To be an effective sales manager, you must first be an effective salesperson. It’s not so much about your resume as it is about understanding how to be an effective seller yourself. You can’t teach what you don’t know. The following books are a mix of not only management topics, but tried-and-true selling techniques. Predictable…
About the Author
Christine Gomolka
Christine is a contributor for Fit Small Business specializing in sales and technology. Her professional background is in IT and software sales. She’s worked for start-ups and Fortune 500’s alike before transitioning into entrepreneurship. She writes from experience on topics such as sales enablement software, management, and training.
When she isn’t writing, she’s spending time with her rescue dog, practicing yoga, and spending as much time at the beach as possible. She’s also a life skills mentor for Age Out Angels, an organization dedicated to young adults transitioning out of the foster care system.
Account Manager vs Account Executive
Account managers (AM) and account executives (AE) are both an important part of an effective sales strategy. Simply put, AEs bring in new business and are often referred to as “hunters,” while AMs take care of existing business by “farming” the existing client for retention and additional opportunities. Both roles fall into the sales function…
Free Sales Tracking Software
Whether you’re working on 10 deals at once or starting a business, sales tracking software helps you stay on top of sales numbers. If you’re still using spreadsheets to manage customers, it may be time to modernize sales operations. We’ve identified a number of free versions and trials of sales tracking software that can help…
6 Best CRMs for Sales Operations
The sales operations role—also known as sales ops—helps sales teams do their jobs more efficiently. The sales ops role is shifting to focus more on managing the sales technology stack, specifically customer relationship management (CRM) software. It’s crucial that your CRM not only works optimally for sales reps, but for the support staff that assist…
How to Organize & Track Your Sales Leads in 7 Steps
Leads, customers, and prospects are critical stages within your business cycle. When you properly track leads, business results become more clear. In addition, properly tracked leads indicate how well a salesperson is doing their job and how to improve your sales process for better results. Leads should be organized by source, level of interest, and…
Measuring CRM Success: A Beginner’s Guide
The success of any customer relationship management (CRM) software is based on whether it helps you to better serve your customers and meet your company’s goals. Now that you’ve chosen and implemented a CRM and trained your team on how to use it, it’s time to track and analyze the business results generated by your…
6 Best CRMs for Mailchimp Integration 2020
Integrating your CRM with Mailchimp allows you to create email campaigns that laser-target your prospects. Mailchimp is one of the most widely used email marketing platforms for small businesses, so we took a deep dive into which CRMs offer the best integrations in 2020. We looked at dozens of CRMs based on features, price, and…
How to Submit Your URL to Google in 4 Steps
Getting found in search isn’t always easy, but a good first step in increasing your site’s search visibility is to submit your URL to Google. By doing so, you’re helping Google to recognize your site so that it can be considered for search results. It’s free and can be done in just a couple of…
6 Best Zoho Alternatives for 2020
Zoho CRM is a leading CRM software with features that include contact and lead management as well as HR functionality and social media integrations. However, it’s not always the best solution given its size and complexity. In this article, we found the six best Zoho alternatives based price, features, and functionality, arriving at the best…
7 Steps to Train Your Team on CRM (+ Free Checklist)
For most companies, buying customer relationship management (CRM) software is a sizable financial investment. However, CRMs are only effective when used properly, which all begins with creating a proper team training program that ensures team buy-in, is broken out into digestible sessions, and incorporates the best practices that fit your business. Free CRM Training Checklist…
What Is a CRM & Why It’s Critical for Business
Customer relationship management (CRM) software is a database used to track customer activities, leads, and sales opportunities. Since all sales information is logged in your CRM, it provides business insights for your entire sales, marketing, customer service, and finance teams, and allows you to tailor interactions and enhance the relationship with your customers. How a…
5 Ways CRM Can Help Your Business Grow
When business owners think about how to improve customer satisfaction, the first thing that often comes to mind is customer relationship management (CRM) software. After all, “customer relationship” is part of the title. However, CRM can also help grow your business in ways that go beyond the customer relationship. 1. Increased Employee Satisfaction While one…