8 Resources to Improve your Sales and Marketing Skills
I’ve been in sales and marketing for nearly 10 years and I’m always on the hunt for new sources of content to help me improve. It’s all about adapting and trying new things. Some work and some don’t, but complacency is never a good strategy.
Here’s a list of the top resources I’m following these days to help take my sales and marketing to the next level.
Clost.io and Steli Efti
Close and Steli’s content are all about sales. If you're in sales and not following the content they’re producing, you’re missing out. My favorite thing about the content is how tactical it is. I’ve implemented more than a couple tactics directly from the Close.io blog and YouTube channel.
Dave Gerhardt Marketing Group (DGMG)
I’ve been following Dave since his early days at Drift when he and David Cancel started producing some killer content around a new concept, conversational marketing. The content was compelling and useful.
Since climbing the marketing ranks at Drift, finishing as VP of Marketing, Dave has moved to Privy as CMO. He’s also recently started his own Patreon group called DGMG. Dave provides raw content almost every single day (sometimes multiple times a day), exclusively for the members. It’s only $10 a month, and more than worth it if you’re a marketer. It gets you access to an active community of ~1000 marketers around the world.
Bonus shoutout to Dave: His recently launched Laws of Copywriting course is money well spent. Copywriting is such a critical skill in more than just marketing and sales. This content gets you thinking about how to motivate people before thinking marketing tactics. I highly recommend it. Laws of Copywriting
Seth's Blog
Seth Godin’s blog is one of the most popular on the internet. His expertise is in marketing, but he writes on a wide variety of topics. Many of his posts seem irrelevant to marketing or business at the outset, only to have an important lesson hidden in the story.
Just taking in how Seth writes can help you improve. His ability to convey so much information and meaning in so few words is unrivalled (IMO).
A couple good recent posts include Leaky Roofs and Getting what the customers asked for.
Sales Hacker
Sales Hacker pumps out a ton of content and has a massive community of sales people to interact with and share ideas. Across their articles, video content, and community, there’s definitely something here for sales reps of all skill levels.
In particular, I recommend checking out their “Demo-litions” video series on YouTube. They break down real world demos with useful tips and tricks throughout. It’s helped me improve on my demos.
Ogilvy on Advertising
Ogilvy on Advertising is a timeless piece by one of advertising’s all time greats. What I like so much about this book is that the lessons are still applicable. It’s about what motivates people. Marketing tactics and strategies change all the time, but the psychology of people doesn’t.
Understanding how people make decisions will make you an infinitely better marketer. And who better to learn from than someone who massively grew sales in an era where his copy had to convince people to cut something from a magazine or newspaper and mail it in.
Morning Brew Marketing
This one is a bit of an honorable-mention, as it technically hasn’t launched yet. It does on June 25 and they’re doing it with a bang. Some heavy hitters in the marketing world will share their insights with everyone who signed up for this new newsletter from Morning Brew.
I know I’m passing early judgement, but If their other content is any indication, this should be amazing!
SaaStr
SaaStr is predominantly aimed at entrepreneurs and startups, but there is valuable content for people in all types of organizations. Run by a seasoned entrepreneur and investor, Jason Lemkin, SaaStr is an entire community developed to help entrepreneurs grow.
With SaaStr you get articles, interviews, events, and video courses from the very best companies and executives in the world of SaaS.
Hubspot
Hubspot is one of the pioneers of inbound marketing. And they live what they preach. Hubspot produces a ridiculous amount of content for sales and marketers. You can find a guide or template for almost any sales/marketing related activity you can think of.
I find there is more to comb through all the time before finding something really good, but there are still some pearls of wisdom on the Hubspot blog.