Information is everything in sales. To get the best results when you reach out to customers, you need to know the latest techniques and best practices. So if you are trying to become a better sales professional, you should always be on the lookout for new ways to sell.
Of course, this is easier said than done. There is a lot of noise out there, requiring you to navigate self-proclaimed sales gurus and social postings of dubious value.
To help cut through all that, we have made a list of the sales influencers we find most valuable.
All of these people put out a steady stream of useful information which will help you improve your bottom line. Meet our top sales influencers.
Heather R . Morgan @HeatherReyhan
Heather is dedicated to one thing and one thing alone: writing cold emails that convert. If you have ever done outbound email prospecting, you will find some highly actionable tips on how to write your campaigns. You can also check out her gems of wisdom on her twitter feed:
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Her blog contains regular tips on perfecting cold emails. She also does regular breakdowns of bad cold emails and provides actionable suggestions for how they can be improved. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to get into or improve their cold email game. While this list is in no particular order, it’s no coincidence Heather is listed first in our list of sales influencers to follow.
Blog post to check out: Why Some of My Best Cold Emails Are Dead
Trish Bertuzzi @bridgegroupinc
Trish wrote the book on sales development. And I mean the actual book. Pretty much everybody in our office has read The Sales Development Playbook and it provides a clear explanation of how to do outbound sales development and manage your team. On top of that, our sales development team has been strongly influenced by what she wrote. If you are looking for something a bit more bite size, she provides regular pragmatic suggestions on her Twitter:
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As the president of the Bridge Group, she publishes a blog dedicated to keeping you updated with the current best practices of sales development. It provides an excellent companion to her published work and also features original research about the current state of the sales development industry.
Blog post to check out: The Five Whys of Sales Development
Max Altschuler @MaxAlts
The former head of business development at Udemy, Max Altschuler went on to start Sales hacker as a place where the greatest minds in sales could share their best practices. He also wrote Hacking Sales: The Playbook for Building a High-Velocity Sales Machine, a book which we have used to optimize our own outbound processes. His twitter feed mainly features content from the sales hacker blog and other interesting sales content from around the web.
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And speaking of his blog, Sales Hacker is an incredibly important space where there people making breakthroughs, from heads of sales to CEOs explain the new practices they have developed. It is a must read if you are a sales manager who wants to want to stay abreast of the best ways to improve your sales process or a sales rep who wants to boost your individual numbers
Blog post to check out: 6 Proven Tips For Getting Past The Gatekeeper
Steli Efti @Steli
Steli is the CEO of Elastic, which produces the CRM Close.io, and author of The Ultimate Startup Guide to Outbound Sales. You can probably guess why we like to follow him. His feed is chock full of great content relating to all aspects of sales with a particular emphasis on the value of persistence in closing a sale. Of particular interest to us is his content about cold email outreach.
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He goes into even more detail on the close.io blog. Of particular note is his explanation of an ideal sequence of cold emails. We show this to every new person to in the company and is well worth checking out.
Blog post to check out: The winning cold email follow-up game plan
Des Traynor @destraynor
Des Traynor is one of the co-founders of Intercom and a great resource on product. So what is he doing on a list of sales influencers? His thoughts on Twitter about the ways people have sold to him in cold emails are enough to make him an important influencer to follow. Which is why he has earned his spot on our breakdown of the best sales influencers to follow.
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That said, what you should really be reading are the ebooks he produces for Intercom. Specifically, his work on Jobs To Be Done. His explanation about how to see the value of your customers, competitors, and product lead us to reevaluate how we target our customers. It is a must read if you want to find new, efficient ways of defining and targeting customers to boost your sales efforts.
Ebook to check out: New book: Intercom on Jobs-to-be-Done
David Skok @BostonVC
David Skok is a VC at Matrix Partners and investor in Hubspot among other sales organizations. His particular interest is in customer acquisition and routinely shares content about improving your sales funnel.
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His blog For Entrepreneurs goes even further by providing regular insight on how to use sales and marketing effectively to gain more customers.
Blog post to check out: Reaching Your Highest Potential Customers – Outbound Prospecting
John Barrows @JohnMBarrows
John is the role model that all sales reps should have and one of the top sales influencers. He is a sales trainer who shares tons of content about how to be a better sales rep, whether you are a prospector or a closer. If you want to improve your practices, he is somebody you should be following.
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On his blog, he goes more in depth into how to perfect different aspects of sales, from dealing with budget objections to approaches to contacting your reps.
Blog post to check out: Finally! A Contact Strategy That I Appreciate
Lincoln Murphy @lincolnmurphy
Lincoln is all about getting the right customers and then keeping them. His Twitter is chock full of easy to digest advice about how to approach customers.
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If you want to go more in depth, his blog is one of the most actionable out there. He has a number of articles devoted to customer targeting, including one of the most comprehensive and innovative explanations of how to build an ideal customer profile out there. He is a must read for those of you who want to pinpoint exactly who they should be selling to.
Blog post to check out: Who’s your ideal customer?
Aaron Ross @motoceo
Aaron is the granddaddy of targeted outbound sales. Having come up with the concept in his seminal work Predictable Revenue, a must read for anyone who wants to do outbound sales, he has continued to develop his ideas and share information about how to build a predictable outbound pipeline. Really if it wasn’t for his ideas, Growbots might not exist.
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His blog is chock full which tips on how to do outbound sales better, whether you’re a sales manager or an SDR.
Blog post to check out: Your SDRs Are Real People…Let Them Prospect Like Real People
Jim Keenan @keenan
Also known as A Sales Guy, Jim is a sales trainer and author of Not Taught who regularly shares content that is both useful to sales reps and managers building a sales organization.
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His blog provides specific action items that you can immediately apply to improving your results along with anecdotes about sales leadership. Well worth a look.
Blog post to check out: 8 Key Elements to Killer Sales and Marketing Emails that Win
Colleen Francis @EngageColleen
Coleen is a sales strategist, consultant, and author of Non Stop Sales Boom. She regularly shares content covering all aspects of sales, with a particular emphasis on helping sales leaders.
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Her blog is dedicated to providing new ways of improving your sales process. It is a must read if you think there are inefficiencies in the way you sell that need to be ironed out.
Blog post to check out: With Due Respect to Alec Baldwin | Sales Tips
Jamie Shanks @jamietshanks
Jamie is a social selling guru and author of Social Selling Mastery. He regularly shares great insights into how you can use social information and engagement to close sales.
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He also regularly writes content that is essential for anyone engaging in social selling.
Blog post to check out: Winning Over The C-Suite With A 3-Front Sales Strategy
Lori Richardson @scoremoresales
Lori is a sales strategist who posts a ton of content about how to approach your next sale. Her twitter feed is a font of new ideas on how to sell to customers.
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Her blog is dedicated to general sales topics. She also puts a particular emphasis on supporting women in developing their sales careers and her content reflects that.
Blog post to check out: Losing Track of a Buyer Not Yet Ready to Buy
Jennifer Gluckow @JENinaNYminute
A sales trainer, Jennifer is all about attitude. Namely harnessing the attitude commonly found in New York to improve all parts of the sales process. She regularly shares content about aggressively targeting and improving each part of the sales process.
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Her blog posts build on her persona and go in depth about the attitude and psychology you need to approach different aspects of sales, to get better results.
Blog post to check out: Small Details – the BIG Key to Sales
Anthony Iannarino @iannarino
Anthony is a sales strategist, author of The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need, and all-round content ninja. Following him will give you access to a torrent of content about sales leadership that you’re sure to find useful.
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Not to be outdone, His blog provides a regular stream of insights for both sales reps and managers.
Blog post to check out: You Have to Pay for Your Competitive Advantage
Jeb Blount @SalesGravy
Founder of Sales Gravy and author of Fanatical Prospecting, if you aren’t following Jeff, you are probably completely new to sales. He regularly shares content that is both relevant to sales strategy and making you better as a sales rep.
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His blog dedicates itself to the psychology of selling. It is helpful for both the manager developing a sales strategy and coaching his team as it is for the rep who wants to improve her results by approaching their customers in the most effective way.
Blog post to check out: To Buy is Human – Approaching Buyers the Way They Buy
Nancy Nardin @sellingtools
Nancy is all about finding the best tools to help you sell. Her twitter combines information about how to select tools with general information about selling that everybody should see.
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Her blog gets even more into the weeds about how to optimize technology to get you the best results. This is a must read for anybody who wants the latest news and information about building a sales stack and picking the best tools to populate it.
Blog post to check out: What Cooking Thanksgiving Dinner Can Teach You About Building a Sales Stack
There is a ton of information out there that you can use to improve your sales numbers whether you are VP of sales or an SDR. The influencers can be immensely useful in getting the information you need to improve your sales numbers. We hope the information they provide helps you like it has helped us.
