Welcome to the first Complex Sales and Selling Strategies blog carnival edition of 2010!  We had a number of great submissions for this Fifth edition of the blog carnival, but I have to say that my personal favorite is, “How a $23M Deal Died, Was Revived, and Closed,” authored by Chad Levitt and listed under the Complex Sales category below.  Chad’s post is a perfect example of a detailed what, why, and how strategy that all of us can apply to be more successful in our complex sales environments.

…And no, I’m not just playing favorites because he happens to share a great first name with yours truly! Enjoy the carnival, and I look forward to receiving submissions for the next (Sixth) edition in mid-February.

Zebra Chad

…And now the submissions for this Fifth edition:

Anya Portnik presents Failure for us is not an option posted at Gavin Ingham.

Wise_Bread presents 6 Ways to Use Technology to Upgrade Your Career posted at Wisebread.

Managed Services presents The First Step to Determining Profit: Calculating Full Burden for Billable Staff posted at Managed Services Blog.

Billeater presents Save Money on Your Home Internet Business posted at Billeater.

Business Development

Frank Goley presents Business Success Strategies by ABC Business Consulting » Blog Archive » Writing An Effective Business Plan- Part One posted at Business Success Strategies, saying, “The business success strategies blog is written by small business success expert, Frank Goley, the chief business consultant for ABC Business Consulting. Frank has more than twenty years experience helping companies start, grow, turn around and succeed.”

Susan Tatum presents Will Pay-Per Click work for you? posted at Clicks ‘n Conversions Blog.

Frank Goley presents Business Success Strategies by ABC Business Consulting » Blog Archive » Developing and Implementing A Winning Marketing Plan posted at Business Success Strategies, saying, “The business success strategies blog is written by small business success expert, Frank Goley, the chief business consultant for ABC Business Consulting. Frank has more than twenty years experience helping companies start, grow, turn around and succeed.”

Complex Sales

Chad Levitt presents How a $23M Deal Died, Was Revived, and Closed posted at New Sales Economy Blog, saying, “This post will detail how using an on-demand ROI/TCO sales 2.0 tool can help you sell more, at a higher ASP, with a shorter sales cycle and get your customers to “own the deal”.”

Sales Challenges

Kathleen Gaga presents Make Sales Stick; A Simple Strategy Guaranteed to Increase Your Success posted at Street Smarts Marketing & Promotions, saying, “Being pushy, aggressive and not caring how many refunds you get is what has given sales a bad name. You will not find that type of advice from me. I believe in selling with influence and integrity.
So how do you make sales stick?”

Mike Consol presents Mike Consol/My Blog | The key to making yourself persuasive posted at Mike Consol’s Blog, saying, “No less an authority than Harvard Business Review said, “Persuasion is the centerpiece of business activity. Customers must be convinced to buy your company’s products or services, employees and colleagues to go along with a new strategic plan or reorganization, investors to buy (or not to sell) your stock, and partners to sign the next deal. But despite the critical importance of persuasion, most executives struggle to communicate, let alone inspire.” There’s a fundamental key to persuasion. Here it is…”

Strategies/Methodologies/Philosophies

Kathleen Gaga presents Build a Money Making Opt In Subscriber List with One Simple Idea posted at Street Smarts Marketing & Promotions, saying, “Effectively using a Sig File is one of the most important things you can do to begin building a solid opt-in subscriber list. Lists filled with people who have expressed an interest in something you are offering at no cost are warm leads for those who may want to purchase your paid products.”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of complex sales and selling strategies using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: complex sales and selling strategies, blog carnival.

Welcome to the fourth edition of complex sales and selling strategies. I’m very pleased to say that there is a TON of great content in this edition. Given that it’s been a while since I posted the last edition of the carnival, I decided to break my rule of only allowing one post per author in order to include all the great content our contributors have put out for us.  We’ll stick with the rule in the future, but in this case I though it was in everyone’s best interest to go about it in this fashion.

Also, I’m now accepting submissions for the upcoming 5th Edition of the Complex Sales & Selling Strategies blog carnival to be published on January 5th.

Enjoy the carnival!

-Zebra Chad

Mark Terrell presents Driving Traffic To Your Blogs posted at Mark Terrell.

Praveen presents Amazon, Best Buy, and Negative Operating Cycle posted at My Simple Trading System.

Allison Johanson presents Why Everything You’ve Heard About Leveraged ETFs Is Wrong posted at ETFdb.

Alisha Harmann presents Top 50 Career Management Bloggers posted at Best Court Reporting Degree.

Erick Simpson presents 3 Quick Tips on How to Sell When No One Seems to be Buying posted at Managed Services Blog.

Anya Portnik presents Sales training tips – it’s not all about you, you know! posted at Gavin Ingham.

Erick Simpson presents Why Is it So Hard to Sell on Value? posted at Managed Services Blog.

Anya Portnik presents Sales Training Tips from Better Business Focus Magazine posted at Gavin Ingham.

Erick Simpson presents Social Networking – Does it Replace Real Networking? posted at Managed Services Blog.

Ankesh presents Maslow and his Hierarchy of…Marketing? posted at Strategy Daddy.

Acheiving Global Domination

Arthur Pledger presents Selling Yourself posted at World Domination with Arthur Pledger.

Business Development

Sam Carrara presents The Birth of a Product posted at Sam Carrara’s Marketing Education.

Sam Carrara presents Sale Growth on the Rise posted at Sam Carrara’s Marketing Education.

Peter cantelo presents 4 Steps To Building a Referral Based Business posted at vivavi.co.uk, saying, “none”

Sam Carrara presents The Seed Becomes a Big Tree posted at Sam Carrara’s Marketing Education.

Jeremy Ulmer presents 30 Tips To Be Successful In Business posted at Sales Coaching | Business Coaching | Life Coaching, saying, “What Does It Take To Be Successful In Business and Sales? This list is an attempt to shine a spotlight on what it takes to achieve great success in business and sales.”

Sam Carrara presents Recalibrate Your Business posted at Sam Carrara’s Marketing Education.

Susan Tatum presents Is Search Marketing Always the Best Lead Generation Tactic? posted at Technology Marketing by Tatum Marketing.

Brian Terry presents Top 10 Business Automation Tools posted at Big Selling Website Design.

Nikit Irmal presents Top New Year’s Resolution for 2010 posted at Sales Leads, Business Leads, B2B Leads and More | The Small Business Owners Guide, saying, “Once the confetti’s cleaned up and you’re back to business. Will this be the year that your business grows? Or will you be content to grind out another year waiting for the phone to ring? The first quarter of a new year offers tremendous potential for small business owners and entrepreneurs willing to make changes.”

Sales Challenges

Sam Carrara presents How Much Is It? posted at Sam Carrara’s Marketing Education.

Sam Carrara presents Where Can I Buy It? posted at Sam Carrara’s Marketing Education.

Louise Moule presents The X Factor of a Consultant « Mentoring New and Tips posted at Mentoring New and Tips.

Selling during a Recession & Tough Econo

Jay Bodas presents Metuchen Cares Economic Forum: Strategies for Downtown Survival posted at The Central NJ Guide, saying, “I wrote this after attending a recent seminar in Metuchen, New Jersey sponsored by Metuchen Savings Bank on how the downtown business community can pull together to weather the economic downturn. This article is full of excellent tips for any town center/Main Street that is lined with shops and stores on how they can continue to generate strong sales over the upcoming difficult year.”

Peter cantelo presents 10 Sales Boosters posted at vivavi.co.uk.

David Kam presents Powerful Interactions: Let Consumers Sample Your Products posted at MarketingDeviant.com, saying, “Free sample is a great and powerful technique in attracting consumers to your products/services.”

Strategies/Methodologies/Philosophies

Jimmy Adames presents List Building Tips ? 3 Effortless Ways to Grow a List of Active Subscribers posted at Internet Business Building, saying, “Earning an income using the Internet is much simpler if you have a list of active subscribers. The key to making sure you succeed is to have reliable marketing tools and quality content to provide your customers and prospects. What is holding you back from building a list of active subscribers?”

Sam Carrara presents The Death of a Product posted at Sam Carrara’s Marketing Education.

Deb Bixler presents 3 Direct Sales Meeting Team Building Training Themes | Create A Cash Flow Show posted at Direct Sales / MLM Cash Flow, saying, “Home business owners need to have a balanced business. These direct sales theme training tips and cool graphic training tool will improve bookings and fill the home business calendar.”

Mark Terrell presents Still Cant Build Your Email List? posted at Mark Terrell.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of complex sales and selling strategies using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: complex sales and selling strategies, blog carnival.

Well, here it is… the very first edition of the blog carnival I will host on this site on a periodic basis (read: currently undecided as to exactly how often). Rather than talking at you all 100% of the time, I feel that hosting the Complex Sales and Selling Strategies Blog Carnival will add greater value for readers of the Selling to Zebras Blog by including submissions from a greater variety of sales industry colleagues.

Welcome… to the June 12, 2009 edition of Complex Sales and Selling Strategies.

Acheiving Global Domination

Chad Koser presents The Universal Symbol for Struggle: My brief summary of the 2009 Wisconsin Entrepreneur?s Conference posted at Selling to Zebras Blog, saying, “The ultimate goal of every sales business: Achieving Global Domination!”

Hugh Thyer presents Systems posted at Sales Come First.

Account Penetration & Business Development

Adrian Ma presents Evolve your business by increasing the size of the pie posted at The Corpus Callosum.

Interviewing

nissim ziv presents Sales Manager Interview Questions| Sales job Interviw Questions posted at Job Interview Guide, saying, “Sales are an integral part of any organization. Logically speaking, without sales no company can exist. Therefore, it goes without saying that the person handling the sales of a company (i.e. sales manager) will go through a lot of tests and scrutiny before he or she actually land the job.”

Recession & Tough Economy Proof Selling

Peter cantelo presents 53 Kick Start Your Headlines Templates posted at vivavi.co.uk.

Peter cantelo presents Top 6 Cash Flow Improving Sales Strategies posted at vivavi.co.uk.

Sales Challenges

Randy Cantrell presents Effort & Focus (And Their Enemies) posted at Bula! Life Is Good..

Business

Joshua Seth presents How To Write Your Book In A Month posted at Joshua Seth Blog, saying, “I don’t have to convince you that writing a book can really boost your business do I?

A lot has been written about that already. You know that writing your own book will give you instant credibility in your field, opportunities for publicity in your business, and a way to presell your customers with educational content that will lead them back to you as the person they know, like, and trust to solve the problems you address. So why haven’t you done it yet?”

Jacques presents Making Money On Twitter posted at Monkeyprofit, saying, “The easiest way to make money on twitter”

Jacques presents Twitter Tips And Abbreviations posted at Monkeyprofit, saying, “Thanks”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of complex sales and selling strategies using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Technorati tags: complex sales and selling strategies, blog carnival.