Although 71% of companies say closing more deals is their top sales priority, further data from Forrester suggests that only 0.75% of leads generated become closed revenue.
This disparity isn’t surprising, as a number of factors have come together in recent years to make B2B sales more challenging than ever:
- That same HubSpot report also found that 38% of salespeople say getting a response from prospects is getting more difficult.
- This is understandable when you consider that data shared in the Harvard Business Review suggests that 90% of decision makers won’t respond to cold calls, according to Sales Leadership Forum.
- Compounding this issue is sales reps can spend up to 40% of their time looking for somebody to call, according to Insidesales.
So what’s the motivated B2B seller to do?
Rather than get frustrated by the challenges posed by seemingly-uphill sales battles, smart reps invest in ongoing education?
Thanks to the wealth of information being published today, everything you need to stay on top of your game — from new information to tactics and strategies — exists to help you meet your goals. We’ve reached out to influencers and compiled a list of the industry’s leading blogs below.
Check them out regularly, sign up for their emails even, and use the information they share to skyrocket your sales results.
1. HubSpot
HubSpot Sales
aims to help growing businesses transform the way they sell to match the way people buy. HubSpot shows you how to use data to reach out precisely when a prospect wants and not a moment sooner, leverage emerging channels to give prospects options and more control over how they engage with you, and pick up sales strategies that leave prospects feeling helped not harassed.
What to check out:
The Remote Sales Playbook: 30+ Resources to Help Sell From Anywhere
2. Adaptive Business Blog
Adaptive Business Services focuses on B2B selling, primarily outbound, and that includes weaving social selling strategies and techniques into traditional selling methodologies. We strongly believe that social selling augments, rather than replaces, traditional selling. While we recognize that the lines between sales and marketing have decidedly blurred, our site is by and for salespeople who are looking to up their games!
What to check out:
Three Ways Servant Leaders are Building Successful Sales Teams
3. Sales Pop!
SalesPOP! is an online multimedia magazine–“POP” being an acronym for “Purveyors Of Prosperity.” As a modern digital magazine, Sales POP! brings you written content, video, slideshares and infographics, e-publications and even free tools. Our content is aimed at empowering sales leaders, sales management, sales professionals and entrepreneurs to achieve new heights of success.
What to check out:
Save Time & Create Proposals Directly
4. Connect2Sell
Because every sale starts with a connection. Connect2Sell is an award-winning blog that regularly shares tips and techniques to connect with buyers and make the sale.
What to check out:
How getting clarity on your sales philosophy will boost your sales
5. Sales Management Blog
Sales Management Blog provides valuable insights into sales management and leadership. Steven shares monthly tips and actionable articles to help new and senior sales leaders take their performance to the next level.
What to check out:
What awesome sales leaders are doing to lead their team to succeed
6. The New Sales Coach
The NEW SALES Coach site is all about bringing blunt truth and practical help to sales leaders and salespeople. I call out the charlatans who preach popular nonsense that hurts sellers and companies and I offer simple, easy-to-implement frameworks and techniques that any manager or salesperson can use. My two primary focuses and areas of expertise are sales management and new business development.
What to check out:
Salespeople should never answer this question
7. Sales Gravy
Sales Gravy is the most visited sales specific website and the destination sales training resource for sales professionals across the globe.
What to check out:
Invest in Self-Improvement and Conquer Your Weaknesses and mindset are a choice
8. Heinz Marketing
Heinz Marketing is sales pipeline people — focused on revenue acceleration strategy and tactics that materially and measurably drive sales and revenue value for their clients. Check out Sales Pipeline Radio too – www.salespipelineradio.com.
What to check out:
From Process to Profits: How Systems Will Increase Your Sales
9. Jbarrows Filling the Funnel Blog
Jbarrows Filling the Funnel Blog comes from the day to day life and experience of John Barrows as a sales rep and learning lessons along the way. He believe’s Sales is the greatest profession in the world when done right but it’s the worst when done wrong. His goal is to share his experiences with reps and show them how to do it right.
What to check out:
The Battles of Starting Your First Prospecting Role
10. Predictable Revenue
Predictable Revenue is The Outbound Success Company, helping companies — like Salesforce, Oracle, SAP, and startups — avoid expensive mistakes in building outbound programs.
What to check out:
A checklist for scaling your outbound sales team
11. Yesware Blog
Yesware Blog is all about tactical strategies that are backed by data. We publish timely, energetic, authoritative articles that help salespeople be better salespeople. Our goal is to empower readers to take action as soon as they read. Each time we dig into a topic, we find strategies that help salespeople engage prospects, building in real-world examples and tying in psychology and neuroscience that explains why it works.
What to check out:
Sell me this pen: how to drop mouths with the perfect answer
12. Closer IQ Blog
Closer IQ Blog focuses on tactical, bite-sized strategies that sales, HR, and startup leaders can implement day-to-day with their team. The blog features sales leaders from the community to share their unique perspectives and insights with our audience. Some of the main topics covered are sales management, hiring and talent strategy, sales tips and career advice.
What to check out:
How to Create a Winning Sales Process: 7 Essential Steps
13. Peak Sales Recruiting Blog
Peak Sales Recruiting Blog provides executives, sales leaders, and HR leaders with leading sales insights and actionable advice on recruiting and building high-performance sales teams. Join over 50,000 subscribers on getting the latest insights on market trends, tools, and sales hiring as well as free resources including studies, templates, and eBooks
What to check out:
How top salespeople spend their time outside of the office
14. Partners in Excellence Blog
David Brock started the P
artners in Excellence Blog to “make a difference” for organizations and individuals. He wants to help them think about the issues critical to their and their organizations’ success. As a result, the blog tends to focus less on tips/technique/how to, but how they might think about the biggest issues confronting them, evaluate courses of action to address those issues, and execute them with precision.
What to check out:
15. CustomerCentric Selling Sales Training Blog
CustomerCentric Selling® (CCS®) Sales Training Blog is a global leader in sales training, using a proven, buyer-oriented methodology for predictably improving revenue growth and sales performance. Staying on top of industry best practices and trends, the CCS® Sales Blog is a trusted resource for actionable sales tips and insights that both sales professionals and sales management can execute and apply. CCS® is annually named to Training Industry’s Top Sales Training Companies list.
16. Salesforce Blog
Salesforce Blog is a one-stop-shop for sales success. Whether it’s leadership tips, best practices for new sales reps, product information about the World’s #1 CRM, or more, you can find it on the Salesforce Blog. The Salesforce Blog sources posts from Salesforce leaders, as well as third-party contributors who may have little to do with Salesforce, but are experts in the sales field.
What to check out:
10 Secrets To a Successful Sales Meeting Agenda
17. Smart Selling Tools
Smart Selling Tools is a site for people obsessed with growing revenue. We help sales and marketing leaders make sense of the technology needed to overcome revenue challenges and how to map out the right path to revenue growth.
What to check out:
4 Action Steps For Remote Sales Onboarding
18. Sales Hacker
Sales Hacker is focused on building and shaping the future of sales through educational, actionable, and unbiased content and events. Sales Hacker brings their resources to the people with several events, including Sales Machine (co-produced with Salesforce), Revenue Summit, and Sales Hacker London.
What to check out:
Sell like a Psycho (Therapist): 3 Counseling Techniques to Crush Your Quota
19. Sandler Training
Sandler Training is the world’s largest sales and management training organization with over 250 locations in over 25 countries. Sandler teaches the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques of high performing salespeople and leaders. Specializing in creating significant and sustainable growth for their clients has allowed them to become very popular not only as a training solution but also with their blog, podcast, and video series.
What to check out:
Four Ways to Utilize Data to Inform Your Sales Process
20. Rain Group Sales Blog
What makes for a top-performing seller? What drives buyers to choose one provider over another? What’s the best way to approach sales training so it leads to real sales performance improvement? Over the past two decades, RAIN Group has helped hundreds of thousands of salespeople, managers, and professionals in more than 64 countries unleash their sales potential with its RAIN SellingSM methodology. Rain Group Sales Blog readers are treated to fresh, research-based content.
What to check out:
What the Best Sales Negotiators Do Differently
21. LeldFuze
LeadFuze is an outbound marketing platform that automates lead discovery and outreach. Set your entire list building, email sending, and follow-ups on auto-pilot and get hot leads delivered to your inbox as people respond.
What to check out:
Cold Calling Techniques: Are you doing these 10 things to improve your calls?
22. Inside Sales Experts Blog
Inside Sales Experts Blog is about one thing and that one thing is
community . It is a place where we share our research and experiences and also showcase some of the amazing talents that can be found in the B2B tech community. No self-promotion just actionable information.
What to check out:
The Pandemic’s Revenue Impact on FY2020
23. ViewPoint Blog
Dan McDade publishes common-sense, candid, compelling insights about B2B marketing and sales. ViewPoint Blog is a go-to destination for information on why account-based marketing works; the importance of inbound/outbound balance; what can be done to close the gap between marketing and sales; why lead nurture makes all the difference; who should define what constitutes a lead; and how you can achieve lead gen ROI. The PointClear founder invites interaction with B2B sales, marketing, and c-level execs through his (and guest bloggers) frequent posts.
What to check out:
Is it Fraudulent to Spend Money on Lead Gen Without an ROI?
24. Richardson Sales Training and Enablement Blog
Richardson’s Sales Training and Enablement Blog offers expert advice and tips for today’s leading sales and learning professionals globally. We aim to help sales teams learn, master, and apply new behaviors so they can show up differently in front of their buyers and ultimately, drive more revenue for their organizations.
What to check out:
How Sales Teams are Managing Strategic Accounts During the Pandemic
25. Score More Sales
Helping company leaders with 5-200 sales team members in their company, Score More Sales focuses on people, process, pipeline, and leadership so you can see continued results. We work with visionary leaders to help them create a roadmap for success and solve problems once and for all. We also lead WOMEN Sales Pros to help companies attract, hire, and develop more women sales and sales leaders.
What to check out:
Storytelling in Leadership Starts With These Questions
26. The Sales Hunter
Mark Hunter, “The Sales Hunter” works with salespeople and companies to help them find and retain better customers they can close at full-price. Mark is the author of two books, High-Profit Prospecting, and High-Profit Selling and travels 200+ days per year speaking, training, and consulting on helping you avoid the need to discount.
What to check out:
How Do You Make the Shift from Selling In-Person to Online?
27. WebInkNow
Our always-on, Web-driven world has new rules for competing and growing business. David Meerman Scott shares on WebInkNow how to educate and inform instead of interrupt and sell.
What to check out:
Racial Bias in Marketing Unwittingly Introduced by AI Algorithms
28. Sales for Life
Sales for Life’s mission is to transition salespeople from an analog world to a digital world. We do this through blended learning, personalized coaching, and immersive content experience. With this unique approach, we’ve trained over 75,000 sales professionals at companies such as Sprint, Oracle and Juniper Networks.
What to check out:
Coaching Moment: The Buyer-Centric Social Profile
29. VanillaSoft Blog
VanilaSoft Blog is a resource for anyone that has a team of people making phone calls including inside sales and telemarketing. We cover topics relevant to today’s sales representatives and managers such as SMS texting for sales, email outreach, social selling. But we never lose sight of the proven methods that, when coupled with the right technology, still generate sales today: phone calls, telesales script development, perfecting your voicemail, coaching and more.
What to check out:
Want to Hire the Best Damn SDR? Don’t Read Another Resume Without Seeing These Tips
30. Miller Heiman Group Blog
Miller Heiman Group is one of the largest professional services providers in the world designed to help organizations sell more and service better. We have the broadest set of sales- and customer-service-based solutions in the market, so we have the breadth and depth to help every organization drive revenue through talent, training,
and technology.
What to check out:
5 Ways to Turn Your Bottom Sales Performers Around
31. Kim Orlesky – Leading Sales Coach
Kim Orlesky is The Leading Sales Coach, Success Magazine’s most inspirational blogger, LeadFuze’s most influential sales leader, and soon to be
three-time author. She continues to expand her presence with international speaking, including being invited to speak at the same events as Elizabeth Gilbert, Brené Brown, and Michelle Obama. Kim’s courageousness to quit her life and backpack solo around the world inspired her to use her mastery in sales to help sales professionals and entrepreneurs make communication shifts that lead to stronger relationships and more revenue.
What to check out:
7 Sure Fire Ways to Sell More. Faster.
32. Smart Calling Blog
Smart Calling Blog focuses on providing specific how-to’s, and what-to-avoid-saying, to help sales pros get through, get in, and sell more easily, while minimizing resistance. Readers and followers of Art Sobczak love his no-nonsense, non-salesy, real world approach. The blog features short tips, easy-to-use processes, and video training. Plus a good mix of humor and fun!
What to check out:
How Prospect Successfully, Without Rejection
33. Smart Insights
Smart Insights is a great blog for keeping track of new business studies and published data. It’s updated regularly, often daily, and packages information in a straightforward and easy-to-consume way.
What to check out:
How can marketing drive business growth in 2020?
34. The Sales Leader
The Sales Leader is your single source of up to the second strategies proven to accelerate Sales. Written by award-winning consultant, author, and Hall of Fame Keynote speaker Colleen Francis. You can always count on the Sales Leader blog to provide immediate and lasting results.
What to check out:
Three Keys to Effective Sales Coaching
35. Sales Management Matters
If you ask any veteran Salesperson or Sales Manager the importance of leveraging relationships including referrals and references, you will hear this has been central to selling for decades. When they hear Marketing is going to help them do it even better, you will get applause. Sales managers are looking for help. They want technology, process, and campaigns that help them sell more. When you show them the rise of Peer Influence in buying cycles, they will get very excited about Peer to Peer Selling and will completely make them rethink the funnel process. All about sales and marketing topics can be found at Sales Management Matters.
What to check out:
Building Agility into Your Sales Compensation Plan
36. The Ambition Blog
The Ambition Blog profiles the latest strategies for sales team coaching, measurement, and motivation. Their Sales Influencer Series podcast features interviews with today’s leading minds on sales management. The 400+ articles they have published the last 3 years draw inspiration from expert resources like Harvard Business Review and CSO Insights, pop culture staples like Mad Men and the 48 Laws of Power, and professional and collegiate sports.
What to check out:
9 Ways to Make Your Sales Team More Efficient
37. Marketing Land
Marketing Land is one of the web’s premier resources for marketing news and information, with a wide range of topics covered. Readers can manage their newsletters so they’re not bombarded with content they don’t want to read.
What to check out:
Fixing the B2B sales-marketing divide to hit pipeline and revenue targets
38. Sales Loft
SalesLoft is the platform for modern sales engagement, with the tools sales organizations need to make personal, human connects at scale. Email, dialer, playbooks, and coaching tools all live in one cohesive platform.
What to check out:
How Sales Leaders Can Handle Missed Quotas during Quarantine
39. G2 Crowd
G2 Crowd is a peer-to-peer, business solutions review platform. The company allows business solution users to review the software they use in their tech stack every day. Information from these reviews is then aggregated into scores to rank on The Grid which then categorizes a software into four categories: Leaders, High Performers, Contenders, and Niche.
What to check out:
RFQ 101: What Is a Request for Quotation Process?
40. Search Engine Land
Search Engine Land is Marketing Land’s sister site and is dedicated exclusively to search engine optimization. Sales and marketing leaders that want to keep abreast of the latest developments in the SEO space will struggle to find a better resource.
What to check out:
3 things sales leaders should know about ABM measurement
41. Business Insider
There’s a lot of big-name publications for salespeople and marketers to choose from when it comes to news, like Forbes, Entrepreneur, Financial Times, etc. We’ve found that Business Insider consistently delivers high-quality content while achieving a good balance between news, interviews, and practical advice.
What to check out:
20 soft skills every leader needs to be successful
42. ConversionXL
The ConversionXL blog regularly publishes in-depth, practical posts about conversion-related topics. There’s a strong focus on case studies and in-house data, and the writers are among the top conversion optimization experts in the world.
What to check out:
Sales and Marketing Misalignment Is Costly — But Avoidable
Tell us, is there a top sales blog we missed that you follow regularly? Comment below!
Originally published July 31, 2017, updated September 2, 2020
