I was told by a friend recently it’s been scientifically proven that our concept of time speeds up as we age. I wonder if that is why it seems there are not enough hours in the day to get everything done including making sure I continually expand my mind.

To try and help, I’ve compiled 10 of the best ‘Acceleration Insights’ from the first 50 episodes of our podcast. Don’t have time to listen to the episodes or read the blog posts – hopefully, this will provide you with valuable, actionable perspectives or needed reminders in an easy to digest format.

I could chalk the passing of time up to getting older but this is a common problem for the vast majority of people I speak with on a regular basis – regardless of age. This is part of the reason I am so grateful to those who spend time to be on our podcast – The B2B Revenue Executive Experience (www.b2brevexec.com).

They take time to share actionable insights for the good of the professional community. And if I’m being completely honest, it’s a time-effective way for me to make sure I get out from under the bell-jar and stay connected to how the world of business is evolving.

Change is the name of the game and if we don’t stay connected and informed, if we don’t test our own assumptions and remain open to new approaches to old challenges – we do ourselves and our customers a disservice. This is also true if we forget the basics, the foundation of what made us successful in the first place.

You should be able to scan the headlines in 10 seconds…which is time we all have.

Acceleration Insight: Authenticity is No Longer Optional in Sales

“Start with the heart. Relationships get results. The best thing in a relationship is an investment that’s going to make a return on your investment much more so than other activities.” Barbara Trautlein, Founder, Change Intelligence

There is a way to improve your CQ – your Change Intelligence and Barbara shares insights here.

Acceleration Insight: Operating from a Place of Peace Creates Greater Outcomes

“The biggest lie we’re told is how we feel, our mood, our emotions – depend on our circumstances. It’s not true. You can be in any environment, and find a way to return to peace. It still may be unpleasant. But I know that peace is possible and from that place of peace, all your energy moves from being in those circumstances to ‘what am I going to do next, that’s going to put me in that better place.’” – Townsend Wardlaw, Founder, Townsend Wardlaw Consulting

Mindset is a powerful asset in sales and working from a Solution Mindset is key. Townsend shares more perspectives and tactics here.

Acceleration Insight: Your Genuine Curiosity is Key to Success

“Be curious – be intellectually curious. Actually be interested in what your customers or prospects are doing for business. View them as an interesting company that you’d like to learn about. If you’re curious, that will come through in all your communications.” – Jon Kondo, CEO, OpsPanda

Driving predictability in sales seems like the holy grail; however, Jon discusses ways to leverage data to do just that here.

Acceleration Insight: The Personal Touch Requires Preparation

“Do a lot of preparation, and complete a picture of the person you are trying to sell to. Beyond their Linkedin and Twitter and website, I’ll look at people’s Facebook to find what they are about and what they care about. I’d also bring them a tailored and personalized gift. Not on the first meet, but it shows how well you know the person when you bring something personal to them.” – Arun Lul, CEO, Contiq

AI is shaking up the sales profession more than any technology before and Arun discusses how AI can be applied to empower sales content creation here.

Acceleration Insight: ABM Requires Coordination and Collaboration

“Sales and marketing together need to embrace ABM. The most important aspect is the sale and marketing leaders sitting down and figuring out how to replace leads with opportunities because the two truly work together. Because the sales leader, he just wants marketing to give him new logo leads that their salesforce wouldn’t’ have gout without him.

But the lower hanging fruit is cross-sell, upsell within major accounts where marketing through content, through one-to-one events, through true customer success marketing…you can harvest a lot more from the customer base. Sales and marketing need to work together on those core accounts and have a larger portion of the marketing spend go against helping sales pull in the largest whitespace they can.” – Vince Koehler, VP of Marketing, SBI

Curious about the power of content marketing and how to get it right, how to make it generate more revenue? Vince provides his insights and successes here.

Acceleration Insight: Work on Your Greatest Asset – YOU

“Start reading books about developing yourself. Jim Rohn said, ‘Work harder on yourself than you do on your business, and you will grow in ways that you can never imagine.’ Most people are so busy working on their skills, they’re not working on their mind. Work on your mind first; your skills will come. With the right mindset, you can pick any skillset.” – Joe Apfelbaum, CEO, Ajax Union

Digital marketing continues to increase in complexity and Joe discusses how to optimize your digital marketing funnel here.

Acceleration Insight: If You’re Failing at Sales, Stop Focusing on the Pitch

“The one thing I see my team do, and I’m just as guilty of it, is a lot of time when we’re trying to exceed our revenue goals, we get really focused on what we’re doing wrong in the sales pitch or the presentation of our case or product. I’d say close to half the time, the problem is much earlier in the process.

If the sales are failing, we’ve usually failed six months earlier in positioning the product or communicating our brand to the right people. Don’t be so laser-focused on the sales pitch being wrong; be open to the fact that there might be other things you’re failing at if the sales are not there. There might be a leading indicator to address first.” – Jiri Marousek, CMO, AOPA

Struggling with outside vendors and maintaining your revenue goals – Jiri discusses why building capable internal teams and relying less on agencies leads to more revenue here.

Acceleration Insight: Look Through the Eyes of Your Customer

“Walk in the shoes of your customer. Be the buyer—pretend you’re a buyer trying to buy what you’re selling. I like to run my team with the idea that we all can improve.”– Tim Matthews, VP of Marketing, Imperva

Find out how Tim addresses the challenges of demand generation and goal setting here.

Acceleration Insight: Sill True – You Can’t Game the System

“You can’t game the system. In the end, hard work and effort is hard work and effort, and you’re going to need that to be successful. You might be able to find pockets between there, but it comes down to, ‘Are you following through? Are you addressing the gaps that you know you have or pushing them off?’ – Brian Turner, General Manager, Slalom

Want to know why revenue should be used as a trailing indicator of business health, check out more insights from Brian here.

Acceleration Insight: Still True – There is No Substitute for Prospecting

“There is no substitute for prospecting. Sales is a contact sport – you gotta make contact or you can’t have sales.” – Les Trachtman, CEO, Purview – Author of ‘Don’t F It Up!’

Are you a founder of a company or an entrepreneur and want to know how not to f*@# it up, Les provides more suggestions here.

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For more information on The B2B Revenue Executive Experience Podcast or to suggest a guest, visit www.b2brevexec.com