“We expect to have solid growth of over 2% in 2018… With interest rate still low, now is the right time for Canadian entrepreneurs to make the necessary investments to grow, become more productive and more competitive,” said Pierre Cleroux, Chief Economist at RBC. That’s great news for Canadian SMBs. With the above-expected growth fueling the economy, we are poised to do even better in 2018. We are betting these trends will help grow your sales organization in the coming ye

You have a great product, so you should be all set - right? Not quite. At this point you may know What you are selling, When you’re selling it, Where you’re selling it, but do you know to Whom? An integral component of any successful sales venture is identifying its ANUM and then targeting your sales accordingly. Authority - The first aspect of ANUM is Authority. Who is it that has the authority to make the purchase? If you’re not targeting your sales towards the people and/o

As a small business owner you know that your customers are the key your business? Now, do you really understand what is motivating them to buy from you? This HBR webinar on The Elements of Value aims to look at the values that influence a consumer’s purchasing decisions, albeit on a larger scale. Here at Change Connect we’re going to take make it relevant for small-business and see how you can put this concept to work. First you need to understand what the Elements of Value

Cold-calling and outbound marketing strategies have the been the pillars upon which the sales industry was built. And while Sales and Marketing has morphed and grown and evolved, lead generation will never not be an integral component of sales. Still, we are in a new age of marketing and doing the same old thing doesn’t cut it anymore. Outbound marketing as the sole focus of your company’s sales strategy will leave you out in the cold - they aren’t called cold-calls for nothi

On average, in 30 seconds, your customer has made up his / her mind whether there is a business opportunity on hand or not. Now, you see the importance of a carefully crafted 1-min pitch? Summarized our pointers below for your reference: Starting with a Blank Slate and asking questions You are given 1-minute from the moment you start your pitch. Make no assumptions. The only way to make the minute relevant is by asking questions - Ask open ended questions; for example, “W

We conducted a quick survey around the office, only 30% of our sales people do post-call reviews. Let me be the first to tell you - Post-call is equally as important as pre-call. Here are the best practices to get you started: 1. Do it as soon as possible. Grab that wifi from Starbucks and go into your CRM right away. The biggest trap is either not doing it at all or postponing post-call review so long that it just turns into an exercise of completing a call report for

Call planning is a widely adopted best practice. The benefits are well documented – increased sales, better engagement, more relevant discussions. The biggest barrier is the perceived amount of work that goes into each call. Let’s talk about pre-call planning for now: 1. Determine the call objectives. The first step in pre-call planning is setting the objective for the call. The objective should be formulated in terms of the commitment desired from the customer that m