaws and limitations. That willingness to “make do” and kick the can down the road is a very human quality. Frankly, there are no good reasons for being stuck with subpar software.

Knowing whether or not your company is making a profit is essential to building a successful business strategy. The real question is: Do you know why your company is or isn’t profitable? This is the essence of the sales mix. Sales mix digs deep into the individual percentages and profits of your products so you can determine what stays, what goes, and what gets an update. Not every product is a best-seller, but that doesn’t mean it can’t hold value for the company.

Backordered for months, the couch Sasha ordered had finally come for delivery. Her doorway was narrow, but she had a plan. Which involved, well, a gymnastics routine of flipping and squeezing the boxed couch. Doorway conquered, she gazed down her mile-long hallway. Deep breath, she thought, and hauled. Sure, she lost two fingernails in the process, but this was a big day. The new couch was here! The one she’d pined for, the one that had taken practically the length of a pregnancy term to arrive.

We’ve all heard the phrase “time is money,” and in the sales world, this axiom resonates loud and true. In every company, sales teams work tirelessly to refine the process of persuading customers to buy faster each year. Time is a valuable parameter to measure, and not only in regards to your sales teams and their productivity.

Every company wants to increase productivity in its sales department—that’s a given. What’s not a given, however, is exactly how your company goes about the process. Sales reps spend hours a day recreating work that shouldn’t have to be recreated.

Over the past two years, the Internet has become our conference room, gym, doctor’s office, personal gathering place—basically, our whole life. With consumers spending more time online than ever before, companies have had to rethink their customer service experience. Businesses need to gain a clear understanding of the type of digital interactions customers want instead of relying on intuition.

A great customer experience features efficient and personalized interactions at each step of the buyer’s journey. But in order to achieve this, companies need a way to quickly analyze customer data and act on it. According to the Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report, businesses that leverage customer data see 36-percent faster resolutions and a 79-percent reduction in wait times; they also solve four times the number of customer requests.

Let’s start with the basics: What is a customer touchpoint? To put it simply, a customer touchpoint is any time a consumer interacts with your brand, whether that’s through an employee, a website, an advertisement, or an app. And the experiences consumers have with those touchpoints can shape how they view your company.

It’s easy to talk about being a customer-first organization. It’s comforting to think that everyone in the organization puts the customer first. This attitude should, in theory, lead to happier customers, better business outcomes, and the type of place anyone would love to work. But defining and executing a customer-first strategy is not as organic as it might seem.

Customer satisfaction has been dropping in the US since about 2018, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The question is why, especially when so many companies are trying hard to meet customer needs on a variety of fronts. There are some general trends that offer clues—for example, customer expectations keep rising. Customers have become much more critical of everything, whether it’s product quality, delivery, or customer service.

When it comes to relationships between individuals, building trust isn’t a very difficult thing to do. It typically requires only a few points of relatability—movies or books you both enjoy, places you’ve visited, and so on—until a level of camaraderie is established. The task becomes infinitely harder, however, when it comes to sales relationships.

A Contact Us page isn’t just another page on your website. In fact, it is one of your most valuable pages—and should be treated as such. A contact page provides guidance for existing customers and offers an overview of your brand for new visitors. But contact pages aren’t always crafted with care. They might be missing a phone number or links to social channels, or they may be totally outdated or tricky to navigate—all of which makes for a bad customer experience.

A sales letter is an important tool for shaping the way your customers think of you. The more deliberate you are with writing a strong sales letter, the more conversions you’ll get as a result. In this guide, we’ll discuss the key components of a dynamic sales letter, share a sales letter example, and provide useful tips on how to write a sales letter.

It’s what every business strives to achieve: attract new customers, provide unparalleled service and goods, and build a relationship that ends up in years of repeat business. Getting there, however, requires more than good intentions—it takes implementing a customer lifecycle management process.