Blog
Are you in a relationship?
January 15th, 2026
Not the romantic kind, the sales kind.
In January we’re all thinking about intentions and goals. And if you’re a business owner or salesperson, no doubt you’re thinking about getting those all-important sales for this year’s forecast.
Making sales means creating leads. And creating leads is about developing relationships, not just finding people who are ready to buy. Because by …
Planning a sales campaign – 6 crucial areas to consider
July 14th, 2025
Who will I target?It’s fine if you sell to everyone, but for a sales campaign, it’s good to target more specifically by segmenting your market. It makes campaigns easier and more effective if you choose a market and therefore your data, and messages to match. What you’re saying will become more compelling to your audience.
Data
Consider whether …
Does my mood matter to my sales results?
July 14th, 2025
If you have ever worked in sales, you’ve probably been told “smile when you dial”, but does it really matter? And if so, why?
Smiling can affect your vocal tone, which can be perceived by the person listening. When meeting face to face, it’s very natural to smile, to bring warmth and build rapport, and the same is necessary on …
What’s your name?
June 3rd, 2025
When you’re making sales calls and speaking with a receptionist, or a decision maker, it’s important to remember and use their name.
We all like hearing our name, as it shows that we’ve been heard, acknowledged and seen. Who doesn’t want to feel that?
If we want the receptionist to help us, for example, using their name is going to …
We’re all working on our external goals.
May 7th, 2025
Over the years, we’ve worked with many business owners and helped them with their sales objectives. During that time, alongside working with my own business and sales objectives, I worked with my inner state.
Everything we experience externally, we do so through our own inner world or state. And for most of us, we’re so focused on our outer experiences, …
Cre8 makes savings thanks to Black Country Chamber!
February 19th, 2025
Cre8 recently rejoined the Chamber and is already reaping the benefits.
As a business Cre8 has historically paid for insurance around Tax investigations, last year paying £396. With the support given by the Chamber, this service is now included in our membership and will not need to be purchased. The Chamber is a great investment as this proves.
We really …
Celebrating two years of Joy
November 20th, 2024
Meet Joy, our Super Researcher, who works away in the background, ensuring our client’s data is well researched, clean, and ready to go for effective sales campaigns.
Joy joined the Cre8 team back in October 2022, and helps us add real value to our sales services. She’s a bit like a private detective and helps either create new data for …
Sales – It’s not all about prospecting
November 14th, 2023
How often are you able to have the time to speak with your existing customers? For some companies the number of customers makes this very manageable, and for others, less so.
Ideally, we do need to take the time to regularly and actively seek feedback from our existing clients.
If you have ever measured the cost of new customer acquisition, …
Love, in sales? Really?
September 22nd, 2023
Love matters when it comes to selling more. Love and understanding, non judgment, accepting people and things as they are.
Disagreeing with people shuts them down, and brings defense into the situation. Feeling heard and understood opens people up. We all want to feel loved or at least liked, and accepted, we all know when someone isn’t giving us this, …
The Resilient Sales Professional: Navigating Challenges in B2B Sales
August 4th, 2023
In the fast-paced world of B2B sales, resilience is the key to success. It’s no secret that the journey to closing deals and nurturing long-term business relationships is filled with challenges and uncertainties. In this blog, we’ll explore the importance of resilience in B2B sales and how sales professionals can develop and harness this essential trait to overcome obstacles and …
Being you makes selling easy!
June 21st, 2023
People are incredibly good at sensing whether someone is genuine or not, and since it’s your job to build trust, in order to make sales, it’s an important area to think about.
It’s easy enough to say be genuine, but how many people really are? We’re taught how to behave, talk and be, and because of this, it’s inevitable that …
Why is sales like climbing a hill?
October 4th, 2022
Have you ever climbed a mountain or a large hill? You exert yourself, you keep going for a while before you have to stop, you’re out of puff, you stop, rest, look up, see how much further you have to go, and once you have your breath back, you set off again. Sometimes you feel like you can’t go any …
Our newest member…
September 7th, 2022
Our newest member…Today we’ve welcomed the newest member of the Cre8 team on board, Jake Smith! We’re really proud to be a local family business, and look forward to seeing Jake grow and develop with us. Jake will be working on developing Cre8 new business, and looks forward to meeting business owners who we can help with their sales …
If you build it, they will come…
July 26th, 2022
If you build it, they will come…One of our clients recently had a response to an email and call, made many months previously, finally saying, “Hi, you called recently, I’d like to discuss this please, because we need XYZ”.
It took a few months, and when we’d researched this data and called, whilst we knew it was a good …
What’s a good prospect?
June 21st, 2022
What’s a good lead generation target?“This is such a great prospect, we could really help them because of x, y and z”
This month we’re talking about what really matters when it comes to finding good companies to target. Because no matter how much you can help a company, a good target or suspect, needs to be contactable.
If …
Consistency and persistence
May 6th, 2022
If it was quick and easy to generate sales leads, Cre8 Sales Solutions probably would not be in existence. There is no magic wand, how many times we must have said that over the years! As it is, we’ve been helping all types of businesses generate new sales leads and opportunities for almost twelve years. We never label sales as …
Making it easy
March 7th, 2022Can we make sales easy? Will finding sales leads and making sales calls ever be easy? I’ve found that the more comfortable I’ve become with myself, the easier everything is. People really go out of their way to help me, and as a result, I generate more leads for myself and my clients. Sometimes it feels like they just arrive; …
Empathy, the sales person’s super power!
January 25th, 2022
According to the Psychology centred website www.verywellmind.com “An empath is a person highly attuned to the feelings and emotions of those around them”.No one wants to feel bad about themselves or less than the person they’re talking with, so when you’re selling to someone or engaged in sales conversations, it’s important to have this in mind. This comes really …
Calling compliance, how it helps us all
December 13th, 2021
As a telemarketing company, we’ve been calling B2B for 11 years, so calling compliance is of course a fundamental part of our processes, ensuring we adhere to regulatory requirements, keeping our clients and us safe. And, crucially, not making sales calls to people who don’t want to be called.
Legislation states that all telephone numbers must be screened every 28 …
How do you start a sales call? 7 things to remember.
November 9th, 2021
A colleague of mine, an expert in marketing, recently received a sales call. Nothing new there, we all get them every day. But this one irked him somewhat. Given that he has a good understanding of sales and marketing, he’s pretty sympathetic to callers, but still felt a bit disgruntled by the call. Because of around 10 seconds, and one …
When you’re afraid of hearing no
September 6th, 2021
When you’re afraid of hearing no, it can stop you from reaching out to people whether that’s in person or on the telephone. It can be quite a subtle fear, hidden and difficult to spot. But if you or your telesales team procrastinate when calling, or do other things instead of picking up the phone, it may be that there’s …
When your biggest challenge is just getting hold of someone…
July 29th, 2021
….you have to pull out all the stops, to make impossible, possible.
In a busy and often digital world, the landscape of sales has changed dramatically. How do you make an initial contact with someone you really want to do business with, who’s rarely at their desk or busy in meetings?
#1 Do your research, first of all, knowing who …
Business calls and sales calls, what’s the difference?
July 2nd, 2021
Each and every business is looking for some kind of success, albeit success means different things to each of us. Whatever it looks like for you, part of that success is likely to involve winning new business and customers. And this will involve sales in some form or another.
Reaching out to contacts, colleagues, prospects, targets, lists of data, ideally …
Why telemarketing won’t work if you’re doing these things…
April 21st, 2021Does telemarketing still work? Often, when it doesn’t, there are two fundamental reasons; do you want to know what they are?
In most cases, it’s either because –
You’re not using the right data. Either your list is too small, or you’ve got the wrong decision makers, the companies on the list are not a fit for your market…Outsourcing: Trusting your brand in someone else’s hands
February 15th, 2021It does represent a leap of faith to engage with an external organisation to help you promote your brand. Whether you’re outsourcing marketing, sales, business development, or some other form of support, you’ll want to feel as confident as possible that the company you choose is aligned with your values, and crucially, that you can trust them to represent you …
Using active listening to improve sales results.
January 11th, 2021Have we lost the art of really listening? How would this impact our sales results, and our ability to effectively communicate? As sales people this is our most important tool. Productivity, effort, motivation and determination, marketing, all have a part to play in our results, but all of them require us to have great communication at the heart of our …
To CRM or not – are you using yours effectively?
December 8th, 2020
Why do we need one? We won’t bore you with stats, but it has been shown that it takes more than one point of contact to convert a sale, so a tool to keep track and keep in touch is imperative if we want to ensure we’re making the most of our sales and business development activity. Wikipedia says “Customer …
How to build a telesales team…
November 3rd, 2020We know that some of you are pivoting and changing direction, many are launching ahead with new plans and products and wondering how to get those sales made.
Outsourcing your sales team can be a good option if you want total flexibility and don’t want to manage sales people, but it’s not for everyone, so if you’re looking to build …
Is the glass half empty, or half full?
October 5th, 2020Is there no point calling, because more people are working at home, or are there more opportunities, because less companies are carrying out their usual sales activities?
Will no one be available, or actually, will more now be available, as people are more open to talking, with increased abilities to receive calls wherever they are?
One thing is certain, there …
Transitioning and transformations…
July 13th, 2020What a few months it’s been, many of us have been pushed well and truly out of our comfort zones, and are having to adapt to new ways of working, challenges and opportunities.
Listening to the good news and the bad, we can see clearly that the businesses doing well are those who were either already ahead of the curve …
Be your own cheerleader!
May 11th, 2020It’s Monday, it’s still a lockdown, and we still don’t know what the future holds. Whether you’re an entrepreneur or employee, we’ve got to keep ourselves in the right frame of mind to manage our circumstances. So often we speak to ourselves in a way we could not imagine speaking to a good friend. We focus on what we haven’t …
Less is more
March 16th, 2020If you were to read the play MacBeth, without any punctuation, the meaning, if you could understand it at all, would be very different. If you were to read almost anything, without any punctuation, it would be confusing, possibly stressful, and not very enjoyable.
Many of us are living lives without punctuation, going from one busy activity to the next, …
The value of communication between a supplier and their customer.
January 8th, 2020Could you imagine employing a new member of staff, and then sitting them in a little room, with only a very occasional email, your website and a staff handbook, for company? Yet at times, in effect, this is how we work with suppliers! We are so busy, busy, busy, that emails pass us by, calls are not returned and suppliers …
7 ways to motivate your sales teams…
November 27th, 2019We want our sales teams to get good results, so we set them targets and benchmarks. Psychologists say that “in order for a person to reach their highest potential, they must be held in consistently high regard”. The reality is that they’re going to have days when results are not apparent, and it will be tempting to look at all …
Stop talking about yourself
November 7th, 2019It’s tempting and rather normal to go onto a sales call or into a meeting, and feel we need to immediately get into selling ourselves.
You know the sales call that involves a lengthy pitch, where you the customer, struggle to get a word in edge-ways? Or the meeting where the supplier doesn’t ask you a thing, and talks A …
Now and Then
August 30th, 2019In the summer of 1995 we were listening to Mr Boombastic by Shaggy and Country House by Blur. We were watching Apollo 13 and Toy Story on the Big screen and cheese strings and potato smiles were new to our palettes!
A lot’s changed since 1995, we’ve grown, we’ve evolved, we’ve changed with the times and so has how we’ve …
A day in the life of a Cre8 Sales Account Manager
July 10th, 2019We thought we’d share with you just what exactly goes into one of our sales campaigns; it’s not all about dialling the phone and hoping for the best!
It all starts with a cuppa of course ;), and maybe some team conversation about the plan and objectives being worked on for the client that day. We always put our heads …
Eeeek! They’ve got a no names policy….
May 9th, 2019Since GDPR was introduced we’ve had a lot of questions about how it affects us when calling people, the answer being, it doesn’t! But one thing that does come into play more and more often these days, is switchboards who say “We’ve got a no names policy”. It’s understandable with data protection and GDPR, along with staff not wanting to …
What’s your sales process?
November 7th, 2018How often do you review the steps you take from meeting a prospect, through to quoting and on to conversions? Do you spend a lot of time quoting, and wonder why conversions seem difficult to achieve? Are you giving away your knowledge for free before you even get to close a sale? Your sales process is a fundamental tool, so …
Dealing with challenges
October 4th, 2018“I’m fine, yeah really busy, everything is good”. It’s the standard response we all give, asked about life or business, but is it always true?
Around 3 years in to the business, we suffered some serious peaks and troughs in work levels and wondered at times where the salaries were coming from. We’ve had numerous personal challenges just as everyone …
Selling more simply by being your authentic self.
September 7th, 2018When you’re in business it can be easy but distracting to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others. We may end up feeling that imitation is the way forward or that one way is the only way for success to follow. It’s actually a difficult route that is far from easy and makes the journey rather more of …
Myth busting…summer’s not a good time to call
August 14th, 2018Time to bust a common myth. There’s no point calling or trying to sell to people during July and August / the summer / school holidays. Really? Are we seriously saying that the world stops turning because the kids have broken up from school? Is there ever a good time to call?
The core service from Cre8 Sales is lead …
Agreeing and managing expectations – why does this matter in sales?
July 3rd, 2018If we said to you we’d make 3 sales in July for your business, how happy would you be? Probably quite happy. If those sales then turned out to be one off, low value, transactional sales, then you’d likely be feeling a little deflated. If you agree what the sales should look like, you both know where you’re aiming.
When …
It ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it!
June 13th, 2018We love this blog from Hubspot that summarises the 7 Habits of highly effective people by Stephen R Covey.
Over the past 8 years we have thrown ourselves into lots of personal development and truly appreciate that for anything to change in our lives and our business we must first change ourselves.
The book opens with an explanation of how …
Getting more leads, is it easy or not?
May 8th, 2018Last month at Cre8 one of our Account Managers generated 5 leads for one client alone, and we generated 6 leads for our own business, amidst a number of leads for other clients. None of this was rocket science nor especially difficult, and yet what we hear from businesses time and again is how hard it is to find new …
Does being nice have a place in your sales teams?
April 17th, 2018There are a lot of negative ideas about sales people, and the sales profession in general.
I’m guessing you’ve experienced the sales people who:
Talk at you and don’t listen or ask you any questions Won’t take no for an answer Go straight from hello to sales pitch without drawing breath Haven’t done their research Want to sell you something…Should I employ someone or outsource?
March 12th, 2018When we were recruiting recently two of us each spent in excess of 3 hours per week during the 6 week long process. In terms of our business that adds up to 36 hours, or 4-5 days! Add to that the induction process, 1 day, training and team meetings, 1 day per month, HR requirements – 0.5 day a month …
Bums on seats and a pipeline of leads….
February 19th, 2018We know a lot of business owners who’ve tried telemarketing and appointment making and found it very difficult to get a worthwhile return on investment. Typically these kind of businesses are operating in competitive markets where they’re either competing against an existing relationship, or the prospects receive A LOT of cold calls from their industry so they’re hard to win …
SEO – love it or hate it?
January 15th, 2018SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is something businesses will spend a lot of money on in 2018, and many have allocated large budgets. For some industries SEO is easier than others, but we all need to plan our own activity to impact how Google sees our websites.
We’ve recently spoken with a few people with differing views on Google +, some …
Is it networking, or not working? 8 tips for powerful networking.
December 7th, 2017When’s the last time you said, or heard someone say “Well, I went along but I didn’t get anything from it” about a networking event. When is the last time someone at a networking event told you all about themselves, and didn’t ask about you?
Do you feel confident to network? Sometimes the most confident of people can feel a …
