Rapport is huge. It's the thing. Sales reps have to do it to sell a deal and they are often terrible at it. People know what rapport building is but they don't know how to do it. In this episode, Gabe Larsen, Director of InsideSales Labs walks through a three-step process to build trust in minutes.

Every year people guess what will happen the following year but this is different. In this episode, Elyse Archer Sales and Leadership Coach, goes deep into her experience to talk about top trends, tools, and wish list items for 2017.

Not long ago, a few of us here at the office started debating what was the most popular sales related movie. Surprisingly, there was not a clear winner. I was shocked at some of the movies that people mentioned as I didn’t really considerer them a movie related to sales. After a lot of discussion we decided we'd finalize the debate with a research study. Why not ask a few hundred sales people what their favorite sales related movie was and once and for all see if we couldn’t settle the debate. So we did. We gathered a list of a handful of sales related movies and sent a survey out to a mix of sales positions. We had 433 people respond. The top three sales movies were...you'll have to listen to find out.

Should you even have a sales development team? In this episode, experts Sarah Roberts (Salesforce), Richard Harris (Harris Consulting), and Ken Krogue (InsideSales.com), discuss and debate the pros and cons of having a sales development team and the tips, technology, and trends surrounding this sales function.

Every new year there are a lot of people who speak out about what technologies they think should be part of the an optimized sales stack. Most of the time those answers are clouded with companies pushing their own products or consultants pushing partner products where they know they will get part of the pie. Needless the say, the conversation get's confusing and it's mostly the end user who suffers. We thought we'd break through the fluff and go right to the source so in 2016 we asked 600 sales leaders across a variety of industries and company sizes, what technologies are needed most to win.

If you've not heard of Tom Hopkins, you're probably not a great sales person. Tom wrote a revolutionary book in 80's called 'How to Master the Art of Selling'. Since then Tom has revised that book and written another book called 'When Buyers Say No'. In this episode, Tom talks briefly about the importance of communication skills and the proper steps to selling and how to serve your clients well. In addition, Tom talks about the word "No" and how it's a fork in the road if sales reps treat it right.

Bob Burg is the coauthor of the international bestseller, The Go-Giver and a much sought-after speaker at sales and leadership conferences. In this episode, Bob discusses his book the Go-Giver and talks about how companies both large and small are not only of much greater value to their customers; they are also significantly more functional, and profitable by using the Go-Giver method.

Qualification is a lost art. Most people try to move too quickly to the presentation so they can talk about themselves and how great they are. In this episode, Mark Hunter, discusses keys to qualification and how reps can win if they qualify the right way.

2016 has come and gone and it's time to reflect on what actually happened. Here are some of the highlights: The Olympics were awesome, there were some crazy tech acquisitions, a couple of important sports spells were broken, and of course Donald Trump was elected president. But, that's not all. Some fun things happened with InsideSales Labs and we wanted to tell you about it.

2016 has come and gone and managers and reps are preparing for 2017. The end of the year provides a time to reflect and review on what went well and what can be improved. In this episode, author, speaker, and strategist, Andy Paul, discusses 2017 and what reps and managers should do to make it a success.