RELATED: 12 PROVEN SALES PROSPECTING METHODS THE BEST SALES TEAMS KNOW

In this article:

1. The Importance of Using Words That Sell
2. Words That Sell
   1. Client
   2. Your Client’s Name
   3. We
   4. Imagine
   5. I Don’t Know
   6. Opportunity
   7. AI
3. Words That Don’t Sell

Words That Sell

The Importance of Using Words That Sell

Different words trigger certain behaviors in people and the language we use when communicating with customers impacts a sales team’s ability to entice and excite them. What sales teams say matters, and when it comes to closing the sale, every word said can either cause a prospect to open up or become wary.

Words That Sell

Client

Using the term “client” instead of “customer” indicates a more long-term relationship.

In practice, a client is typically someone who pays for highly specialized services and those who are being given advice and support. Choosing which word to call your clients (or customers) might seem a small decision but the consequences will affect how they perceive themselves. A B2B software business might opt to refer to its customers as “clients,” to highlight their interest in assisting their success.

Your Client’s Name

People react strongly when they hear their name and in doing so, they’ll give their undivided attention. To succeed in the marketplace businesses have to provide a personal touch to their customers. Addressing a customer by name provides them with this valued experience and gives them a sense of importance and validity.

We

Successful sellers ensure their customers feel part of a team, so using the word “we” (“together”, “us”, “our” etc.) references the venture as a joint effort. If prospects have a collaborative focus, they will believe in an equally advantageous association leading to better cooperation.

Imagine

Asking a customer to imagine the benefits of your product or service, puts them in an optimistic mindset. Imagining how the product can be applied to their business, they buy a better version of themselves and thus consumers are more likely to agree to the sales proposal. Stories record better in people’s minds than regular messaging and using the word “imagine” is a useful tool in sharing a joint vision; you selling the product, and the customer buying it.

I Don’t Know

Top salespeople know their stuff and ideally should know everything there is to know about their products or service. But sometimes, in absence of all information, admitting “I don’t know” is the best policy. Lying can lead down a very slippery slope, particularly when speaking to hundreds of people each day, and trying to remember what was said and to whom. By admitting this builds trust with the client, and a great follow up response should be to say – “but I will find out and let you know as soon as possible”. It’s always better to provide factual information than to hazard a guess and customers will appreciate the honesty.

Opportunity

Turn issues around by using positive wording with a positive connotation. This makes customers feel easier about the process. Seeing an “opportunity” can turn a sales conversation around.

RELATED: 7 STEPS TO GAIN RESPECT FROM YOUR SALES TEAM

AI

Artificially intelligent sales recording systems, and other technological advancements, are making coaching more efficient than ever before. Call recording has developed and now AI functionality means that managers, or salespeople, can search for key words to understand behaviors and which conversations add value in their interactions with customers or prospects.

Words That Don’t Sell

As important as the words that sell, all good salespeople should know the words that put clients off and drop close rates.

Gong research reveals some of the worst words for sales conversion rates.

• “Discount” decreases close rates by 17%. Oddly enough, using the word “discount” decreases close rates because customers don’t believe in the long term value.
• “Competitor”: Makes you less likely to get to the next step or close.
• “Show you how”: Drops close rates by 13% when used more than four times during a single call. Patronizing filler words like “does that make sense?” is an annoying way to check customer understanding.
• Using large numbers like “million,” “billion,” “trillion” is too abstract, so they damage close rates.
• “Contract”: Weakens sales conversion rates by 7%.
• “Free trial”: Reduces the likelihood of moving on to the next steps by 5%.
• Your company’s name: Damages close rates by 14% when used four or more times in one call.

So, it’s not just about how you communicate, it’s about what you say, rightly or wrongly, or what you don’t say that makes a difference between top-performing reps and everyone else. A subtle change can make a huge difference.

What words that sell bring you the most success? Share your stories in the comments section below.

Up Next:

• HOW TO WIN BACK LOST CUSTOMERS (14 WAYS)
• HOW TO SOUND MORE CONFIDENT ON THE PHONE
• EMAIL PROSPECTING VS COLD CALLING: WHAT’S BEST?

This is a hot topic right now, for all professional roles: recently, the founder of investment company Bridgewater Associates, Ray Dalio, said that almost half of the jobs in the next two decades will be replaced by artificial intelligence.

Sales Taks That Can Be Performed by AI

According to XANT research, around 25 percent of sales executive’s time is being spent on administrative tasks. These will be decisions like: who to talk to, arranging a time to speak with them, determining the best way to contact. Salespeople need to do less administration and more selling, says Martin Moran.

Those 25 percent are increasingly being relegated to Artificial Intelligence (AI), shows Martin, in an interview with “The Leap” magazine.

“In the lead cycle, we can tell a salesperson if their prospective lead is worth their time, but we can also tell them a lot more. We can give them an optimal time of day to call, and whether they are more likely to respond to a mobile or landline call or an email,” said Martin Moran.

Sales acceleration platforms can help sales reps identify which deals are most likely to close. They can show when you are more likely to close or show you the last time someone contacted a decision maker.

The Death of a Salesman

In the age of e-commerce, you might be forgiven for thinking the days of the salesperson are numbered. However, the rise of machines and smart sales systems does not mean the death of the sales role, says Martin Moran.

“There’s no truth to that at all; I’d argue the opposite. If I’m buying something low value, that’s relatively commoditized, I don’t need someone to sell it to me, I just need a frictionless e-commerce relationship.

The e-commerce relationship is going to be fully automated and will only get smarter, says Martin.

“But as you go up the stack, as sales transactions become bigger and more complex, then there will always be human intervention,” adds Martin.

How AI Helps Humans Build Relationships

AI is a great help to build an environment where a salesperson interacts with a prospect, adds Martin. Especially in a landscape where face-to-face communications is increasingly rare, AI can help the modern salesman create the context where they can refine sales their skills. Technology is there to help build an enduring relationship between human beings.

“I don’t think there’s ever going to be a total replacement of the art of selling, so to speak. People are still going to buy from people,” said Martin.

To read the full interview, click here.

Executive leadership and a willingness to bring real operating change are the main factors that determine the success, impact and payback improvement of sales transformation, shows Dan Cone, in his LinkedIn post.

Executive Level Sponsorship

Executive level sponsorship is vital to sales transformation, says Dan. The C-suite musts drive the process and insist on consistent utilization of new systems and tactics, with ongoing measurement. If they don’t, sales teams will simply avoid the change and revert right back to their legacy methods of selling.

Internal Selling Model

Changing the internal selling model is also a difficult task, if you cannot actively engage key actors in the process. The digital world has changed the way we do sales, and sales reps need to evolve along with it. You should establish a ‘sales specialist’ model of internal selling.

With the “specialist” model, inside teams handle leads and early stage activities, booking appointments, even closing smaller transactions. Experienced field resources are better utilized with large dollar opportunities. This model helps peed to lead and cost effectiveness.

Structured Selling Process

Structured selling helps sales professionals optimize their selling time and maximize revenue results. Professional sales should not be a mysterious “ninja practice” only understood only by the few “Jedi” that have mastered this art. It is a good idea to use analytics system to measure results and find out what works and what doesn’t. This is how you can ultimately impose a structured selling process.

Data Visibility

Analytics is also helpful when trying to establish data visibility. However, it hinges on having the right data in your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Some reps are good at recording data in the CRM, and others not so. Technology makes this easier, automatically logging phone call information and any other information about sales interactions.

Standardized Sales Tech Stack

Sales technology is the chassis that your sales operation runs on across time. It needs to support the entire organization and it also needs to evolve with the times. You should attempt to centralize sales technology at the corporate level, to avoid issues related to integrations, vendor management and high costs.

Measure and Iterate

Sales transformation processes are a journey, and they do not have a start and end date, shows Dan. The project should always evolve to keep pace with market factors that will never stop changing. As you make objective measurement and analysis of metrics progress, you should be able to quantify if you have improved your metrics, and be able to improve over the years.

Read the entire post from Dan Cone on Dirty Little Secrets of Sales Transformation on LinkedIn.

Going after small deals can only keep a company busy for so long. After awhile, the lure of closing bigger and more profitable deals forces a company to attack these larger segments. XANT runs an on-going research study called the Business Growth Index. This study provides unprecedented forward-thinking insights into sales growth drivers and team performance. A key discovery from the data revealed that companies are indeed targeting bigger deals in comparison to the previous year as sales cycles are 6.4% longer, close rates are 2.1% lower, and deal size 5.5% larger.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

• Practice account-based sales – Bigger deals require a different strategy. If you’re serious about whale hunting, you’ll need to figure out an account-based strategy that focuses on target accounts, a personalized outreach strategy, and value-based selling.
• Solidify the sales stack – When leadership was polled to determine what sales acceleration technologies were most utilized to close large deals – CRM, sales intelligence, sales presentation, and data list services topped the list.
• Practice pipeline management – Pipeline management is fundamental to closing large deals. Thinking through a structure and a strategy is key
• Manage your sales people – A management cadence requires an annual, semi-annual, quarterly, monthly, and weekly cadence of activities.
• Provide individual and team coaching – Everybody needs a coach. Coaching programs should happen weekly and should provide tools for reps to sell more.

Links and Resources Related to This Episode:

• XANT BGI Study
• XANT Labs 
• Playmaker Podcast

Subscribe to the Playmaker podcast here:

Sales development is here to stay but not many companies have grown sales development teams as large as Kent Venook and Apttus. Kent was one of the original sales development reps and was able to help Apttus scale the company to over a billion dollars in value and nearly 100 reps on his team. His secret was six plays or strategies that he figured out along the way.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

• Standardization of process –  In the early days, reps were each doing their own thing. It was more of a cowboy town than a well-oiled machine. Visualizing the process on a white-board and looking for areas of optimization, the team was able to move to a scalable process that each rep followed.
• Key KPIs – After a lot of debate, the team standardized on sales accepted opportunities as the primary metric to have sales development reps focus on. Although, Apttus runs an account-based model where sales development reps are closely tied to account executives, Kent decided not to listen to outside sources and pay his reps on ACV or revenue. Kent believes reps should be paid for things they can control and what they can be coached to improve.
• Continued Training – Kent set up a two-month onboarding program called the Sales Academy. Apttus is a robust product and Kent found he could train his people for a few days and let them try and figure it out for the next six months or train them for two months and them fully ramped by month three.
• Management Team – When Kent began he hired 60 reps so quickly that everybody reported to him. Looking for key characteristics and top performers, Kent quickly put in a management team that increased engagement and overall productivity for the team.
• Don’t be Afraid to Fail – Testing is the name of the game. Try different things to increase productivity results and have fun with it.
• Investment – Great people and great teams don’t get where they are alone. Realize that to get to an optimized state you will need a powerful sales stack.

Links and Resources Related to This Episode:

• XANT 
• XANT Labs 
• Playmaker Podcast
• Apttus 
• Kent Venook

Subscribe to the Playmaker podcast here:

Still the biggest, still the best.

That could easily be the tagline for this year’s Sales Acceleration Summit – an online gathering of the world’s brightest minds in sales and marketing.

When the annual virtual summit is broadcast on March 9, 2016, it will mark its fourth consecutive year of serving up sales best practices and actionable insights from legendary thought leaders, like Jill Konrath, Grant Cardone, Art Sobczak, Amanda Holmes and many more.

XANT originally launched this event in 2013 with 62 speakers and 15,000 registrants. Interest and attendance continue to climb to the point that we’re expecting 50,000+ registrants this year – making it our biggest event ever.

Learn from the best in the business

Featuring a world-class lineup of 50+ speakers, the Sales Acceleration Summit is unlike anything else you’ll see in the sales acceleration space. It’s still your best chance to learn from the industry’s leading authors, experts and practitioners.

You’ll see how the best in the business are accelerating their sales growth in these challenging economic times.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that growth, in and of itself, isn’t a magic elixir. Profitable “smart” growth is the new requirement for building a sustainable business.

Inside sales, which is professional sales done remotely, is one of the keys to profitable sales growth. And that’s why we created this summit.

Get access to information-packed sessions that cover the entire sales and marketing landscape, including:

• SDR/BDR
• Inside sales
• Field sales
• Sales operations
• Sales enablement
• Marketing and lead management
• Customer success
• Women in sales
• Executive track
• Game-changing sales stories

Many copycat events have cropped up since XANT launched the industry’s first major virtual event for sales and marketing leaders, but – make no mistake – the Sales Acceleration Summit is still the biggest and still the best.

The evening featured a number of special guests, including Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield, a noted neuroscientist and provocative academic with a strong focus on the future, society and the way we interact with new technology.

Joining her was Dave Elkington, XANT CEO and founder, and EMEA General Manager Martin Moran.

“A packed venue listened to our own Dave Elkington and Baroness Susan Greenfield discuss the power of the digital and organic brains – a fascinating contrast,” Moran said. “The fact that the event was heavily oversubscribed provides evidence of the demand for what XANT can provide to businesses in the UK and beyond.”

The purpose of this special event was to highlight the release of XANT’s Predictive Cloud in the UK.

Attendees learned:

• How neuroscience can help sales teams better understand their customers.
• How advances like the Predictive Cloud can bring the power of big data, predictive analytics and machine learning to accelerate an organization’s sales by 30 percent in as little as 90 days.
• How Neuralytics, with data on nearly 100 billion sales interactions, powers the sales acceleration apps that run on the Predictive Cloud.

The event also offered an opportunity for guests to network and connect with their peers.

In all, 60 guests attended, representing major companies such as Barclays, Pitney Bowes, Thomson Reuters and Wood Mackenzie.

The event garnered significant media coverage, including pieces on CNBC, Diginomica and The Times.

While XANT has been the leader in sales acceleration technology in North America for several years, it’s just beginning to enter international markets, starting with Europe.

XANT began signing up UK customers in July, and is currently offering PowerDialer, PowerStandings, Sales Indicator, Vision and HD Forecast.

XANT is making waves because many UK businesses are looking for prescriptive and predictive technologies to accelerate growth.

With that in mind, XANT is quickly working toward having its Neuralytics engine ready for international markets, feeding them with the predictive power of billions of sales interactions.

For more information on the power of predictive analytics in sales, download the free ebook below.

Free eBook: The Science of Lead Scoring, Prioritization & Sales Success

79% of marketing leads never convert to sales. That means inbound reps waste a lot of time chasing the wrong leads.

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Buyers are more sophisticated and harder to reach.

Sales teams are inundated with marketing leads without knowing which ones are legitimate opportunities.

We’re all being asked to do more with less.

Let’s take a look at nine sales trends that are shaping the industry right now.

1. Inside sales

The inside sales industry really took off after the 2008 market crash.

Companies started looking for a more efficient and cost-effective way to sell. They discovered that they could hire inside sales reps for a fraction of the cost of expensive outside reps.

And they often achieved better results because the inside reps could make more calls and do more demos from the office than traveling reps ever dreamed of doing on the road.

Salesforce.com achieved significant growth thanks to an inside sales team that booked appointments and closed deals over the phone and Internet.

Field sales has become a hybrid of inside and outside sales techniques, with field reps spending half of their day selling remotely.

It’s important to note that inside sales is not telemarketing.

Telemarketing is the call you get at dinnertime that uses a scripted, single-call close. A telemarketer won’t let you hang up until you’ve said no seven times.

Inside sales is professional sales done remotely. Inside sales teams use technology to contact the right prospects at the right time with the right message. This approach provides a better experience for both the seller and the buyer.

That’s why inside sales is growing  fast and tends to balance outside sales as part of the sales organization, according to the State of Sales 2017 study (the mix is trending towards 50/50 for inside/outside sales).

2. SaaS 

Many of the hottest companies in the world right now are SaaS (software-as-a-service) businesses, including Zenefits, Dropbox and Cloudera. Cloud computing is quickly replacing on-premise software because it involves less financial risk and is often easier to deploy.

Salesforce plowed the deep snow with its cloud-based CRM (customer relationship management) technology. XANT enabled users to plug its sales productivity tools, powered by predictive analytics, into the Salesforce CRM and quickly established itself as the leader in sales acceleration technology.

Many sales organizations use their CRM as a conveyor belt to keep their sales process organized, and rely on XANT’s sales acceleration technology to speed up the assembly line.

3. Immediate response

We tested Google leads versus cold calls and found that Google leads were 8 times more likely to convert into a sale.

We started to notice that the best way to close a Google lead was to respond quickly. We asked around the industry, and nobody seemed to know how fast was fast enough.

In 2007, we teamed up with Dr. James Oldroyd and conducted some groundbreaking research on immediate response. Nearly 400,000 companies have accessed this research. We continue to update it, and you can find the latest report here. We’ve also created a compelling infographic that tells you everything you need to know about the science of lead response management.

The research revealed a profound correlation between speed and success.

You are 100 times more likely to contact a lead and 21 times more likely to see that lead enter the sales cycle if you call within 5 minutes.

But the average response time is 44 hours.

XANT also pioneered a method to test a company’s response to web leads. We’ve performed thousands of these “secret shopper” tests, called ResponseAudits, for companies of all sizes.

ResponseAudits track:

• How fast you respond to web leads
• How many times you call back
• Whether you left a voicemail
• Whether you sent an email

You can request your own ResponseAudit here.

4. Gamification

Chuck Coonradt wrote an insightful book on employee motivation called “The Game of Work.”

He showed how companies can keep workers engaged through gamification:

• Establish clear rules
• Record stats on individual players
• Keep score
• Display scores publicly

XANT has incorporated these elements into its sales acceleration platform. The predictive sales engine not only tells you what’s your best next sales move– it makes selling visual, competitive and fun.

5. Predictive analytics

Billy Beane changed the game of baseball – and all professional sports – when he used data science to help the Oakland A’s outplay teams with much larger payrolls.

The movie “Moneyball” demonstrated how the scrappy and efficient 2002 Oakland A’s competed against larger market teams like the New York Yankees. The Yankees payroll of $125 million dwarfed the A’s payroll of $41 million.

Beane knew he had to think differently. So he used math to pick his players, focusing on on-base percentage. He hired underrated – and underpaid – players who were good at getting on base because he discovered this was a key predictor of team success.

Sales acceleration technology now incorporates predictive analytics to help sales teams hire the right reps for the right roles – and to identify the best leads to call, when to contact them, and the right message to share.

Sales teams that use predictive analytics gain an advantage over their competitors because they spend more time talking to prospects who are likely to buy and their sales forecasts are more accurate and actionable.

6. Big data

Technology allows us to collect and store more data than ever before. Venture capitalists are investing billions of dollars into companies that can turn data into actionable insights.

XANT has amassed more than 80 billion sales interactions, and counting, in its predictive and prescriptive self-learning engine, Neuralytics.

Sales teams can leverage this data to prospect more efficiently, improve sales forecasting accuracy, hire the right reps, speed up sales cycles, and close more deals.

7. Sales acceleration 

In 2014, we released a research report, “The Sales Acceleration Market Size Study,” showing that North American companies were already spending $12.8 billion per year on sales acceleration technology.

Sales acceleration bridges the gap between the well-known technology categories of marketing automation and CRM.

Here is a list of technologies that fall within the sales acceleration technology category:

Sales Communications: XANT

Recruiting Technology: Monster, Jobvite, CareerBuilder

Sales Training Technology: CallidusCloud, TeamVisibility

Sales Compensation Technology: Xactly, CallidusCloud

Gamification: Hoopla, Bunchball, Badgeville

Data/List Services: Data.com, Zoominfo, Hoovers (D&B), NetProspex, OneSource

Sales Intelligence Tools: LinkedIn, InsideView

Video Conferencing: PGI (iMeet), Cisco

Sales Email: HubSpot Sales, Yesware, Toutapp

Live Chat: LivePerson, Boldchat

Social Tools: LinkedIn, Radian6, FlipTop,

Texting: Screen Magic

Remote Sales Presentation Technology: Citrix (GoToMeeting), Cisco (WebEx)

Sales Quote and Proposal Tools: Apttus, Quosal

Contract Technology: DocuSign, EchoSign

Predictive Analytics Technology: Lattice Engines, Infer

Data Visualization: Domo, Tableau

In addition to offering breakthrough innovations in predictive sales communications, XANT uses predictive analytics to address the following sales challenges:

• Email and engagement tracking
• Sales pipeline management
• Sales forecasting
• Sales rep motivation
• Sales hiring

8. Systems consulting

Harvard professor Clayton Christensen wrote an article for Harvard Business Review called “Consulting on the Cusp of Disruption.” It talks about how consulting is facing major disruption, just like the steel and publishing industries.

Consultants must find new models for providing value, Christensen argues, including using technology and big data to solve problems more quickly and efficiently.

What’s needed is a consulting model that delivers a proven system for increasing revenue, rather than just leaving the client with a PowerPoint presentation and hoping they can find a way to execute.

XANT offers a consulting division, known as the Momentum Strategy Team, to drive real business results.

9. Predictive hiring

Recruiting and hiring the right talent is one of the biggest challenges today’s sales leaders face.

Dr. James Siebach, senior research fellow at XANT, has discovered a strong correlation between sales success and the following four factors:

Ambition: an intense urge to be successful in life.

Resilience: the ability to handle and overcome adversity.

Empathy: the ability to put yourself in your client’s position or to feel what somebody else feels.

Openness: curiosity about the world in which we find ourselves.

Our research also reveals that good salespeople are usually expressive and dominant.

Predictive hiring technology shows you which candidates are best suited for specific roles based on the assessment of character traits and dispositions.

Tying it all together

As we were finishing our $35 million Series B round of funding, we got a call from a venture capital firm who said they regretted not investing in us.

They wanted to share some research they had done.

“A good company rides one trend, a great company rides two, and our research shows you’re riding seven and leading three — and we’ve never seen that before,” they said.

Here’s to one crazy ride.

Image credit: Les Chatfield

We’ve compiled six of the most amazingly informative YouTube videos on sales acceleration – for your viewing pleasure.

It’s more than a treat. It’s kind of like scarfing down the main course, three or four appetizers, a piña colada and a brownie sundae sculpted to look like Mount Rushmore all at once.

You can thank us later. But now, sit back, relax and enjoy the show. If you don’t learn, laugh and love these videos, your next pizza is free.

That’s what we like to call our “Free Pizza Guarantee.” Some restrictions apply. Not valid in Puerto Rico or the Lower 48. Aloha!

1. How Zenefits Doubled Its Already-Aggressive Revenue Goals

Zenefits CEO Parker Conrad was feeling pretty good about his company’s ambitious plan to go from $1 million to $10 million in revenue in 2014.

Until an investor called him a bush league wannabe.

Then, he decided to double those already-insane growth targets. His VP of Sales, Sam Blond, corroborates the craziness in this SaaStr video hosted by Jason Lemkin and Aaron Ross.

It’s pretty much must-see TV for anybody who’s ever dared to dream impossible dreams.

2. Spice Up Your Cold Calls Like Grant Cardone

If anybody can make a cold call interesting, it’s Grant Cardone.

Homie’s still in love with the hustle after all these years.

Plus, he flat out makes me laugh. I don’t even care if what he says is true. It’s high-quality entertainment.

Cardone really does know his stuff, and he’s helped thousands of salespeople excel. #booyah

3. Success Secrets From the Fresh Prince

Will Smith sure has come a long way since his days as the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

This video reveals the intense, insane inner drive that fueled his incredible success.

It doesn’t address sales specifically, but the principles certainly apply.

The best part is when he says with conviction:

“If you are not making someone else’s life better, then you’re wasting your time.”

4. Jeffrey Gitomer Says It’s All About Value

Are you beating your customers over the head with a value stick until they ask, “Where do I sign?”

If not, you’re doing it wrong.

Jeffrey Gitomer, in classic Gitomer fashion, dispels the myths behind price objections – and shows you the best way to win new customers.

5. Ago Cluytens Reveals How to Use Email to Follow Up Effectively

Ago Cluytens shares some sales email secrets you don’t often hear. He offers a better way to follow up with prospects than simply sending email after email saying, “Hey, just checking in.”

‘Cuz honestly, that’s kind of lame.

Your emails should offer value, so it’s a good idea to send useful, relevant information.

But Ago says you should go beyond sending information, and actually offer access to your network. It’s hard to get much more valuable than that.

6. Master the Art of Selling Anything With Tom Hopkins

Tom Hopkins compares selling to art, noting that when you paint the picture properly, you create the conditions that inspire your customers to buy.

“If you are in the business of moving people to yes decisions, it is done primarily emotionally,” he says.

You must believe that what you’re selling will actually help people.

This one’s a real gem. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZa29V2L-U4

Free eBook: Cold Calling and Sales Prospecting: A Day in the Life of a Top-Performing Sales Rep

In this eBook, we invite you to tour a day in the life of a top performing rep to see how your team can can achieve top performance.

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Image credit: Andrew Kuznetsov

One of the most popular and valuable aspects of Dreamforce is the breakout sessions. This year, there will be more than 1,500 sessions to choose from.

With so much variety, there’s something for everyone – no matter your industry, company size or role.

You can learn about upcoming features, best practices and new sales acceleration technologies.

To discover the Dreamforce sessions that interest you most, and map out your schedule, Dreamforce offers its Agenda Builder. This useful tool allows you to search for sessions based on subject, presenter and even product type.

For those unfamiliar with the tool, here is a short video demonstration.

Once you’ve started to review the sessions, you’ll need to start filling out your days.

Here are seven Dreamforce sessions we recommend adding to your agenda to accelerate your sales.

1. The Predictive Cloud: Applying Predictive Sciences To Sales

Speaker:  Dave Elkington

Lead scoring is just the first step in predictive analytics for sales teams. The Predictive Cloud will infuse predictive and prescriptive analytics into every aspect of your selling motion. See how an enterprise company like ADP is already reaping the rewards of being an early mover.

2. Moneyball For Sales

Speakers:  Jim Steele and David Rudnitsky

Moneyball changed baseball through science. Predictive analytics is changing sales. Hear Zenefits describe how sales acceleration technology helps target high-value prospects. Discover how sales forecasting is evolving into a predictive science. Jim Steele and David Rudnitsky will share their playbook for increasing sales through science.

3. Sales & Marketing Are Going Hybrid

Speaker:  Mick Hollison

Today’s sales and marketing superstars are embracing hybrid models for lead qualification, social selling and closing deals. Road warriors are selling remotely and marketers are reaching further down the funnel. Come see how companies like DoubleDutch are embracing this hybrid approach to accelerate sales.

4. Sales In The Cloud: The High Velocity Inside Sales Model

Speakers:  Ken Krogue and Steve Richard

Inside sales is growing three times faster than traditional sales. Ken Krogue, president and founder of XANT, will share four trends that have forever changed selling.

Steve Richard, founder of Vorsight, an XANT customer and leading sales consulting firm, will share tips, research and best practices to immediately increase sales productivity for companies expanding their inside sales model.

5.  Achieve Omni-Channel Sales And Marketing Success On Salesforce

Speakers: Gautam Anne, Maria Pergolino, Patrice Arnera and Kent Perkocha

If your brand extends from retail stores to partner channels and e-commerce, see how leaders from across industries are transforming their multi-channel sales and marketing strategies using Salesforce.

6. Learn How Salesforce Is Using Predictive Analytics To Cross-Sell & Upsell

Speakers: Frank Perkins and Sanjeev Somani

This session will provide a glimpse into how Salesforce is leveraging predictive analytics and Wave to transform its own Go-To-Market strategy for cross-selling and upselling its various clouds.

7. Why Data Is The New Sales Manager (And How To Put It To Work)

Speaker: Chris Harrington

Great sales leaders are laser-focused on delivering revenue. So focused, in fact, that they occasionally overlook data that can lead to massive opportunities. The ones who don’t are dialed into the bigger picture. Join Domo for an informative session that outlines how best-in-class sales managers connect the dots to discover incredible insights.

To learn more about which sales acceleration technologies top companies are using, register for the free virtual event below.