The Sales Report, by Sales Homie

🎓 Stop Selling Features: How B2B Brands Win By Teaching

Sales Homie — Fri, 15 May 2026 05:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, May 15st, 2026

TGIF! Time for the Sales Report! Are you hitting ⚾️ your goals this month, or have they slipped through the cracks? 🪵 The good news!? You’ve got half the month to make the correction.

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) If Trust Is The Currency Of B2B, Marketers Need To Start Brokering It 💵

Buying decisions are stalling. Not because products are weaker or value propositions unclear, but because buying groups cannot agree. The B2B Institute found the 40% of deals fail to progress due to a lack of consensus. Economic pressure, geopolitical tension, and rapid technological change are making stakeholders more cautious and more divided. Businesses can generate demand, but converting it is becoming… Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

Everyone has been the new rep on the team before, right?

It’s those first-day-of-freshman-year-of-high-school vibes, where you don’t find yourself equal to those around you.

Well, guess what? You’re in sales. And the only thing that really matters in sales?

High activity.

It causes the sales slumps to disappear. It makes your closing percentage rise. It forces less overthinking on prospect engagement, and helps you get back to doing the fundamental parts of the job… which always leads to new opportunities.

Sure, respect those tenured reps around you. But don’t think you can’t join in their successes simply because you’re new.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase your business's revenue and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Founder & CEO

To do this, we focus on three areas :

Fractional Sales Leadership, placing a seasoned Sales Executive at any level (Manager, Director, Vice President, Chief Revenue Officer) into your department. For organizations seeking a consultant, Sales Homie offers Consulting Services tailored to meet your organization’s specific needs.

In need of targeted recruiting for your business development teams? Sales Homie Recruiting builds sales teams that drive results for their organizations. Our retained searches offer 180-day placement guarantees, detailed 30-, 60-, and 90-day onboarding plans, and additional benefits.

Coaching and Training programming includes membership in one of our Sales Squads, a sales peer group ecosystem, individual Sales and Business Owner Coaching, plus our quarterly sales education series, the Revenue Hangout.

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) Founders Under $5M Build With Conversations, Not Emails 🧱

Conversational outreach that works is specific, timely, and actually useful to the person receiving it. More messages (or emails) won’t help if they feel generic — and the more naturally it can happen in real life, the better... Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“Outside reps now spend almost half their time selling remotely, a massive shift from a decade ago, to meet demands for flexibility.” (Hubspot)

Do you see the opportunity here? Prospects want to meet in person less and less. When (not if) you can find ways to engage with your prospects in person, how much do you want to bet that your sales increase?!

🎙️ Sell Like A Homie - Podcast

Sales Homie will be launching our podcast series, “Sell Like A Homie,” in May! We’ll be digging into all things sales with different guests, bits, facts, and strategy sharing.

You can follow Sales Homie on YouTube to not miss an episode, or simply keep subscribing to The Sales Report to find clips and links to recent episodes.

3) Stop Selling Features: How B2B Brands Win By Teaching 🎓

Buyer behavior has changed fundamentally. 71% of decision-makers say thought leadership is more effective than traditional marketing or sales materials in persuading them. Yet most B2B marketing teams still default to more features, more demos, and more product-led content—approaches that often miss how decisions are actually made. More than 40% of B2B deals stall due to... Read more here. 👈🏼

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

Prices that consumers pay for a wide range of goods and services increased at a faster-than-expected pace in April, as another burst in energy prices raised further concerns about inflation’s impact on the U.S. economy.

The consumer price index rose at a seasonally adjusted 0.6% for the month, putting the one-year pace at 3.8%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. The monthly rate was as forecast, but the annual rate was 0.1 percentage point above the Dow Jones consensus.

Excluding food and energy, the core CPI increased 0.4% and 2.8%, respectively, keeping inflation well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal as the monthly rate was the highest since January 2025. Fed officials consider core a better indicator of longer-term inflation trends.

If you found this content relevant and helpful, please hit the subscribe button below to receive The Sales Report. You can also follow Sales Homie on LinkedIn and Twitter for more conversation and discovery!

✅Subscribe here, homie.

📉 The Sales Mistake Most Founders Don’t Realize They’re Making

Sales Homie — Fri, 01 May 2026 05:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, May 1st, 2026

Springtime! ☀️ And Friday! Welcome to May. We’ve reached the month of the year when most start to experience summertime weather. With the temperatures rising, is your pipeline rich and balanced to sustain the heat?

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) How To Survive In Business When Sales Drop And Costs Rise ☔️

Small business owners are navigating one of the most challenging economic environments in recent years. Confidence remains below historical averages, inflation continues to pressure margins, and many businesses are struggling to maintain consistent revenue. Knowing how to survive in business is of utmost importance… Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

Have you ever tried to adjust your quota or fiscal calendar to your advantage?

For those in long sales-cycle environments, there’s a strategy and tactic where rep teams adjust their own prospecting calendars to more effectively (and consistently) produce new revenues.

Just because your company operates on a January - December fiscal, doesn’t mean you need to sell off of it.

Working to get prospects engaged in Q3 and Q4 to set up a strong Q1 (and ultimately Q2), the following fiscal year allows for high revenues at the beginning of important budget zones for the company. For the rep, this puts you in a place to achieve 60-70% of your annual goal before July. Most businesses rely on new revenue, and when it doesn’t hit in Q1 and Q2, achieving goals in Q3 and Q4 becomes much harder.

So, this practice can be a win-win.

The rep approaches Q3 and Q4 as time to build for the next fiscal, while selling non-pressured opportunities throughout the balance of the year to meet an annual goal as they ramp up to heavy output in the new year.

But strategically, you’re focused on selling June - July.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase your business's revenue and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Founder & CEO

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) The Amazon Effect: How B2C Expectations Are Rewiring B2B Sales 🚛

Recently, the concept of the “Amazon effect” emerged, referring to how Amazon’s business model, supply chain, and shipping capabilities have revolutionized retail shopping in both online and offline stores. This effect is not just how consumers buy. According to the latest McKinsey research, 75% of B2B buyers prefer digital services and remote human engagement over a face-to-face buying experience... Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“Only 30% of companies have a sales referral program in place.” (Hubspot)

The number one rule in new revenue: Current customer wallet share growth and expansion is easier (and less expensive) than acquiring new logos. Yet, 70% of companies are ignoring opportunities to engage that same customer base to “close” a new prospect via referral.

🎙️ Sell Like A Homie - Podcast

3) The Sales Mistake Most Founders Don’t Realize They’re Making 📉

Most founders think about sales in terms of downstream tactics. How do we handle objections? In what ways can we create urgency? How do we get them to say yes? By the time you’re handling objections, something upstream has already failed. The prospect is unclear, uncertain, or unconvinced. Now the burden shifts to your salesperson to “close the gap” with some combination of persuasion, pressure, and hope... Read more here. 👈🏼

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

Consumers faced escalating prices in March as the Iran war sent oil soaring and created new challenges for the Federal Reserve, according to a batch of reports released Thursday that showed slower-than-expected economic growth and a generational low in layoffs.

The core personal consumption expenditures price index, which excludes food and energy, accelerated a seasonally adjusted 0.3% for the month, pushing the 12-month inflation rate to 3.2%, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. The readings matched the Dow Jones consensus estimates. Core inflation hit its highest level since November 2023.

✅Subscribe here, homie.

⛔️ Your Growth Strategy Isn’t Broken - It’s Avoiding Decisions

Sales Homie — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 05:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, April 24, 2026

TGIF; Welcome back to Friday! Did you know that 30% of 2026 has officially passed? 📆 Or the better question: Has your organization achieved at least 30% of its revenue goals for the year? 📈

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) B2B Marketers Are Drowning In Data But Starving For Insight 🤿

Measuring B2B campaigns is hard. Sales cycles are long, buying committees are large, and it can be challenging to work out the likely value of the project that will result from a download of a data sheet, or even if it’s just a competitor keeping tabs on you… Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

Another day, another dollar?

Not so fast.

Gigantic topline revenue doesn’t always equal success. And endless numbers of customers are not the secret to business growth.

As your business grows and scales, there are pivot-point opportunities to leverage how your culture has evolved, how you support (and partner) with customers, and almost as importantly, how your customers partner back with you, their vendor.

Not all revenue is good revenue, especially when the customer who generates it abuses your resources, lacks professionalism, neglects communication, or spreads false narratives.

When you’re looking to move beyond growth ceiling challenges that don’t involve topline or margin-based revenue, look at the partnership with your customers as an easy answer.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase your business's revenue and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Founder & CEO

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) Maximizing Revenue Potential Through Smarter Lead Evaluation Strategies 🤓

Scalable growth depends on treating marketing as a measurable system. That system includes matching leads with strong sales talent, eliminating arbitrary budgets, and investing more in high-performing channels. This shift moves companies from reactive spending to structured, compounding growth... Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“35-50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first, emphasizing the critical role of speed in the sales process.” (Hubspot)

If you were watching the NFL Draft last night, football teams and organizations value speed in most positions on the field. No different than in business! Coaching your reps and development professionals - or - implementing an AI-based solution to correspond with new inbound leads as quickly as possible, is paramount to capturing revenue over your competitors simply because your organization and teams value effective and efficient follow-up.

🎙️ Sell Like A Homie - Podcast

3) Your Growth Strategy Isn’t Broken - It’s Avoiding Decisions ⛔️

Growth strategies don’t usually fail because they’re wrong. They fail because leaders never make or finish the decisions that strategy demands. Instead of choosing how the company wants to grow (anchored in explicit customer and segment choices), where to place real bets, and what to stop doing, teams default to alignment theater. Everyone agrees. Nothing changes. Execution quietly absorbs the cost... Read more here. 👈🏼

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

Outgoing Dow CEO Jim Fitterling said clearing the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz could take far longer than investors expect.

“Some scenario planning that we did said that even if the straits were to reopen today, just to clear the logistics logjam… is going to take 275 days, maybe more now,” he told Jim Cramer on CNBC’s “Mad Money” on Thursday.

The Strait of Hormuz effectively shut down in early March at the onset of the Iran war, triggering a major bottleneck in global energy and petrochemical flows. Fitterling said the path back to normal will be slow and operationally complex.

✅Subscribe here, homie.

🍯 Why Most B2B Salespeople Are Sitting on a Goldmine and Don’t Even Know It

Sales Homie — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 05:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, April 17, 2026

Another Friday (yay), and another Sales Report (double-yay)! How did your sales week materialize? One of our Service-based customers was verbally awarded a $290k contract… 💪🏼 after a meeting in which they presented on a $500k contract; Taking swings! ⚾️ And 17 days into Q2, a Manufacturing-based customer has already generated a ton of new revenue. $6.2M on a goal of $8.8M for the Quarter! 💥 It’s been a really solid first few weeks of April.

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) “Buyability” Isn’t Really New, But it is Really Important 🤑

A survey of 750 B2B buyers conducted by the initiative’s researchers identified five main factors that business buyers need to feel confident about. When the researchers analyzed the survey results, they found that the most important factor buyers identified is to feel confident they can defend their decision if the purchase goes wrong. This was slightly more important to buyers than feeling confident the product or service they recommended could do the job… Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

Any sales rep can ‘tell you’ about their product or services, but the best ones? They find ways to show a prospect how their product or service truly impacts them, makes a difference, solves a problem, and the like.

Said another way, how you engage with a prospect can be seen as a “show me” demonstration: providing stories of success with other customers or providing validated industry guidance or assistance.

If you’re a lazy sales professional, you email a cut sheet and hope your prospect asks questions.

If you’re a motivated sales professional, you become a storyteller that plays chess with your prospects, always thinking 2-3 moves ahead on how you can further engage, who else you can introduce into the conversation, and how you can potentially solve challenges and problems.

Show me, don’t tell me.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase your business's revenue and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Chief Sales Homie

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) Flat Revenue is Trying to Tell You Something - Are You Listening? 🙉

Two years of flat revenue doesn't happen to you. It happens because of something. That's a hard sentence to sit with, especially when you've been working just as hard as you always have, showing up every day, pushing every lever you know how to push. But effort isn't the issue. The issue is what's underneath the numbers. Flat revenue is data. Most founders treat it like the weather... Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“80% of sales require 5+ follow-ups, but 92% of reps quit after just 4 attempts.” (Hubspot)

Sure, there are industries where a one-call close can be more common, but for the majority of B2B service and product offerings, it takes multiple engagements and follow-ups to ultimately win new business.

The secret sauce? Although it might take 5+ actual follow-ups with a prospect, how many in-person engagements does it take to build trust with a prospect? The answer is almost always more than 5. And rock-solid trust can reduce the number of follow-ups needed to close a sale.

🎙️ Sell Like A Homie - Podcast

Sales Homie will be launching our podcast series, “Sell Like A Homie,” in April! We’ll be digging into all things sales with different guests, bits, facts, and strategy sharing.

You can follow Sales Homie on YouTube to not miss an episode, or simply keep subscribing to The Sales Report to find clips and links to recent episodes.

3) Why Most B2B Salespeople Are Sitting on a Goldmine and Don’t Even Know It 🍯

There is a peculiar irony at the heart of modern B2B sales. Companies spend tens of thousands of dollars on CRM platforms, email automation tools, and paid advertising - and yet one of the most powerful prospecting resources in existence often sits underused, misunderstood, or completely ignored... Read more here. 👈🏼

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

The Iran war is starting to show up in the U.S. economy in ways both obvious and less so, with soaring energy costs leading the impact and potential hits on broader growth simmering beneath the surface.

Though recession fears have grown since the fighting began more than six weeks ago, most economists think the war will have only modest effects on gross domestic product — maybe shaving off a few tenths of a percentage point overall.

But there’s an important caveat, mainly around duration: Should the current ceasefire hold, inflationary impacts will wear off. If fighting resumes, however, the future becomes much murkier, threatening the fragile growth the economy has seen over the past two quarters.

✅Subscribe here, homie.

🤖 How AI is Transforming B2B Sales Without Replacing Human Sellers

Sales Homie — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 05:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, April 10, 2026

Welcome back to Friday! Sales Homie closed out Q1 of 2026 with solid results from all of our clients. 💪🏼 Manufacturing (X3), Services (X2), and a few other smaller firms all met or exceeded their quarterly goals. How did your team(s) do? What was your biggest challenge in not meeting the goal? What was the biggest reason why you met your goal(s)? 🤔

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) 7 B2B Acceleration Strategies for Commerce Teams 🏎️

In B2B sales, closing deals quickly is increasingly essential, as businesses navigate uncertain markets and changing buyer preferences.

Dan Saavedra, founder of MergeYourData, analyzed deal cycles among clients with average deals ranging from $10,000 to $40,000. His findings show that deals closed in less than a week won 29% of the time, while those that took more than 60 days closed at just 4%. The best success comes from deals closed in eight to 14 days, which achieve a 61% win rate… Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

This is both a life lesson and a Sales lesson. You need to make mistakes to grow as a person and as a professional.

The best place to find yourself in an early career role is either with a manager or an organization that VALUES learning. With learning comes failure and retrials. The beautiful thing about working in sales is that most days are different and offer a fresh start from the day before. What you did yesterday (and maybe didn’t work) can be tweaked and shifted the next day for a potentially better outcome.

The higher up an organization you go, the shorter the leash is for making mistakes, which makes it critical to flex the learning muscle in the early years of your career.

Ever wonder why some people frown upon switching industries or employment focuses later in life?

You guessed it. Not as much room (in terms of time) to make mistakes … and learn. Doesn’t mean it can’t be done, but the odds are literally stacked against you.

And when you find yourself in a leadership role or in a position of influence over others, make sure you promote failure. You’ll never win every deal. And when you lose 60-70% of the time, you have ample time for learning and evaluation.

But only if you, as the boss, support it.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase your business's revenue and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Chief Sales Homie

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) 6 Winning Cold Call Scripts That Actually Book Meetings 🥇

Every B2B sales rep knows the pressure - you've got a quota to hit, a pipeline to build, and prospects who'd rather ghost you than give you 30 seconds. While your competitors fumble through generic scripts that get shut down faster than a pop-up ad, you need an approach that actually works. The difference between top performers and everyone else? They've mastered the art of the cold call with scripts that spark curiosity, handle objections like a pro, and turn skeptical strangers into booked meetings... Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“42% of salespeople rank prospecting as the hardest part of their job, ahead of closing (36%) and qualifying leads (22%).” (Hubspot)

This isn’t surprising, but if you’re a sales professional in a competitive industry, know that your dinner is won by outprospecting your competition. Not closing more deals or working opportunities through your sales process more quickly. It’s literally about having plenty of at-bats, enough opportunities to take a swing at… or better known as, prospecting.

🎙️ Sell Like A Homie - Podcast

3) How AI is Transforming B2B Sales Without Replacing Human Sellers 🤖

Society is currently experiencing a paradox in B2B sales. Everywhere you look — LinkedIn feeds, webinars, and industry panels — AI is touted as a tool that could replace entire teams. Yet sales leaders are still facing burnout, confusion, and minimal measurable impact from these new technologies.

The reality? AI will transform sales, but not by eliminating human salespeople. Instead, it’s elevating the profession but only for leaders and teams willing to fundamentally rethink what “selling” means... Read more here. 👈🏼

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

The U.S. labor market bounced back in March, with job creation much stronger than expected, though the broader picture of a slow-growth labor market held intact.

Nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 178,000 during the month, a reversal from the 133,000 decline in February and better than the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 59,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. February’s number was revised down by 41,000, while January was revised up by 34,000 to 160,000, putting the three-month average around 68,000.

The unemployment rate edged lower to 4.3%, though that was largely from a sharp reduction in the labor force.

✅Subscribe here, homie.

🔌 Sluggish Q1? Here Are 3 Ways To Supercharge Sales

Sales Homie — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 05:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, April 3, 2026

First Friday of Q2; has your owner, boss, or manager already asked you about your pipeline for the next month or quarter? 😤 The sales engine never stops, so make sure you’re doing what you can to forecast and produce consistent outputs. 💥

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) The Secrets to Handling Rapid Revenue Growth 🤫

Organizations with exploding revenue growth have what many might see as a “champagne problem,” as Holly Grey, CFO of penetration testing company Horizon3.ai, described it. Anyone popping a bottle of bubbly—which is under tremendous pressure, mind you—is aware of what can happen if they botch it. CFOs whose companies are experiencing hyper growth must balance that growth with the appropriate organizational support… Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

Being in sales and having discipline don’t always mix.

The most successful teams and organizations find ways to make any processes, actions, or tasks (aka metrics) repeatable. What you end up doing is finding ways to build healthy habits for your team members, who ultimately create discipline in their outputs.

But the largest competitors for any rep, in any industry, at any stage of their selling careers are always … themselves.

Are you “feeling it” today, or not? Want to make a run to the store while you’re out in the field at 3 p.m. instead of doing a couple of more calls? Will you get the proposal completed now instead of doing it tomorrow?

There’s room for flexibility in any sales role; that’s what’s great about the profession. But keeping the discipline to take action on the tasks that will ultimately bring you sales success?

That’s your biggest competitor.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase your business's revenue and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Founder & CEO

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) Your Sales Hire Didn’t Fail - Your System Did 🎓

Most founders blame the rep when a sales hire doesn't work out. The real problem is almost always what they were hired for. Here's what to fix before you hire again... Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“Referred customers generate 16% more in profits compared to non-referred ones.” (Hubspot)

Warm introductions, referrals, and introductions to trusted “advisors” all add up to greater profits. You typically aren’t competing for business when you generate business from a referral. It’s not given to you, but as the old saying goes, it’s “tee’d up” for a higher-percentage chance at a close. The referred company sees you as the solution, rather than starting a vendor evaluation and grouping everyone together, not knowing the differentiators.

🎙️ Sell Like A Homie - Podcast

3) Sluggish Q1? Here Are 3 Ways To Supercharge Sales 🔌

When markets are uncertain and growth is under pressure, executives often push the sales organization to do more, believing that if sales activity metrics rise, results will follow. In the current environment, that pressure is greater. Growth is harder to generate, costs remain elevated, and performance expectations remain demanding. Yet leaders are still being asked to deliver strong results without much help from the market... Read more here. 👈🏼

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

Gasoline prices over $4 a gallon, part of an ongoing supply shock in the energy markets, might seem like a cue for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to head off inflation. At least for now, that looks like a bad bet.

Investors instead expect the central bank to hold benchmark rates steady, or even pivot back toward cuts later in the year as policymakers weigh the risk that higher energy prices will slow growth more than they fuel lasting inflation.

In market-moving remarks Monday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell signaled that raising rates now could be the wrong medicine for an economy already facing a softening labor backdrop and elevated recession concerns on Wall Street.

✅Subscribe here, homie.

🕵🏼‍♀️ B2B Companies Adopt Multiple AI Sales Agents

Sales Homie — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 05:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, March 27, 2026

You’ve made it to the end of Q1, and it’s Friday! Raise your hand if you hit your Q1 goal 🙋🏼‍♂️ or are on pace to meet your annual goals after the first three months! 💥

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) Are LinkedIn Ads Worth It for B2B Manufacturers? 🗞️

LinkedIn advertising enables manufacturers to target decision-makers based on job title, industry, company size, and seniority. This level of precision allows manufacturers to reach operations managers, procurement leaders, and engineers directly. This is significant as these audiences are often difficult to access through other channels… Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

Sales is not about positioning a product or service. From the beginning, it’s about creating trust in the window of relationship that you’re given.

What does that mean?

If you’re selling in an industry that ‘allows’ multiple cold calls, engagements, or meetings with prospects, you’re automatically gifted the opportunity to build trust (which brings you closer to selling your actual product/service). The reps that can balance relationship building are the ones that ultimately close at 30% or higher.

If you’re selling in an industry where prospects expect to see you once or twice, you’ve got it much harder! You have to be able to find relatability that much quicker, at the same time, finding ways to sell solutions (not features).

Focusing on the relationship… even if you’re an inside Account Manager, will ultimately bring you closer to closing at a higher percentage, and ultimately winning more than you lose.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase your business's revenue and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Chief Sales Homie

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) You’re the Reason Your Business Won’t Grow Past This Point 👀

If you’re still the primary salesperson in your own company, your business has a ceiling - and it’s you. Here’s what it takes for founders to finally get out of the sales seat.... Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“Emails with personalized subject lines are 50% more likely to be opened.” (Hubspot)

Not breaking news, but don’t be spammy with your email subject lines. Make sure they are targeted and unique to your recipient.

🎙️ Sell Like A Homie - Podcast

3) B2B Companies Adopt Multiple AI Sales Agents 🕵🏼‍♀️

If you’re building in B2B, build for a world where companies run multiple agents simultaneously, where the headcount budget is your TAM, and where being the best at one specific thing matters more than being the platform for everything... Read more here. 👈🏼

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

The U.S. budget deficit surpassed $1 trillion for the fiscal year through February but was sharply lower than the same period a year earlier, Treasury Department data showed Wednesday.

Outlays exceeded receipts by $308 billion in February, roughly in line with the deficit recorded in the same month a year ago. For the fiscal year to date, the deficit totaled $1.004 trillion, about 12% lower than the comparable period in 2025, as government revenues rose faster than spending.

✅Subscribe here, homie.

🥶 How To Turn Cold Emails into Sales in 2026

Sales Homie — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 05:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, March 20, 2026

March Madness has arrived! 🏀 And it’s Friday! Double-whammy enjoyment for some. 😎 Do you have your prospecting and closing plan in place to maximize the last full week of Q1 ahead?

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) 10 Best AI Tools for B2B Sales Prospecting in 2026 🛠️

B2B sales prospecting has undergone a structural shift. Static lead lists, generic cold emails, and volume-based outreach no longer produce predictable results. Buying committees are larger, buyers self-educate long before engaging sales, and technical stakeholders increasingly influence purchase decisions. At the same time, sales teams are overwhelmed with operational work, leaving less time for meaningful conversations… Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

What a time to be alive!

How many Gen X or Millennials remember the painful task in our early career years of having someone volunteer to take notes for various meetings?

“Maybe if I look busy and don’t look at my boss, he won’t ask me to take notes…”

No longer!

- - -

I was speaking with a group this week about important AI tools to use in sales, to ensure they’re taking advantage of a new skill set (utilizing AI) to benefit their daily job of prospecting and generating new revenue. The first on the list? An AI notetaker.

When it’s so critically important to build quick relationships with buyers in a world that is ever-busy and noisy, the last thing anyone should be doing is NOT using an AI notetaker. Focus on listening and being present, with eye contact, rather than jotting down the perfect note summary from your meeting.

And if you choose the right notetaker, the summary (of your meeting notes) can be spelled out utilizing different lenses, such as framed as sales follow-ups, making your ‘next steps’ thoughts a whole lot easier.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase your business's revenue and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Founder & CEO

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) 3 Questions Leaders Can Ask to Identify Solutions for Growth Problems 👨🏻‍🏫

Growth is a tricky thing. You hear it discussed ad nauseam in corporate boardrooms, sales meetings, and marketing team huddles. While growth goals are constantly on your staff's minds, that doesn’t mean everyone knows how to turn concepts into favorable outcomes.... Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“Nurtured leads move through the sales cycle 25% faster than non-nurtured leads.” (Hubspot)

It’s amazing how quickly business can seemingly close simply because you’ve taken time to educate, consult, develop, expose, and map out engagement types with prospects! If you don’t have a marketing engine behind you (or your business), nurturing can still happen as effectively, individually, by you acting as a sales consultant.

🎙️ Sell Like A Homie - Podcast

3) How To Turn Cold Emails into Sales in 2026 🥶

Cold emails are easier to send than ever, but many teams still struggle to turn them into real B2B sales conversations. Even with better data, automation tools, and AI-powered personalization, I still hear the same question: Why does our cold outreach generate activity but not a pipeline? In my experience, the issue is not volume, timing, or tooling. It is intent. Most cold emails are written to sell... Read more here. 👈🏼

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

Prices consumers pay for a broad range of goods and services rose in line with expectations for February, offering a final look at inflation pressures before an oil shock tied to the Iran war rattled the outlook.

The consumer price index increased a seasonally adjusted 0.3% for the month, putting the 12-month inflation rate at 2.4%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Wednesday. Both numbers matched the Dow Jones consensus forecast.

Stripping out volatile food and energy prices, the core CPI posted a 0.2% monthly reading and a 2.5% annual rate, in line with forecasts of 0.2% and 2.5%, respectively.

✅Subscribe here, homie.

🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏽‍♂️ Survey Finds 67% of B2B Buyers Prefer a Rep-Free Experience

Sales Homie — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 05:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, March 13, 2026

TGIF! It’s Friday, friends. And (gasp! 😲) it’s almost the end of Q1. How have your Q1 revenue-generating efforts gone thus far? 👍🏼 / 👎🏼 If they haven’t gone as well as you’d hoped, what are you doing about it?

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) Why Executive LinkedIn Posts are the Most Valuable Signals in B2B Sales 💰

When a VP of Sales shares a post about scaling their team's outbound process, they're telling you what's on their desk right now. When a CFO comments on an article about cost reduction strategies, they're revealing a priority you couldn't have guessed from their job title alone. Most B2B teams track job changes, funding rounds, and hiring patterns. These are useful signals, but they're also obvious ones… Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

The 80/20 rule works in so many mysterious ways, doesn’t it?

Truth is, it works for discovery-type meetings and calls, too.

There is a time when you, as the sales professional, can own the spotlight and hog the mic, but that time doesn’t happen until you're presenting a proposal or your solution(s).

The rest of the time? Your prospect and/or customer should be owning much of the ‘talk time,’ as they say.

Why?

How will you ever know what challenges your prospects are having if you’re not listening and asking questions? How will you ever be able to drill down into a challenge topic and find the real root cause if you’re taking the mic to offer solutions?

Much like managing your sales process (and moving the opportunity through your different sales stages like a Quarterback), the discovery time with your prospects and/or customers is the most vital part of your role as a sales professional.

And when you let them talk and own the mic, you take yourself out of being seen as a ‘sales rep.’ Don’t sell, just listen. And position solutions later as a trusted advisor.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase your business's revenue and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Founder & CEO

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) The Sales Leadership Gap That Quietly Limits Revenue Growth 🤫

In the early stages of a company, sales are usually simple. A founder identifies a problem, develops a solution, and begins selling it. Early customers buy because they believe in the founder, the mission, or the value proposition being presented. At this stage, founder-led B2B sales can be incredibly effective. But eventually something changes... Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“Only 2% of sales are made on the first contact, while 80% require 5-12 follow-ups and multiple engagements.” (Hubspot)

The infamous ‘one call close’ certainly looms in some industries, but for the majority, the money is made by the reps (and companies) who understand an engagement-based follow-up campaign.

🎙️ Sell Like A Homie - Podcast

3) Survey Finds 67% of B2B Buyers Prefer a Rep-Free Experience 🙋🏻‍♀️🙋🏽‍♂️

Buyers want to engage on their own terms, as 67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience, according to a Gartner, Inc. survey. A survey of 646 B2B buyers conducted from August through September 2025 found the shift is already underway, with 45% reporting they used AI during a recent purchase. Buyer journeys are becoming more self-directed and digitally mediated... Read more here. 👈🏼

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

The U.S. budget deficit surpassed $1 trillion for the fiscal year through February but was sharply lower than the same period a year earlier, Treasury Department data showed Wednesday.

For the fiscal year to date, the deficit totaled $1.004 trillion, about 12% lower than the comparable period in 2025, as government revenues rose faster than spending.

Helping narrow the gap was a sharp increase in tariff collections. Customs duties totaled $151 billion through the first five months of the fiscal year, up about $113 billion, or 294%, from a year earlier.

✅Subscribe here, homie.

🔮 Predictive Selling is the New Prospecting

Sales Homie — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 06:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, February 20, 2025

Welcome back to Friday, the 8th Friday of 2026! Most parts of the country have started to see hints of spring. 💐 But here in Minnesota? We went backwards over the last 36-48 hours, where parts of northern Minnesota received up to 34” of new snow! ☃️ The Twin Cities had anywhere from 2-5”, just enough to make things white again. Good thing we have our businesses to keep us busy! 🤪

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) How To Use CRM Data To Target The Right B2B Audiences 🎯

Unlike broad-appeal ecommerce or B2C brands, B2B companies usually have much smaller groups in their ideal customer profile (ICP), and there’s a corporate layer that masks end buyers and buying committees. Because of that, B2B marketers are often surprised by the methods available to put big-screen narratives in front of the people who need to know about their product or service… Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

In most sales processes, what matters most is that your deal or opportunity moves forward. It might be slow, or the cycles might be long. You, as a sales rep, have an opportunity each and every day to influence your prospects and nudge them towards the finish line (or, at a minimum, a decision on your product/service).

How?

Value-driven engagements.

Providing follow-ups that add value to your prospects is the main driver of moving a prospect along in your sales process. Not only are you guiding opportunities, but you’re also building deeper or broader trust and demonstrating consultative tendencies that set you apart from other competitor sales reps.

Perfection doesn’t exist in the depths of a sales cycle. What matters most is progression.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase your business's revenue and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Chief Sales Homie

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) The Economy isn’t Killing Your Business - Your Lack of Leadership Strategy Is 🚦

In the United States alone, 94% of companies never break the $1 million revenue barrier because they lack the systems to scale their leadership and their sales. If you feel overwhelmed, buried in tasks, and stagnant despite working harder, you aren’t facing a “bad market,” you are facing an execution problem... Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“72% of buyers are more likely to engage with a sales rep who provides personalized content tailored to their specific needs.” (Hubspot)

This is another way of saying ‘value-driven engagements.’ Provide what’s valuable to your prospects and customers and watch the door you’re trying to enter get wider and wider.

📽️ LinkedIn Live! Sales Homie Office Hours

Sales Homie recently launched our monthly “Office Hours, Live!” series coming up on March 5th, which will take place live on LinkedIn! Log on to the workshop to address any sales challenges that you’re having, or simply log on to hear others’ challenges.

✅ Free to attend; Too valuable to miss.

3) Predictive Selling is the New Prospecting 🔮

Traditional methods of demand generation rely on lagging analytics, such as pageviews, conversions, and form fills. You are tracking engagement after prospects land, analyzing interest after it has peaked. By this time, buyers have already formed opinions and shortlisted alternatives.

Waiting for form fills and account engagements means joining the conversations late. The cost? Longer sales cycles, lost early mindshare, and competitive positioning where you are being compared rather than consulted... Read more here. 👈🏼

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

The U.S. trade deficit swelled in December, closing out a year in which the imbalance was essentially unchanged despite efforts by the Trump administration to close the wide gap.

Closing out a tumultuous year in the global marketplace, the goods and services shortfall in December totaled $70.3 billion, the Commerce Department reported Thursday. That marked an increase of $17.3 billion from November and was well above the Dow Jones consensus estimate of $55.5 billion.

Subscribe here, homie.

☎️ 86% of Buyers Decide Before First Contact

Sales Homie — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 06:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, February 13, 2025

Happy Friday the 13th! We’re back with another Sales Report. Don’t let the spooky day 👻 slant your growth efforts the wrong way. If you missed January’s numbers, what are you doing to recapture momentum before the quarter's end?

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) How CRM Is Being Redesigned From The Ground Up In 2026 🪏

In 2026, the industry is reaching a tipping point. We are seeing CRM evolve from a static, often siloed database into a system of action. Autonomous CRM can deliver natural, conversational self-service experiences via voice and chat while leveraging agentic workflows to automatically fulfill customer requests, even when humans still need to perform some backend tasks… Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

Have you ever had a customer who ‘just wasn’t worth’ the revenue? Of course you have.

As you mature as a sales professional, or your business matures past the “all revenue is good revenue” stage, it’s important to consider how your customers align with your core values, or at the simplest form, if they're a good partner.

Don’t wreck your organization’s culture simply to increase revenue. Adding the right pieces at the right times, or subtracting the bad eggs, perhaps the least profitable customers, ultimately will help scale your organization.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase your business's revenue and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Chief Sales Homie

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) How AI Search Summaries Are Redefining B2B Demand Generation 🕵🏽‍♂️

The impact of Generative AI on information discovery and B2B GTM strategies is substantial. AI search summaries are redefining discoverability in B2B marketing, enabling buyers to access condensed insights and key information on potential solutions without diving into long-form content such as blogs, case studies, e-books, and white papers... Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“75% of European and 74% of North American teams say remote meetings work just as well as in-person for keeping customers happy.” (Hubspot)

Caveat: This practice should be used only to maintain a meeting cadence or schedule, not relied upon as the sole engagement method. For organizations with an in-person engagement schedule, retention rates can hover above 95%.

🚨Sales Squad Kick-Off Event: Did You Miss It?

✅ Did you know that only 60% of sales reps actually hit their quotas? - Hubspot

✅ Did you know that for every $1 invested in sales training, it returned $29 in incremental revenues? - Forbes

Sales Homie recently launched the Sales Squad community, a monthly peer group for 10-12 sales pros focused on skill-building, networking, goal accountability, and mentorship. We will be holding our next meeting on Wednesday, February 18th, from 1-4 p.m. in Edina, Minnesota. If you’re interested in learning more or attending, please check out our website.

3) 86% of Buyers Decide Before First Contact ☎️

In the corridors of enterprise sales organizations, a quiet crisis is unfolding. The vast majority of B2B buying decisions are effectively made before a vendor’s sales representative ever gets the chance to deliver a pitch. According to research highlighted by MarTech.org, a staggering 86% of buyers have already pre-selected their vendor on Day 1 of the formal buying process... Read more here. 👈🏼

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

Job growth was stronger than expected at the start of 2026, providing some relief to concerns about the state of the U.S. labor market.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 130,000 for January, above the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 55,000, according to seasonally adjusted figures the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Wednesday. The total was also an improvement over December, which saw a gain of 48,000 after a slight downward revision.

✅ Subscribe here, homie.

♟️ Local Prospecting: The B2B Strategy Everyone’s Overlooking

Sales Homie — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, January 30, 2025

TGIF! Did you blink? 👀 Next week is February, already. We’re approaching mid-Q1. Are your Sales Plans complete? Are your budgets finalized? What’s the best thing you can do each week to guarantee a successful growth year? Achieve your weekly scorecard metrics! 🔥 Growth happens in months, not days.

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) U.S. B2B Sales Top $15T; Ecommerce Redefines How Companies Buy 🧩

U.S. manufacturing and wholesale distribution sales reached $15.12T in 2025, but the most consequential change in the B2B market is not how much companies are buying. It’s how they are buying… Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

A little bit of a personal spin as we gauge new year’s aspirations and goals!

2025 is the last year that I’ll ever work for a corporation, not my own. 2026 is the first year of the rest of my professional career, where I’ll answer only to customers, and not a boss.

I’ve spent close to 25 years working in various corporate sales settings. Some organizations, managers, and mentors have been fantastic! Others leave room for both minor and major improvements!

As I move away from an Enterprise Sales and Executive role and fully embrace Sales Homie, the organization I’ve built to help businesses of all sizes solve their sales and revenue challenges, the above list means a little extra to me in 2026. I’ve moved away from unnecessary stresses and toxic bosses. Scarcity doesn’t exist, only opportunity. Fear? Limiting beliefs? Those are removed by stepping into the batter’s box and taking swings. Because sales is a numbers game. And when you align the right resources and effort, batting at a Hall of Fame average should be no different than your closing percentage.

Thanks for following along on my journey. We’re just getting started. 💪🏼

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase your business's revenue and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Chief Sales Homie

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) How To Unhide Your Face From Your Brand 🙈

In today’s marketplaces, founders are becoming the brand. Not because everyone suddenly wants to be a content creator, but because trust has shifted. Audiences, customers, and even the media no longer want polished logos or faceless messaging. They want context and perspective. They want to understand who they’re buying from and why they should believe them... Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“80% of sales require 5+ follow-ups, but 92% of reps quit after just 4 attempts.” (Hubspot)

The cold and dark truth to success in sales isn’t flashy presentations or catchy emails. The winners understand the importance of long-term engagement, while the losers are always chasing something quick and easy.

⏩ ForwardSelling

Have you navigated to ForwardSelling, Sales Homie’s digital asset brand’s website? If not, you can find it here.

ForwardSelling provides ‘Sales Tools to Power Your Business Development,’ including Sales Homie’s digital sales prospecting tools, strategic sales forecasting and process documents, and marketing-related publications, which are available for download.

3) Local Prospecting: The B2B Strategy Everyone’s Overlooking ♟️

The traditional B2B prospecting playbook is broken. Sales teams spend countless hours chasing LinkedIn leads, attending networking events, and buying overpriced contract lists, only to discover that their ideal customers are hiding in plain sight, right in their local market... Read more here. 👈🏼

SPONSOR AD

Deliver a Better Buying Experience with Digital Sales Rooms. Learn more here. 👈🏼

📅 Upcoming Events

Join us on February 26th from 2-4 p.m. in Edina, Minnesota, for “The AI Ready Business in 2026,” looking at how operational and sales/revenue functions can be enhanced and simplified by incorporating specific AI prompts and workflows. The event is free to attend, but limited to the first 50 respondents.

The AI Ready Business in 2026

AI is rewriting how SMBs sell, operate, and compete. The pace will only accelerate in 2026. Make sure your business is ready!

www.eventbrite.com/e/1977544719490

🚨 Sales Squad Kick-Off Event: Did You Miss It?

✅ Did you know that only 60% of sales reps actually hit their quotas? - Hubspot

✅ Did you know that for every $1 invested in sales training, it returned $29 in incremental revenues? - Forbes

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

The White House will meet with executives from the banking and cryptocurrency industries to discuss a path forward for landmark crypto legislation that has stalled amid a clash between the two powerful sectors, said three industry sources.

The summit hosted by the White House’s crypto council will include executives from several trade groups and focus on how to treat interest and other rewards crypto firms can pay on customer holdings of dollar-pegged tokens known as stablecoins.

✅ Subscribe here, homie.

⏰ By 2030, The B2B Rep Will Be Gone. Here’s What Replaces Them

Sales Homie — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, January 23, 2025

It’s here! What everyone has been waiting for… the coldest days of the year. 🥶 The frigid temperatures outside shouldn’t affect your pipelines; they should be firing up and gaining heat as we speed towards the end of the first month of 2026! Are you putting the early-year prospecting efforts in to create your heat source? 🔥

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) Growing Sales is Easy, If You Focus On The Right Things 🔎

Every business wants to grow sales. But in most companies, sales growth feels complicated, like a guessing game filled with big goals, busy schedules, and inconsistent results. When you strip away the noise, there are only two things that truly drive consistent sales growth… Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

We learn early in life, in school, to be attentive, to listen, to respect our peers and elders, to try hard (with learning and skill development), and to show up every day ready to participate, fail, and grow.

What ultimately separates those who excel from those who struggle sometimes comes down to the simplest actions - more importantly, actions that aren’t learned in college, in the workforce, or even online as you doom scroll.

Much of what helps adults become and maintain whatever their version of success looks like is built on these ten actions and the skills they ultimately develop to create, elevate, and sustain those successes, in both personal and professional settings.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase business revenues and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Founder & CEO

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) Why More B2B Companies Are Turning To Automation For Outbound Sales ⛓️

For many B2B businesses, outbound sales have traditionally been driven by persistence rather than precision. Build lists, send emails, follow up relentlessly, and hope enough conversations convert into opportunities. For a long time, that approach worked. Today, it is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain... Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“The average email open rate across industries is only 19.7%.” (Hubspot)

If you’re relying upon email as your main form of contact, follow-up, or prospecting efforts, realize that approximately 80% of your market isn’t receiving your messages. Email marketing and messaging aren’t bad; they simply shouldn’t be your only tactic for communications.

⏩ ForwardSelling

Have you navigated to ForwardSelling, Sales Homie’s digital asset brand’s website? If not, you can find it here.

3) By 2030, The B2B Rep Will Be Gone. Here’s What Replaces Them ⏰

For decades, B2B growth followed a familiar script: generate leads, hand them to sales, and let skilled reps persuade buyers across weeks or months of calls. The biggest shift will not be automation inside companies, but automation before buyers ever make contact. AI now acts as the front door to B2B decision-making... Read more here. 👈🏼

SPONSOR AD

Deliver a Better Buying Experience with Digital Sales Rooms. Learn more here. 👈🏼

📢 Upcoming Events

The AI Ready Business in 2026

AI is rewriting how SMBs sell, operate, and compete. The pace will only accelerate in 2026. Make sure your business is ready!

www.eventbrite.com/e/1977544719490

🚨 Sales Squad Kick-Off Event: Did You Miss It?

✅ Did you know that only 60% of sales reps actually hit their quotas? - Hubspot

✅ Did you know that for every $1 invested in sales training, it returned $29 in incremental revenues? - Forbes

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

Gross domestic product, the official scorecard of the economy, grew at a sharp 4.4% annual pace in the third quarter of 2025. The economy was well positioned toward the end of the year to achieve 2% growth in 2025, for the fifth year in a row.

Yet, with inflation still stuck close to 3%, top Fed officials are leery of cutting rates further for now. The central bank is expected to leave rates unchanged at its first meeting of 2026, next week.

✅ Subscribe here, homie.

🙅🏼‍♂️🙅🏼‍♀️ What Sales Culture Really Means - And Why Most Companies Get It Wrong

Sales Homie — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, January 16, 2025

TGIF! It’s Friday, and we’re about to blast off 🚀 into 2026 with a fury! Most of our customers, prospects, and employees have emerged from their respective Holiday naps 🥱 (aka vacations; both physical and mental) and are ready to make their mark on Q1-26. Are you ready?

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) Goal Setting That Delivers Results 🥅

Goals are the roadmap for a company’s journey, and without them, it’s hard to understand how leaders expect to arrive at any meaningful destination. Leaders who avoid goal-setting usually fall into one of two camps: either they don’t have a clear process, or they feel paralyzed by economic uncertainty…Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

The life of a sales rep can be lonely. You might have a team around you (who are, in essence, competing against you), or you might be the only one in charge of business development efforts. Competitive team cultures can even aid seclusion and cyloed work.

Whether you’re on a sales team or selling as a team of one, the only true competitor that you’re working against is yourself! The discipline to get up every day and thrust yourself into prospecting for new leads, or chasing the ones you identified last week, is simply upon yourself; you only. Having the discipline to work towards meeting your metric goals isn’t something to be taken for granted.

The reason many sales professionals leave sales jobs, or end up not being successful in their pursuits?

Self-discipline.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase business revenues and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Founder & CEO

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) Why A B2B Contact Database Is Useful For Modern Businesses 💻

In today’s competitive business environment, finding the right companies - and the right people within them - can be the difference between steady growth and stalled momentum. A B2B contact database plays a critical role in helping sales, marketing, recruiting, and strategy teams work smarter, not harder…Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“35-50% of sales go to the vendor that responds to a prospect’s outreach first, emphasizing the critical role of speed in the sales process.” (Hubspot)

In any competitive sales opportunity, a prospect will look to get quotes from at least three (3) companies, sometimes more. When you’re on the receiving end of one of those inquiries, statistics show that the reps who respond the quickest to the prospect to book a first meeting/call give themselves a much greater chance of closing the business than any of the other vendors procured.

⏩ ForwardSelling

Have you navigated to ForwardSelling, Sales Homie’s digital asset brand’s website? If not, you can find it here.

3) What Sales Culture Really Means - And Why Most Companies Get It Wrong 🙅‍♂️🙅‍♀️

When people hear the phrase “sales culture,” many picture scripts, quotas, or pressure-driven tactics. Strong sales cultures are not built on force or fear. They are built on clarity, consistency, and alignment with how a company operates…Read more here. 👈🏼

SPONSOR AD

Deliver a Better Buying Experience with Digital Sales Rooms. Learn more here. 👈🏼

📢 Upcoming Events

Join us on February 26th from 2-4 p.m. in Edina, Minnesota, for “The AI Ready Business in 2026,” looking at how operational and sales/revenue functions can be enhanced and simplified by incorporating specific AI prompts and workflows. 🤖The event is free to attend, but limited to the first 50 respondents.

The AI Ready Business in 2026

AI is rewriting how SMBs sell, operate, and compete. The pace will only accelerate in 2026. Make sure your business is ready!

www.eventbrite.com/e/1977544719490

🚨Sales Squad Kick-Off Event: Did You Miss It?

✅ Did you know that only 60% of sales reps actually hit their quotas? - Hubspot

✅ Did you know that for every $1 invested in sales training, it returned $29 in incremental revenues? - Forbes

Sales Homie recently launched the Sales Squad community, a monthly peer group for 10-12 sales pros focused on skill-building, networking, goal accountability, and mentorship. We will be holding our third meeting on Wednesday, January 21st, from 1-4 p.m. in Edina, Minnesota. If you’re interested in learning more or attending, please check out our website.

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

Core U.S. consumer prices rose less than expected in December, reinforcing hopes that inflation is easing as the Federal Reserve contemplates its next interest-rate move.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, the consumer price index showed a seasonally adjusted 0.2% gain on a monthly basis and 2.6% annually, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. Both were 0.1 percentage points below expectations.

✅ Subscribe here, homie.

🎨 Designing a B2B Content Strategy for 2026

Sales Homie — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 06:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, January 9, 2025

Welcome to 2026! ✌🏼 The first Sales Report of 2026 is here with a power-packed edition. If you didn’t get everything you wanted from 🎅🏼 Santa, hopefully, we’ve included it here for you!

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) The Future of Customer Experience in a Data-Driven World 🌎

Today's customer experience requires dashboards, real-time metrics, and AI. It prioritizes solutions above products. And it hinges on mountains of data. But even in a data-driven world, relationships and expertise matter perhaps more than ever. Companies that leverage data to build expertise and enhance relationships will position themselves as industry leaders…Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

We’d hope that if you looked in the dictionary for “Sales Intelligence,” it would state this!

“The measure of SALES intelligence is the ability to influence, process, and direct change.”

It’s the simplest way to look at how effort (influence), process (system, follow-ups, etc.), and directing change (consultative, educating a customer) drive customers to purchase your products or services. Possessing sales intelligence ultimately wins more deals or closes deals at higher percentages.

If you’re not either influencing, driving the prospect through the next stage of your sales process, or helping solve a problem through change, you’re wasting your time and not effectively impacting your prospect's buying journey.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase business revenues and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Chief Sales Homie

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) 7 Essential Tools for Boosting Your Sales Prospecting Strategy 📈

In terms of boosting your sales prospecting strategy, having the right tools is essential. Tools like Cognism and ZoomInfo offer advanced search capabilities and real-time data updates. Meanwhile, platforms such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Lusha help you identify and engage with your target audience more effectively. These resources improve lead qualification and enhance conversion rates, but there are more options available…Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“Prospects engage most at industry-specific events (34%), via LinkedIn (21%) or text (21%). However, 72% of reps use social media for prospecting.” (Hubspot)

As you get to know your prospect, it’s imperative that you understand their preferred method of communication. If they prefer calls over texts and you keep texting, do you think they’re going to respond the way you’d like? Additionally, if your sales strategies do not include industry-specific association events (where prospects are most engaged), you’re missing the largest segment of opportunity.

⏩ ForwardSelling

Have you navigated to ForwardSelling, Sales Homie’s digital asset brand’s website? If not, you can find it here.

3) Designing a B2B Content Strategy for 2026 🎨

The range of B2B content shifted significantly over the past few years. Cheaper, AI-generated content floods the market, leading to faster output. The audience is way too overwhelmed by an endless barrage of information. Trust is eroding as more and more content becomes harder to verify. As a result, even well-funded content programs struggle to influence decisions, not because they lack reach, but because they lack…Read more here. 👈🏼

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🧺 Corner Market Jobs

Browsing for a new role? Check out these opportunities via Sales Homie’s recruiting division. Check back frequently for new position availability, as these roles will close without notice.

Fractional Sales Leader | Greater Minneapolis-St. Paul Area | LinkedIn

The Fractional Sales Leader/Advisor will be responsible for a mix of strategic and tactical duties for a client; supporting or managing a sales team, developing and/or executing specific sales strategies, and go-to-market planning with business leadership…

www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4330467647

🚨Sales Squad Kick-Off Event: Did You Miss It?🚨

✅ Did you know that only 60% of sales reps actually hit their quotas? - Hubspot

✅ Did you know that for every $1 invested in sales training, it returned $29 in incremental revenues? - Forbes

Sales Homie recently launched the Sales Squad community, a monthly peer group for 10-12 sales pros focused on skill-building, networking, goal accountability, and mentorship. We will be holding our third meeting on Wednesday, January 21st, from 1-4 p.m. in Edina, Minnesota. If you’re interested in learning more or attending, please check out our website.

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

Private sector job creation turned positive in December, though at a bit softer pace than expected, payrolls processing firm ADP reported Wednesday.

Companies added 41,000 hires for the month, a reversal from the loss of 29,000 in November, providing a positive sign for a labor market that otherwise struggled as 2025 came to a close. Private company payrolls had declined in three of the four months before the December release.

✅ Subscribe here, homie.

!?️ Outcome-based Selling vs. Solution Selling vs. Value-based Selling: What’s the Difference?

Sales Homie — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 06:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, December 19, 2025

Welcome to the 2nd to last Friday of 2025! 💥 Can you believe we’re sprinting towards another new calendar year? Another new year for growth, improved production, and growing your business! So excited - and thanks for coming along for the ride with The Sales Report. 🙏🏼

We’re excited about the three articles highlighted this week. 👇🏼 All different aspects of growth, yet all critical towards scale.

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) Reimagining The Sales Development Function: The Engine of Predictable Growth 🚒

For over a decade, the sales development representative (SDR) function has been the engine driving the world’s most successful go-to-market organizations. Yet, across many startups and even some global enterprises, SDR teams are frequently overlooked as a critical driver of pipeline growth, which limits their influence and overall impact on revenue performance. The uncomfortable truth is that SDR teams rarely fail because of the individuals themselves; they fail because the systems around them are broken. The good news is that these challenges are fixable…Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

This tweet is aging like fine wine! The same is true in 2026 as it was in 2023…

There’s no better time to explore jumping into your first or your next sales role in the new year! A career in sales can lead to opportunities as high up in any organization as you want to go:

Traditional organizations will say, “Sales professionals don’t have what it takes to run a business or operating group; how could they know how to run the company?”

Progressive organizations will say, “Sales professionals have what it takes to understand how to run a business or operating group. They understand client acquisition, nuances of the product or service, and, more than likely, techniques to retain customers and revenue.”

And who’s usually best suited to understand that there are resources around them to call upon when a question or challenge arises that they’re unsure of the answer to? A sales professional who’s used to relying on resources. No different than a CEO who hires talent more capable than themselves into key leadership roles.

Working on the selling side of most businesses provides broad exposure across the company. And as the Tweet above states, many CEOs get their start in sales.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase business revenues and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Chief Sales Homie

To do this, we focus on three areas :

Fractional Sales Leadership, placing a seasoned Sales Executive at any level (Manager, Director, Vice President, Chief Revenue Officer) into your department. Additionally, we have developed our Sales Leader Pro for Small Businesses program, which helps organizations conceptualize revenue and growth initiatives without the investment range typically associated with Fractional. For organizations seeking a consultant, Sales Homie offers Consulting Services tailored to meet your organization’s specific needs.

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) 4 Ways to Build Durable Relationships with Your Most Important Customers 🏗️

Companies that lean into strategic customers see results! Most CEOs recognize that strategic account management (SAM), which aligns strategy, teams, and resources around large, complex customer partnerships, is critical to their firm’s growth.

Yet new evidence suggests that many organizations are losing momentum on SAM. The share of firms viewing SAM as a clear strategic priority fell from 65% in 2020 to 33% in 2025. Dozens of executives and strategic account teams echo that pattern, revealing four shifts that distinguish genuine SAM stewardship from symbolic or superficial involvement...Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“Companies with referral programs experience 86% more revenue growth over the past two years compared to those without.” (Hubspot)

It’s one thing to have enterprising sales professionals on your team that ask for referrals, but does your company have mechanisms in place to ask for referrals? There can be a gap here for most companies; the companies that scale have figured out how to ask legacy customers, not just newer customers brought on by your sales team, for referrals.

📎 ForwardSelling

Have you navigated to ForwardSelling, Sales Homie’s digital asset brand’s website? If not, you can find it here.

3) Outcome-based Selling vs. Solution Selling vs. Value-based Selling: What’s the Difference ⁉️

Outcome-, solution-, and value-based selling are all alternatives to traditional feature-centric sales, focusing on the customer’s needs rather than the product's razzle-dazzle. Here’s how they differ and why it’s important to understand…Read more here. 👈🏼

SPONSOR AD

Deliver a Better Buying Experience with Digital Sales Rooms. Learn more here. 👈🏼

🚨Coming Soon… To Our Social Channels (and The Sales Report)

Sales Homie will be launching a podcast series that dives into business growth, maturity, organization, and … all the sales things! We’re working on the details and hope to deliver the first episode in January! Stay tuned!

Sales Squad Kick-Off Event: Did You Miss It?

✅ Did you know that only 60% of sales reps actually hit their quotas? - Hubspot

✅ Did you know that for every $1 invested in sales training, it returned $29 in incremental revenues? - Forbes

Sales Homie recently launched the Sales Squad community, a monthly peer group for 10-12 sales pros focused on skill-building, networking, goal accountability, and mentorship. We will be holding our third meeting on Wednesday, January 21st, from 1-4 p.m. in Edina, Minnesota. If you’re interested in learning more or attending, please check out our website.

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

Consumer prices rose less than expected in November, giving investors hope that inflationary pressures may be cooling enough for U.S. monetary policy to be eased more than Wall Street anticipates.

The consumer price index rose at a 2.7% annualized rate last month, a delayed report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected the CPI to have risen 3.1%.

✅ Subscribe here, homie.

Stop Wasting the End of the Year - 5 Steps to Get Ahead in 2026

Sales Homie — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 06:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, December 11, 2025

Welcome back to Friday, and TGIF! We had an extended Thanksgiving hangover, but we’re back and diving into all things sales and revenue to close out 2025. Let’s go!

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) LinkedIn Advertising Statistics by Revenue and Facts (2025) 👨🏻‍🔧

The LinkedIn advertising ecosystem is no longer a secluded part of B2B marketing — it has reached approximately 1.2 billion users. It is expected to earn around US$8.2 billion in ad revenue, making it one of the fastest-growing and most profitable platforms for marketers in the B2B sector. The combination of widening ad reach, increased video usage, and sophisticated AI tools provides the platform with…Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

It costs you $0.00 to be loyal to your customers. It costs you everything when you’re not.

Every young salesperson assumes the best way to grow and scale is to sell to new customers. The older, more sage veteran salesperson understands that the only way to scale a business truly is to keep the customers you’ve already sold, taking advantage of expanding wallet-share and selling additional services.

If you’ve ever sold in any service-related industry, understand that the moment you take ownership of that account from your new customer, the other vendors who didn’t win the business will be following up, asking how the transition went, and when the next-best opportunity is to re-engage.

All the hard work, time, and resources you put into acquiring the new customer could be out the window if you ignore engagement and customer support. It’s not necessarily about loyalty to the customer, as it’s about loyalty to your efforts in customer support.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase business revenues and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Chief Sales Homie

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) The Rise of the AI-Powered Sales Funnel: What Every CEO Should Know

Traditional sales funnels are broken. AI-powered businesses are closing deals faster than ever, while many companies still struggle to qualify leads and rely on generic messaging. McKinsey reports that companies using AI for sales experience a 50% increase in leads and appointments. It's not about getting rid of salespeople. It's about giving them more power with innovative technologies that work around the clock to qualify leads and customize every interaction at scale...Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“More than 347 billion emails are sent and received each day.” (Hubspot)

As a sales professional whose job is to engage prospects, do you really think email is a differentiating communications vehicle? If you do, you’re trapped.

📎 ForwardSelling

Have you navigated to ForwardSelling, Sales Homie’s digital asset brand’s website? If not, you can find it here.

3) Stop Wasting the End of the Year - 5 Steps to Get Ahead in 2026 👨🏻‍🔧

The weeks between now and January 1st present a unique opportunity to capitalize on year-end momentum and lay the groundwork for next year’s growth; new revenues today affect 2025 exit rates for Q1 of 2026. Here are five ways founders can close out 2025 strong and set themselves up for success in 2026…Read more here. 👈🏼

SPONSOR AD

Deliver a Better Buying Experience with Digital Sales Rooms. Learn more here. 👈🏼

Coming Soon… To Our Social Channels (and The Sales Report)

Sales Squad Kick-Off Event: Did You Miss It?

Did you know that only 60% of sales reps actually hit their quotas? - Hubspot

Did you know that for every $1 invested in sales training, it returned $29 in incremental revenues? - Forbes

Sales Homie recently launched the Sales Squad community, a monthly peer group for 10-12 sales pros focused on skill-building, networking, goal accountability, and mentorship. We will be holding our second meeting on Wednesday, December 17th, from 1-4 p.m. in Edina, Minnesota. If you’re interested in learning more or attending, please check out our website.

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

Fulfilling expectations of a “hawkish cut,” the central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee lowered its key overnight borrowing rate by a quarter percentage point, putting it in a range between 3.5%-3.75%.

The closely watched “dot plot” of individual officials’ expectations on rates indicated just one cut in 2026 and another in 2027 before the federal funds rate hits a longer-run target around 3%. Those projections were unchanged from the September update, but the plot reflected divisions within the committee about where rates should head.

✅ Subscribe here, homie.

🚀 Want To Boost Your Sales in 2026? Here’s How

Sales Homie — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 06:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, November 21, 2025

Welcome back to Friday, fellow Sales Professionals! Deep breaths… you’re about to get a break next week for Thanksgiving! 🦃 Holiday breaks are times to recharge, certainly, but they’re also great for getting ahead on the tasks and admin items we put off… because selling is more fun! 🤩 Focus on making minor improvements next week that are outside of customer and prospect interaction.

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) How To Plan Your Sales Territory Based On Drive Time 🛞

In a world where efficiency and precision are critical to business success, the question isn’t if you should use geo-intelligence — it’s how. For sales teams, marketers, and business strategists, understanding where your customers are and how long it takes to reach them is no longer a luxury — it’s a necessity…Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

In your SALES process, direction is more important than speed.

Every industry, vertical market, and/or prospect size greatly impacts the speed at which business gets done.

Have you heard how getting large companies to do anything is like “turning a cruise ship,” because it takes so long to get through a task or decision-making process?

In sales, it’s essential to understand the buying cycle, certainly, but it’s even more important to understand the speed at which your opportunities are moving through your sales process.

And if they stall? There’s really no one to blame but yourself. 80% of the sales you’ll make in 2026 will be because you’re engaging your prospects AFTER you submit pricing or a proposal. You have to “sell after the submission,” and, as importantly, keep each opportunity moving forward, even if it takes a few weeks or months longer than usual.

Deals die because you stop engaging.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase business revenues and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Chief Sales Homie

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) To B2B or Not B2B; That Is The Question 🤔

B2B marketing used to be the sensible sibling. It was steady, measured, predictable. Now it’s juggernauting into a future where AI is the new intern, the buying journey is a maze, and marketers are expected to be part storyteller, part data scientist, and part mind reader...Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“Between early 2024 and 2025, the average startup experienced a 24% increase in sales cycle length, extending from 60 to 75 days.” (Hubspot)

Do you measure your sales cycles at all? If not, there can be some helpful information to glean. Economic downturns can both hamper and speed up sales cycles, as an example. And times of growth can do the same. Looking ahead, if your sales cycles are increasing or decreasing, you can sometimes use that information to inform a strategy for the coming months.

⏩ ForwardSelling

Have you navigated to ForwardSelling, Sales Homie’s digital asset brand’s website? If not, you can find it here.

3) Want To Boost Your Sales in 2026? Here’s How 🚀

As we head into 2026, the business landscape continues to evolve, with new technologies, shifting consumer expectations, and economic pressures influencing how B2B businesses engage with their clients. To stay competitive, companies must adapt and leverage strategic methods to increase sales, build stronger relationships, and drive sustainable growth. Here are some key strategies B2B businesses should embrace to boost their sales in 2026…Read more here. 👈🏼

SPONSOR AD

Deliver a Better Buying Experience with Digital Sales Rooms. Learn more here. 👈🏼

🗞️ Coming Soon… To Our Social Channels (and The Sales Report)

Sales Homie will be launching a podcast 📺 series that dives into business growth, maturity, organization, and … all the sales things! We’re working on the details and hope to deliver the first episode in January! 📆 Stay tuned!

🚨Sales Squad Kick-Off Event: Did You Miss It?

✅ Did you know that only 60% of sales reps actually hit their quotas? - Hubspot

✅ Did you know that for every $1 invested in sales training, it returned $29 in incremental revenues? - Forbes

Sales Homie recently launched the Sales Squad community, a monthly peer group for 10-12 sales pros focused on skill-building, networking, goal accountability, and mentorship. We held our first meeting on Wednesday, November 19th, from 1-4 p.m. in Edina, Minnesota. If you’re interested in learning more or attending the second meeting on December 17th, please check out our website.

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

Federal Reserve officials were at odds during their October meeting over cutting interest rates, divided over whether a stalling labor market or stubborn inflation were bigger economic threats, minutes released Wednesday showed.

Officials generally indicated concern over a slowing labor market and inflation that has “shown little sign of returning sustainably” to the Fed’s 2% target. The minutes reflected multiple camps within the committee.

If you found this content relevant and helpful, please hit the subscribe button below to receive The Sales Report. You can also follow Sales Homie on LinkedIn or Nate Zoellner on Twitter and LinkedIn for more conversation and discovery!

✅ Subscribe here, homie.

🧩 How Selling B2B Differs From B2C - Leading Companies Excel At Both

Sales Homie — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 06:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, November 14, 2025

TGIF! Have you started your Black Friday shopping yet? 🛍️ No? Good! Because you should still be out prospecting and engaging with your customers and prospects! Do your shopping on the Friday after Thanksgiving as you’re watching your favorite holiday movie 🎬 or NFL football 🏈 game. Prospect and Customer Engagement never sleeps; you can shop when your prospects and customers are on vacation themselves.

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) Why Sales Needs As Much Attention As Operations In Manufacturing 🗂️

In manufacturing, leaders devote significant time to operational efficiency, focusing on reducing waste, improving processes, and maximizing output. However, one critical piece is often overlooked: Sales. You can have the most efficient operation in the world, but growth will still stall without a steady stream of new business and strong customer relationships…Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

When in doubt of your SALES progress, zoom out.

Here’s the best medicine for feeling stuck, or when you string a handful of “no’s” or rejections together:

Zoom out.

You might be overcritical of the results of your efforts when, in reality, you’re critiquing a minimal sample size. Looking at the bigger picture might show you that you’ve done things like sell more revenue than any other year, or brought on more customer logos this quarter than last.

It’s not always about the here and now. From an activities perspective, that’s always important. But before you beat yourself up over a crumby couple of days, don’t forget to zoom out to recognize what you’ve actually achieved.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase business revenues and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Chief Sales Homie

To do this, we focus on three areas :

For more information, please visit our website.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) Outsourced Sales Service Market to Reach USD $16.8B by 2034 🚚

Businesses are increasingly outsourcing sales functions to improve conversion efficiency, reduce operations costs, and leverage advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and global talent networks. The outsourced sales service model enables organizations to delegate their sales and business development functions to specialized partners who bring...Read more here. 👈🏼

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“On average, outside sales professionals earn 14% more than inside sales representatives, reflecting the value placed on face-to-face engagement.” (Hubspot)

From the Customer Engagement lens, imagine if you supported your customers —the ones you worked so hard to acquire —virtually or only over the phone. How hard do you think it’ll be for your in-person competitors to take that business from you eventually? Nothing beats face-to-face engagements.

⏩ ForwardSelling

Have you navigated to ForwardSelling, Sales Homie’s digital asset brand’s website? If not, you can find it here.

3) How Selling B2B Differs From B2C - Leading Companies Excel At Both 🧩

B2C is about scale. It’s driven by brand, emotion, and immediacy. B2B, on the other hand, is about depth. It’s driven by relationships, reliability, and measurable outcomes. Business customers are not buying a product - they’re investing in a partnership that helps them compete, grow, and transform…Read more here. 👈🏼

SPONSOR AD

Deliver a Better Buying Experience with Digital Sales Rooms. Learn more here. 👈🏼

🔥Sales Squad Kick-Off Event: Did You Miss It?🔥

✅ Did you know that only 60% of sales reps actually hit their quotas? - Hubspot

✅ Did you know that for every $1 invested in sales training, it returned $29 in incremental revenues. - Forbes

Sales Homie is launching the Sales Squad community, a monthly peer group for 10-12 sales pros focused on skill-building, networking, and mentorship. We’ve secured commitments for half of our first group, with the meeting being held on Wednesday, November 19th, from 1-4 p.m. in Edina, Minnesota. If you’re interested in learning more or attending the first meeting to check out the peer group platform, please check out our website.

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

Citing concerns about inflation and signs of relative stability in the labor market after two U.S. interest rate cuts this year, a growing number of Federal Reserve policymakers are signaling reticence to further ease, helping push financial-market-based odds of a reduction in borrowing costs in December below 50%.

U.S. firms were shedding more than 11,000 jobs a week through late October, payroll processor ADP said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, TLR Analytics says its sales tax diffusion index is not throwing off economic warning signs.

✅ Subscribe here, homie.

📱Report: Majority of B2B Sales Now Completed Online

Sales Homie — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 06:00:00 +0000

📬 Friday, November 6, 2025

Welcome to Friday, and to one of the first chilly and frozen days of the fall 🥶 if you’re in Minnesota (like we are)! How many shopping days until Christmas, you ask? How about “how many more prospecting days until buyers disappear for their Thanksgiving and Holiday breaks?” The daylight is shrinking as we look to January, and so remain fewer and fewer productive days of 2025. Let’s get to it! ⌛️

Here’s what you missed this week while you were out selling and growing your business:

1) B2B Marketing Predictions for 2026! 🔮

As more B2B buyers adopt generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and conversational search tools to gather faster insights, marketing, sales, and product leaders are facing intense pressure to integrate AI tools into their go-to-market applications to keep up.

But 19% of buyers using these AI applications feel less confident in their purchasing decisions due to inaccurate or unreliable information provided by GenAI. The explosion of new and untested GenAI functionality, combined with lagging AI user skills, will result in incidents that lead to the loss of more than $10 billion in enterprise value from declining stock prices, legal settlements, and fines, according to Forrester’s B2B marketing, sales, and product predictions…Read more here. 👈🏼

📎 Sales Tip(s) of The Week:

Tools change. Products change. Buyers change.

But the fundamentals that make a great SALES rep do not.

Everyone has heard the old football coach-turned-gym-teacher describe how “football teaches teamwork, dedication, and grit.” Like football or any sport or learned competitive skill, there remain fundamental actions that provide a baseline of acceptable output(s).

Is sales competitive, like sports? Usually. And are the professionals who work in sales any less impacted by understanding the fundamentals of their job than an accountant, garbage man, or laborer? No way!

In the sales game, the products and services will constantly shift. So will the customers (and how they purchase). But guess what never changes? The fundamental skills that go into effective communications, prospecting strategies, follow-up techniques, and/or closing business… they’re not going to change as rapidly (or at all) like an industry, buyer, or service offering.

See the ball, hit the ball. Keep it simple.

🔥Sales AI Workshops🔥

👉🏼 Do you need assistance writing AI prompts to aid your sales teams? 👉🏼 Have you recently struggled with onboarding a new sales rep? 👉🏼 Do you find your team wasting time searching for customer and prospect data? 👉🏼 If you’re a Manager, wouldn’t it be nice to have a built-in tool to help you train your new sales reps?

If you answered YES to any of these questions, Sales Homie is hosting no-cost workshops to trial some of our sales AI workflow automation tools. Interested in volunteering your business as a use case? Send us a quick email.

CRM SUPPORTER

Get a 30-day free trial from The Sales Report!

The CRM to get your sales organized. Pipedrive users close an average of 28% more deals after their first year. Learn more here. 👈🏼

2) This Market Segment Has B2B E-Commerce’s Biggest Blindspot. Any Guesses? 🕶️

Digital platforms are reshaping expectations for how companies manage the transaction experience for customers of all sizes. The shift in business buying is changing both the speed of commerce and the scale of opportunity for providers. But, while enterprise sales teams chase this growth for large corporate clients, they’re systematically overlooking their largest potential customer base: small and medium-sized businesses...Read more here. 👈🏼

⏩ ForwardSelling

Have you navigated to ForwardSelling, Sales Homie’s digital asset brand’s website? If not, you can find it here.

🔑 Sales Stat of The Week:

“74% of companies consider converting leads into customers their primary objective.” (Hubspot)

Well, duh, right? Not so fast.

You might think it’s wise to skip through the first phase of most every organization's sales process, but what happens if you skip qualifying a lead before spending time on a call, or worse, planning and executing an in-person meeting, only to find out that the lead is a dud!?

There’s a case to be made that ALL companies should consider converting leads into customers as their primary objective, not just some.

3) Report: Majority of B2B Sales Now Completed Online 📱

Closing B2B deals used to involve face-to-face meetings and demos. In 2025, however, deals have moved from conference rooms to browser tabs. According to data covered by DesignRush, 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers will occur through digital channels…Read more here. 👈🏼

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🚨Sales Squad Kick-Off Event: Did You Miss It?🚨

✅Did you know that only 60% of sales reps actually hit their quotas? - Hubspot

✅Did you know that for every $1 invested in sales training, it returned $29 in incremental revenues. - Forbes

📊 Weekly Financial Forecast:

Airlines rushed to provide travelers with updates after the Federal Aviation Administration said it would reduce flights across 40 airports as the longest government shutdown in history continues to drag on.

These are the airports that are expected to be impacted, based on preliminary information before the agency meets with airlines to finalize cuts, CNBC’s Phil LeBeau reported. The preliminary list includes some of the country’s largest airports and major international hubs in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and New York City.

🦉 Who Is Sales Homie?

We scale your sales strategies to increase business revenues and profits, starting at $595/month.

Nate Zoellner, Chief Sales Homie

To do this, we focus on three areas :

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