/ Page 2 - Articles by Lauren Spiller
Lauren Spiller is a senior content writer at Capterra, covering sales and CRM with a focus on retail and customer experience. After receiving an MA in rhetoric and composition from Texas State University, Lauren has pursued a career that allows her to help others through writing.
Lauren previously taught college writing and served as writing center assistant director at Texas State University. She has presented at the European Writing Centers Association, Canadian Writing Centres Association, and the International Writing Centers Association conferences. She currently lives in Wimberley, Texas, with her husband and their three cat sons.
Sales Pipeline vs. Sales Funnel: Which Is Better for Your Team?
Published August 25, 2023
If you’re a new business owner trying to build a sales team, you must decide how you’ll track lead qualification and sales activity. Sales funnel and sales pipeline are two visualization tools that can help, but it can be tricky to figure out which one you should use.
How To Leverage Your CRM for Better Sales Pipeline Analysis
Published August 17, 2023
Sales professionals who use a customer relationship management (CRM) tool aren't always aware of the powerful analytics capabilities at their fingertips. What makes us say that? When we asked 84 sales and business development professionals for their CRM’s top benefits in our 2023 Business Structure Survey, only 8% selected access to detailed analytics.*
B2B Sales Pipeline Stages and Software Tools To Help Sales Teams Win More Clients
Published August 7, 2023
The sales pipeline is a useful visualization tool for tracking the progress of deals, but traditional models have two shortcomings: they’re linear and focused solely on what’s happening at the seller’s end. Meanwhile, business-to-business (B2B) buyers have their own set of tasks that they may start and return to later. In other words, their process is a little less predictable.
3 Beverage Industry Professionals Share Tips To Build a Brand Identity
Published July 6, 2023
Budweiser's Super Bowl XVII ad, "Six Degrees of Bud", begins with the question: "Who drinks Budweiser?" To answer, a six-pack is passed from a construction worker to three cooks in a food truck: "the people who grind." It makes its way through a group of friends playing basketball—"those who don’t back down"—and up a staircase to "the ones who don't quit," shown mid-track in a recording studio.
Jump-Start Your Social Selling Strategy With These 4 Tips
Published April 10, 2020; Modified June 27, 2023
Social selling is one of the top customer acquisition methods used today, with over 80% of sales professionals saying it's effective for their organization in a recent Capterra survey*. But the term is a misnomer: Social selling isn't about selling at all, nor is it meant to be a quick fix to boost revenue or promote your brand.
Is the BANT Framework Still Effective in Qualifying Leads?
Published June 6, 2023
The lead qualification framework BANT has helped sales teams more thoroughly evaluate prospects since it was created by IBM in the 1950s. That sort of staying power is unusual in today’s fast-paced market, but research suggests it’s time to move on to other frameworks. Gartner, for instance, says BANT is inadequate because it doesn’t recognize emerging demand signals.
Real-World Examples of Social Selling To Grow Your Business
Published June 2, 2023
If you’re a sales professional looking to diversify your acquisition channels, then you’ve likely considered adding social selling to your list of strategies. But unless you’re already social media savvy, the thought of building an online presence to convert followers into customers can be daunting.
Lead Qualification Checklist: 5 Steps To Get Higher-Quality Leads
Published May 31, 2023
If you’re a newer sales or marketing manager at a B2B business, you’ve likely thought about ways to improve your team’s lead qualification process. A checklist makes the most sense if you want reps to be consistent and thorough in their evaluation of leads. But the real struggle is creating a checklist that results in higher-quality sales leads and actually gets used by your reps.
4 Tips To Update Your Team’s BANT Sales Process
Published May 30, 2023
BANT is a popular lead qualification method that’s been around since the 1950s. But recent research suggests it’s no longer cutting it for modern B2B sales teams. Gartner, for example, says the BANT methodology is inadequate because it doesn’t recognize emerging demand signals and relegates the sales role to mere order fulfillment.
Maximize the Value of Your Customer Loyalty Program With These 3 Tips
Published April 10, 2023
If you’re in charge of marketing for a small business, you’re already aware of the value a customer loyalty program can provide. But let’s be honest—how bottom-line friendly are those discounts and free products? Is a subscription-based program really the best fit for your business goals? Are you sure you’re doing enough to promote your loyalty program?
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