MarketStar Blog

Small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are a huge untapped market, but many B2B vendors ignore SMB sales because they believe that selling to SMB customers doesn’t justify the return on investment (ROI). Smart sales managers understand that SMB selling is different, and that successful SMB sales strategy requires a different approach that can yield substantial revenue.

As the B2B buying process has evolved, sales teams have had to continually adjust their strategy to best serve their clients’ needs. Today, the sales process is less linear than it used to be, and it requires a new set of dedicated sales professionals, including sales engineers, to get the job done well.

Of all the specialty sales roles, sales engineers are perhaps one of the most misunderstood. However, it’s important to utilize sales engineers fully because they often play an important part in pre- and post-sales support, delivery and installation, deployment, testing, and even Customer Success. 

Let’s explore some of the most common misperceptions about sales engineers to establish a better understanding of how these sales professionals could fit into your team.

Around the globe, the market for Sales as a Service continues to grow. Today, some of the world’s most successful businesses, including Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft, are augmenting their in-house sales teams with an outsourced model to drive revenue. 

But what exactly is Sales as a Service? The term can feel a bit ambiguous, so we want to take a closer look at what exactly it means and how companies can leverage it.

As business solutions grow increasingly complex, some buyers require additional assistance to successfully introduce new products or services into their companies. It’s no longer enough for business-to-business (B2B) sales organizations to sell a product or service and leave the customer to their own devices—today they need support and knowledge over the long haul. 

The need for longer-term success is why Customer Success teams are becoming increasingly common in B2B sales organizations. However, it’s important for sales leadership to understand that Customer Success is not the same as other sales functions. Here, we take a look at the key ways in which these two roles are different and why a Customer Success team may be exactly what your organization needs.

In order to have a topflight sales organization, you need a strong sales channel. When your sales success depends on distributors and partners, you need an internal channel account manager with the right skills to oversee third-party sales.

If you are used to having a direct sales infrastructure, you may not understand the talents that are required of a successful channel account manager. In addition to understanding sales, you also have to be a sales strategist, trainer, coach, negotiator, diplomat, and referee. When you are managing an internal sales team, the team has a common goal—to drive sales for your business. 

A channel manager’s role is more complex because it requires accommodating the business needs of channel partners as well as the success of the supplier. It’s a balancing act that requires finesse and additional skills.

Today’s business-to-business (B2B) sales organizations are selling to increasingly sophisticated customers who are more informed than ever. The B2B buying journey has changed significantly, but customers still need help making the right buying decisions. That’s why we’re seeing a growing number of businesses incorporate new speciality sales roles to meet the needs of B2B customers at every stage of the sales cycle.

In this blog, we’ll explore how to best build speciality roles in a sales team to help your customers make the right buying decisions, while also supporting customer renewals and upselling customers to increase the value of every engagement.

The role of the high-tech field rep is changing and so is the way they are selling. The old method of overseeing the customer from lead capture to deal close and beyond is gone. High-tech field reps are now key members of a larger sales team, with each member playing a distinct role in the value chain. With the changes in the field rep’s role come new strategies to generate sales.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has had an incredible impact on a variety of industries around the globe. There’s no doubt that it’s been a challenging year, and we’re still not out of the woods. 

But that means this summer is a great time to reassess your sales approach, determine what’s working and not working, and consider what your customers need, both now and in the future. 

As the economy regains focus amid and after COVID-19, Customer Success in particular should be part of your plan. Today, we’ll take a closer look at the benefits of a Customer Success team and how to best implement one in your company.

Native cloud software is here to stay, and a surprisingly large number of software as a service (SaaS) offerings are free. Free SaaS applications can be invaluable, especially if you need to solve a problem in a hurry. In fact, many free SaaS applications are outstanding tools to increase productivity, address business challenges, and make it easier to work remotely, which is extremely useful with more employees working from home thanks to the coronavirus.

There are free SaaS solutions for almost every business need. We have collected a few of the most popular SaaS tools with free offers:

Sales as a ServiceⓇ continues to grow in popularity, with more and more companies outsourcing key sales processes to help meet their goals. Still, some sales leaders are hesitant to consider it, especially to support their inside sales needs.

We’ve noticed over the years that there are a few common myths about outsourcing inside sales—objections that many sales leaders seem to share. But we’ve seen for ourselves that these myths aren’t true. And for companies that are already leveraging Sales as a Service, these myths have been debunked in the form of a growing pipeline and increased revenue.