The Year in Review: Our 5 Most Popular Sales Blog Posts of 2018

2018 marked a banner year for our blog here at Janek Performance Group. More of you visited than ever before and we’re happy you checked us out. In late April, we changed our posting schedule from once a week to 2-3 times a week to provide you more information and insights more often. Here are our our Top 5 for 2018!

But enough about us. Let’s get to the blogs:

4 Soft Skills That Sales Reps With Strong Technical Acumen Need to Master

More than ever, companies are turning to the technical expertise of Subject Matter Experts and incorporating them into the sales process. It’s a smart move that establishes credibility from the outset. But one of the issues that can often come up is the need to help these technical experts develop soft skills beyond their area of specialty. In this post, we discuss the four most important soft skills for sales reps who are technical experts need to hone.

The Transformation of Field Sales

In some alarmed quarters of the sales world, a funeral dirge is sounding for field sales alongside a prediction that inside sales will be the one to rule over all. But as we observe in this post, both the current reality and future projections are not apocalyptic in terms of field sales. While inside sales indeed looks to grow in usage and importance, field sales is here to stay. The change will come in the role of outside sales – one of heightened specialty and freedom to develop that elite skillset – often working in an overlapping, complementary capacity alongside inside sales.

The Power of Psychographics in Prospecting and Selling

When we sat down with our marketing team and discussed our best blog posts of 2018, this one was unanimously voted #1. Our Blog Post of the Year (not an actual award) delves into the distinction between demographic profiles and psychological profiles, how to build the latter, and how psychographics can be used to maximize your sale conversion and close rates. If you only have the time or inclination to read one post on this list, pick this one.

5 Tips to Win Over Sales Reps Who Don’t Want to be Coached

You guys *really* wanted to know how to coach reps who resisted your efforts to effect positive change this year. Both of our blog posts on the topic made the Top 10 in popularity. This is the better of the two and highlights the importance of collaboration, finding the source of a problem, framing the coaching in the right way, considering alternative solutions outside of coaching, and using data and metrics as supporting evidence rather than the starting point. Keep this one bookmarked as a reminder if you’re struggling with coaching an obstinate sales rep.

Why Sales Training Reinforcement is Critical for Your Organization

It’s a fact of life that if you don’t reinforce your sales training events, you’ll lose many, perhaps even most of the benefits of the training. In this post, we illustrate why that’s the case and talk about some ways to ensure that reinforcement results in behavioral and process changes that stick. Whether you decide to train internally or seek an outside vendor such as, make sure that reinforcement is part of your overall strategy.

We hoped you’ve enjoyed reading our blog and the changes we’ve made this past year. 2019 will see a continuation of our current posting schedule and as always, we’re interested to hear what topics you’d like us to cover in future posts.