Sales processes include the following: customer development,   prospecting, discovery calls, closing deals, cross-selling, upselling, post-sales implementation, customer experience, obtaining referrals, and testimonials.

What is the hardest part of the sales process?

I surveyed my LinkedIn audience to find out.

Survey Results

Of those surveyed, 53 % said closing deals was the hardest part of the Sales Process, followed by understanding market fit at 22%, Calling on buyers, and knowing their needs at 19% with the lowest being cross-selling, referrals, testimonials, or other reasons at 6%.

Based on these findings, I have included nine ways to enable sales teams to close more deals.

9 Strategies to Empower and Enable Sales Teams to Make more Sales

1.Have Sales and Marketing Management discuss Sales Cycle mapping out Sales, Marketing, and the Customer Journey.

2. Have Marketing go with Sales on calls to observe customer interactions regularly.

3. Take notes from Sales calls to develop answers to customer objections.

4. Role play with the Sales to get better at objection handling.

5. Develop an on-demand LMS for Sales including Decks, Videos, Sales Training materials, Product training materials, Scripts, and FAQs.

6. Use feedback from Sales calls and objections to improve Sales and Marketing Collateral.

7. Assign readings on sales strategy and techniques.

8. Conduct market research to show how is your products and services are better than the competitor. Present market research creating a chart that Sales can refer to when dealing with customers.

9. Develop buyer personas to understand customer buying motives. Share the buyer personas with Sales.

What is the hardest part of the sales process?

How did you fix your sales process?

Share your thoughts.

Agentforce in Action at Salesforce Agentforce Tour in New York

I covered Salesforce AgentForce in New York this past week. This event was organized to showcase Salesforce’s new product Agentforce which is DIY AI in action. Agentforce is a customer service agent that can be built by Salesforce customers and integrated into all industries across the customer journey. 

Salesforce Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Slack Parker Harris kicks off the Keynote in New York!

Users of Salesforce Foundation Enterprise Edition and higher can upgrade to Agentforce for free!

Customers could build a customer service agent on-site. 

Salesforce hosted a hackathon where the winner of the Agentforce contest won $20000!

The keynote showed how service and customer success functions have evolved from chatbots to copilots to Agentforce a self-designable customer service agent that can be customized to users’ specific needs across the customer journey, increasing productivity, reducing customer friction, and maximizing the customer experience.

Patrick Stokes EVP of Product & Industries Marketing at Salesforce, shows how he exchanged his sweater for the right size using Sofie and a customer service agent Saks Fifth Avenue built using Agentforce.  

Patrick Stokes

I saw multiple demos of Agentforce across Sales, Marketing, Service and, more.

Salesforce announced the launch of the Testing Center for Agentforce; coming this December, which will allow users to develop Agentforce to answer every possible question in all forms and variations; something the current chatbots and copilots can’t do. Agentforce enables users to take proactive prescriptive action in real-time. 

AgentforceTour was a great event. I learned much about DIY AI and how it can transform the customer experience. 

I want to thank Salesforce for having me at Agentforce Tour. 

If you want to be on the cutting edge of DIY AI, attend Agentforce in your city. 

Have you used Agentforce?

Share your experience in the comments. 

Additional pictures can be found on Instagram. 

Press & Industry Highlights of the 2025 New York International Auto Show

The 2025 New York International Auto Show is at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City. The New York International Auto Show is celebrating its 125th anniversary!

I covered the New York International Auto Show on press and industry days. The show opened with the World Car Awards Breakfast.

Congratulations to the other finalists and winners as well!

You can see what it is like to be at the Auto Show on Press Days in this show floor preview. 

I rode along in the Hyundai Ioniq 9 EV on one of the multiple test tracks at the show. It was a great experience!

The show consists mainly of EVs and hybrid vehicles. There are two levels of EV test tracks where you can do a ride-along. You can also ride along on the Jeep and Ford off-road mountain track. I rode along on all of the EV Tracks.

The 2025 Chevy Police Blazer EV also made an appearance.

There were also some new vehicle roll-outs and major press announcements from Kia, Hyundai, Subaru, VW, and many others.

You can see some of them below.

Additional Press Conferences can be found here.

You can find additional pictures posted on Instagram.

The show is open to the public at the Jacob Javits Center located at 429 11th Avenue New York, New York 10001. How to get to the Auto Show. The Auto Show runs from Friday, April 18th, through Sunday, April 27th, 2025. The hours are Monday—Saturday from 10 am to 7 pm, and Sundays from 10 am to 7 pm. General admission tickets are $22 for adults and $8 for children. Tickets can be purchased here.

What are you hoping to see at the auto show?

If you have attended the auto show, what was the most exciting thing you experienced?

Share your thoughts.

Thank you to the New York International Auto Show for having me!