Sales Acceleration & Automation
Your Sales Team Still Lives in 2010 (Here Are 99 Ways to Fix That)

What you'll learn

• Why 73% of sales teams still use Excel for forecasting (while their customers are three steps ahead)
• Concrete actions to go from manual hell to automated heaven
• The tools your competitor is already using while you're still making calls

The problem

Your sales team spends 65% of its time on administration.

Let that sink in. Of every 8 hours, they work 5 hours on things a machine can do better, faster, and without complaining. Meanwhile, your competitor is running away with the deals because they actually have time to talk to customers.

We've collected 99 concrete fixes. Not because we've gone crazy at Stryfes (although...), but because there are so many quick wins lying around that it's almost embarrassing. These tips are pedantically written in the vein of "thou shalt." But you shall do nothing - you can choose whether you want to join the new reality or stay stuck in your comfort zone.

The 99 Reality Checks for Modern Sales

Video Calling: Stop the amateurism (Tips 1-7)

• • • 01. That bookcase in the background? Nobody's impressed. Fix your setup or lose deals. Remote work is permanent - act accordingly.
      
      
    • 02. Remote Selling is a craft. If your team doesn't master it, they miss 40% of non-verbal signals. A course costs €500 per person. A missed deal costs you tens of thousands.
      
      

       

    • 03. "Sorry, Teams isn't working" in 2025? Seriously? Pre-install all video apps your customers use. Now.
      
      

    • 04. Log in 5 minutes early for video calls. Those informal minutes before the meeting? That's where deals are made.
      
      

    • 05. Camera at eye level. Non-negotiable. Your customer wants to see your face, not your nose hairs.
      
      

    • 06. Look at the camera, not your screen. Eye contact = trust = deals. Stick an arrow next to your camera as a reminder.
      
      

    • 07. A Logitech Brio costs €200. Your laptop camera from 2015? That costs you customers. Invest or fail.

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Content: Write for your customer, not your ego (Tips 8-25)

• • • 08. Your sales team has golden content ideas. Use them. Require every salesperson to provide monthly input. They know what really concerns customers.
      
      

    • 09. Content automation means relevant info is always within reach. Manually searching for that one case study? That's 2010.
      
      

    • 10. Content to promote yourself? Your customer figured that out long ago. Give value or shut up.
      
      

    • 11. "We are market leader in..." STOP. What do you solve for your customer? That's where every piece of content starts.
      
      

    • 12. Use themes from your customer's world. Nobody cares about your new website. The supply chain crisis? That keeps them up at night.
      
      

    • 13. "Our proprietary SaaS solution with API integration..." You lose them at the first jargon word. Speak normal English.
      
      

    • 14. Feature selling is dead. If your problem isn't urgent, you don't have a customer; it's a waste of time.
      
      

    • 15. Simple language = more deals. Your customer shouldn't have to think about what you mean.
      
      

    • 16. SEO and GEO aren't difficult: write about problems your customer googles or throws into ChatGPT. "CRM implementation failed" beats "Innovative CRM solutions" every day.
      
      

    • 17. Newsletters aren't dead. Your execution probably is. Personalize or stop.
      
      

    • 18. With tools like Braze you create newsletters that feel like 1-on-1 emails. Use it.
      
      

    • 19. Next level: write for different personality types. Crystal Knows + your CRM = hyperpersonalization.
      
      

    • 20. Blog, video, podcast, infographic - same content, different formats. Your customer chooses what fits.
      
      

    • 21. Webinars aren't sales promotions. Give value or get empty chairs.
      
      

    • 22. Making a video isn't difficult. Script + tripod + Loom = done. Perfection is the enemy of publication.
      
      

    • 23. Authentic > polished. Your customer smells fake from miles away.
      
      

    • 24. Giving away your best content because you're afraid of the competitor? Your competitor has Google.
      
      

    • 25. Content ROI takes 6 months. Accept it or invest elsewhere.

       

Personal Interaction: Humanity doesn't scale, but it doesn't have to (Tips 26-32)

• • • 26. Chatbots are the new IVR menu. Use them smartly or irritate everyone.
      
      
    • 27. Stalking a lead without buying intent? Creepy. Nurturing with value? Smart.
      
      
    • 28. Know your customer's buyer journey better than they do. Anticipate, don't react.
      
      
    • 29. Mix automated and personal messages. 80/20 rule: 80% automated, 20% personal where it counts.
      
      
    • 30. Tools like Outreach make automated emails feel personal. Magic exists.
      
      
    • 31. Calendly costs €10/month. The back-and-forth emailing for an appointment costs you hours.
      
      
    • 32. Cold calling in 2024? Only if you know what you're doing. Otherwise waste everyone's time.

Online Buy: Your customer wants to buy, not be sold to (Tips 33-37)

• • • 33. B2B eCommerce is real. Even for complex services. Shopify for B2B exists - use it.
      
      
    • 34. Credit card for B2B? Amateur hour. Invoice with 30-day payment terms. As it should be.
      
      
    • 35. Why custom build what already exists? WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce - pick one and move on.
      
      
    • 36. Productize everything. Custom work is a luxury nobody wants to pay for. 95% of your customers are happy with standard + add-ons.
      
      
    • 37. Ask for the info you need. B2B buyers understand you want to know more than their email.
      

Customer & Project Information: Data is the new gold (Tips 38-43)

• • • 38. ZoomInfo, Clearbit, Apollo - scraping tools exist. If your sales team still manually searches LinkedIn, fire someone.
      
      
    • 39. Marketing automation platform not connected to sales CRM? That's criminal in 2024.
      
      
    • 40. Your existing customers visit your website. Track it and use it for upsell. Leadinfo makes it simple.
      
      
    • 41. Modern CRM contains everything: from last conversation to coffee preference. Use all fields.
      
      
    • 42. Dropdown menus > free text fields. Data you can't analyze is worthless.
      
      
    • 43. A good CRM costs €150 per user per month. A bad salesperson costs you €5000 per month. Do the math.

Market & Product Information: Knowledge is power (Tips 44-48)

• • • 44. Buying market data? Gartner, Forrester, CB Insights - €5000 per report can deliver you €500K in better decisions.
      
      
    • 45. Market intelligence in your CRM = salespeople smarter than the customer. Priceless.
      
      
    • 46. Playbook software like Showpad. Because nobody reads a 200-page PDF.
      
      
    • 47. Have professionals create your playbooks. This isn't a side project for that one marketing intern.
      
      
    • 48. Stories sell, features don't. Case studies > feature lists, every single time.
      
      

Process Success Automation: Manual = dead (Tips 49-54)

• • • 49. Your sales process mapped out? No? Then you're improvising. Lucidchart costs €8/month. No excuse.
      
      
    • 50. Everything you draw you can automate. Zapier, Make.com, Workato - pick your poison.
      
      
    • 51. Every opportunity without next step = dead opportunity. Force it in your CRM.
      
      
    • 52. CRM not up-to-date = no commission. Harsh? Sure. Effective? Absolutely.
      
      
    • 53. Make CRM make sales' life easier, not harder. Auto-fill, smart suggestions, integrations everywhere.
      
      
    • 54. AI needs data. Start capturing now or watch your competitor's taillights later.

Internal Delivery: Silos are for farmers (Tips 55-57)

• • • 55. Copy-paste between systems in 2024? Seriously? Zapier can connect everything. Everything.
      
      
    • 56. Slack for internal sales communication. Email threads with 47 replies? Kill me now.
      
      
    • 57. Real-time dashboards everywhere. Tableau, Power BI, Looker. If you're still emailing weekly Excel reports, there's no hope for you.

Offer Producing: Proposals that convert (Tips 58-67)

• • • 58. A 47-page proposal? Nobody reads that sh*t. 5 pages max, or you lose them.
      
      
    • 59. Focus on their problem, your solution,and the result. The rest is noise.
      
      
    • 60. Give options. Bronze, Silver, Gold. People want to choose, not say yes/no.
      
      
    • 61. PandaDoc, Proposify, Better Proposals. Word templates in 2024? Really?
      
      
    • 62. Have a designer create your proposal template. €500 investment, 20% higher close rate.
      
      
    • 63. Your proposal design says more about your company than your sales conversation. Make it count.
      
      
    • 64. Online proposals with tracking. Know when they read, what they read, and who reads it. Better Proposals does this for €13/month.
      
      
    • 65. Proposal = negotiation start, not the end. Build in flexibility.
      
      
    • 66. Video in your proposal. Loom or Vidyard. 2 minutes personal video = 3x higher conversion.
      
      
    • 67. Automated proposal follow-up. After 3 days, 7 days, 14 days. Sequences in HubSpot make this simple.

Contract Producing: Legal shouldn't be a bottleneck (Tips 68-72)

• • • 68. Discussion about the same clause in every contract? Fix the f*cking clause.
      
      
    • 69. Fine print? This isn't 1995. Plain language contracts win lawsuits AND deals.
      
      
    • 70. Contract automation. Ironclad, ContractWorks, Juro. Legal tech is real - use it.
      
      
    • 71. Standardize mutual NDAs. OneNDA.org already did it for you. Free.
      
      
    • 72. DocuSign, DropboxSign, PandaDoc, for signatures. Print-scan-email? Boomer energy.

Control: Measure = know = win (Tips 73-78)

• • • 73. Excel for reporting? That's cute. Tableau, Power BI, Looker Studio - real-time dashboards or just stop.
      
      
    • 74. Salesforce has bad UX? Gong, Chorus, and Revenue.io make it human.
      
      
    • 75. Screen recording of your best salespeople. Loom it, share it, learn from it.
      
      
    • 76. A/B test everything. Email subject lines, call scripts, demo flows. Outreach has it built in.
      
      
    • 77. Pipeline reviews with data, not opinions. Clari or Aviso makes it objective.
      
      
    • 78. Win/loss analysis. Not "we were too expensive" but real data. Klue or Crayon help.

Improve: Data without action is so 1980s (Tips 79-83)

• • • 79. Many parameters = many insights. Track everything, analyze what matters.
      
      
    • 80. Hire a data analyst. €60K per year for someone who can deliver you millions? No-brainer.
      
      
    • 81. Quarterly Business Reviews for your team. Not just targets, but patterns. Where does it go wrong? Where does it go right?
      
      
    • 82. Sales self-access to dashboards. Micromanaging is dead. Self-service analytics via Metabase or Redash.
      
      
    • 83. Your best salesperson does something different. Find out what. Replicate it. Gong Insights makes it visible.

Customer Success: The new account management (Tips 84-90)

• • • 84. Customer Success > Account Management. Customers who succeed with your product stay. Simple.
      
      
    • 85. CSM solving tickets? Wrong focus. Look forward, not backward.
      
      
    • 86. NPS, CSAT, CES - measure everything. Delighted, Retently, Wootric makes it easy.
      
      
    • 87. Automate health scores. Gainsight, Totango, ClientSuccess. Red flags before the customer sees them.
      
      
    • 88. Stakeholder mapping. Champion gone? You're totally screwed. Know everyone who matters.
      
      
    • 89. Know their annual objectives. Align your QBRs with them. Do they succeed because of you? Then they stay.
      
      
    • 90. Multi-year planning together with the customer. Not your roadmap, but theirs.

Marketing vs Sales: Same team, same dream (Tips 91-93)

• • • 91. MQL, SQL, SAL - bullsh*t. A lead is a lead. Marketing or Sales, who cares? The customer doesn't.
      
      
    • 92. Remove obstacles > push features. Always.
      
      
    • 93. Frictionless buying. Every extra step = 20% drop-off. Simplify or die.
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Customer Perspective: The only perspective that matters (Tips 94-99)

• • • 94. That junior sales manager in an enterprise deal? The customer wonders why he's there. You too?
      
      
    • 95. "Taking care of" is a bullsh*t term. Companies want to become more efficient, not taken care of. Qualify value or go home.
      
      
    • 96. Marketing promises A, Sales pitches B, Delivery delivers C? Recipe for churn.
      
      
    • 97. If you have to convince at contract signing, you failed earlier. Consensus building happens throughout.
      
      
    • 98. Account managers without substantive knowledge? Expensive coffee drinkers. Train them or transform them.
      
      
    • 99. We call this New World Sales. But really, it's New World Buying. The customer has the power. Deal with it.

Key Takeaways

• Manual is dead: Every minute your team spends on admin, your competitor wins a customer
• Invest or die: Yes, tools cost money. Bad sales cost more
• The customer has the power: Stop selling, start facilitating buying
• Data is everything: No data, no AI. No AI, no future
• Integration is key: Disconnected tools are worthless. Everything must talk to everything

Next step

These 99 tips are the tip of the iceberg. At Stryfes, we build complete sales machines that bring these principles into practice. No consultancy blabla, but concrete implementation.

Frequently Asked Questions