While 2016 was quite the year as a whole, 2017 is looking to be an exciting year for business. Many of the trends that we are seeing are excellent opportunities for small businesses to leverage for their sales goals. We are betting these trends will turn your sales organization around in the coming year: Leveraging Data This is a trend that we have seen gain steam in the past couple of years, and it is going to continue to grow in 2017. The ability to analyze data will lead

Customer attrition, or what’s more popularly referred to as churn rate, is inevitable for all business. Hence, a steady flow of sales leads is essential to the survival of all businesses. You may have the best product in the world and have offered it at an unbeatable price, but your ability to turn an operations-centric firm to a sales-centric firm lies in your ability to 1) understand your customer, 2) leverage marketing to drive growth, and 3) develop a sales team to close

We get asked this question all the time – are tradeshows dead? Is it worth it to continue to invest marketing dollars in tradeshows? My answer is always – it depends. What is the purpose of your presence and the ROI on the spend? Is it a growing tradeshow? Is it an industry must? Is your presence a competitive necessity? Are you there to build industry partnerships? Are you there to network? It’s always important to ask these questions before deciding on whether you’r

As small business owners, we all wish there were more hours in the day. Since I haven’t figured out how to stop time or add more hours, I’ve had to learn to be strategic about where I spend my energy. The Pareto principle (namely the 80/20 rule) states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Not surprisingly, that’s true for account management. Can you pinpoint 20% of your accounts that make up 80% of revenue? Key account management is a systematic approach t

As a viewer, you don’t watch a Leafs game just to see them play - you watch to see them win. Well, maybe a Leafs fan isn’t the best example, but you get the gist. (Maybe Auston Matthews will help with that). Professional sports wouldn’t be the monster industry it is if we were just watching them play around; we watch to see them score. The same is true for small businesses, you’re not just there because of your product or service - you’re there to sell it. It’s important to a