It’s B2B sales 101. Using standard industry classifications for market segmentation is commonplace. Need to sell to the finance industry? Use SIC code 6199, and you'll quickly find a list of companies in that industry.  

If you sell to particular verticals, it's easy to see why Industry classifications are essential for proper B2B segmentation. They can assist in identifying the particular organizations that benefit from your product or service and then selling to them. However, traditional industry codes, like NAICS and SIC, have two major weaknesses:

Salespeople often obsess over growing a big, beautiful sales pipeline. “Fill pipeline with hot leads” or “fill pipeline with best-fit prospects” are recurrent tasks at the top of the to-do list. While well intentioned, that often means salespeople will dedicate too much time to sales prospecting instead of thinking about how to get prospects to flow through the pipeline.

"If you can't measure it, you can't improve it.” That's one of the most important quotes in business. At least if you want to be data-driven—and who doesn't, right? 

Do you want to stay on top of your sales activity and grow a healthy pipeline? Stay tuned! We’ve designed a sales activity tracking spreadsheet for salespeople to keep track of their daily activities of prospecting, calling, and meeting customers.

While CRM software is powerful on its own, integrating it to other tools across your sales tech stack expands its functionality and makes your job much easier. Ideally, your CRM should serve as the central hub of all your sales activities: it should gather, organize, and analyze all the data on your accounts.

After decades of hunch-based, adrenaline-fueled cold calling and Hail-Mary revenue generation, we’ve recently entered an entirely new era. An era steered by intelligent, laser-targeted prospecting and marketing, tuned by personalization and driven by data.

Thanks to new technological innovations, a relatively old business selling model has become more common lately: the account-based sales model. With the use of sales intelligence, companies can now more efficiently than ever before discover the most viable accounts based on a wide range of criteria and create a tailored sales and marketing strategy for them.

Entering a new, unknown market is like being the new kid at a new school. The possibilities are endless when it comes to making new friends, or in the business world - finding new customers. Still, getting that first great connection can be more challenging than expected.

Awww… first dates. They’re a mixed bag—you never quite know what you’re going to get. One day, sparks fly and you feel like you’re on the cusp of a whirlwind fairy-tale romance. On another day, you feel your heading for disaster.

A fun way to think about sales is as a quest. I know that might sound a little odd but, if you just bear with me, I promise the metaphor will make a lot of sense. In this fantastical metaphor, a salesperson would be the brave adventurer setting out on a perilous journey in search of fame and fortune. Now, obviously an adventurer needs many things to accomplish their quest, but there is one essential tool that is negligently underappreciated—a map. I mean, without a map, would Indiana Jones have been able to find the lost Ark? I’d venture to say that it’s doubtful.

Alas, bringing it back to the realm of normality, if a hero is in need of a map, isn’t a salesperson? I can sense your silent nods of agreement on the other side of the screen, so I’ll let you in on a little secret—a sales pipeline is that map for salespeople. A sales pipeline clearly outlines the different stages of the journey that a salesperson has to undertake in their quest to make a sale. It shows the salesperson where they are now, where they need to go next, and what they need to do to get there. Told you we’d get there in the end! Makes sense, right?

Company and B2B blogs aren't news outlets. Content marketers don't report breaking news or tap into the news cycle. Instead, they have very concrete goals: attract the right readers, generate leads, and ultimately, have an impact on company revenue.