Sales development has been called “the biggest trend in sales today.” Just a few months ago, Kristy Sharrow wrote on the LevelEleven blog, “It’s pretty simple: if you’re one of the cool kids, you’re talking about sales development. If you’re a sales leader at a high-growth company, especially in tech, you’re probably hiring for it.”

What is the top challenge facing your organization today regarding your sales team? If you said “training,” you are not alone. In the AA-ISP 2014 Top Challenges Report, sales leaders said training was their top issue, while sales reps ranked training as number two (after quantity/quality of leads).

As with workers in all other fields right now, salespeople need more training, and they need it now. Here are five sales training techniques that will help you prepare your sales teams for success.

Award-winning healthcare staffing firm uses new sales acceleration platform to save recruiters time and improve communication By PR Newswire

BOULDER, Colo., Jun. 16, 2015 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Healthcare staffing firms face a tough challenge: their prospective candidates work long hours and are not always available to take phone calls and respond to emails. To reach these candidates and streamline their communication efforts, leading healthcare staffing company, Delta Locum Tenens uses two-way sales texting platform TextUs.Biz.

How much time do your recruiters spend making phone calls and writing emails every day? How much of that time is spent just trying to get someone’s attention on the other end?

The answer is: too much.

Which one of these are you most like to respond to most quickly: voicemail, email, or text message?

Let me guess: you picked text message.

People are becoming less responsive to phone calls, voicemails, and emails.  However, they still read 98% of their text messages (90% within the first three minutes) and respond about 30% to 40% of the time.

For salespeople and recruiters, wasting time on unheard voicemails results in less sales for you or your team. Our clients find that two-way text messaging improves response rates by up to 20% and can save recruiters up to 83 minutes a day!

Here are three ways you can increase your sales with two-way text messaging.

Introducing the new and improved TextUs.Biz Groups and Broadcast Messages!  Based on some great customer feedback we’ve made some big improvements to the way you can send and manage Broadcast Messages directly from your Groups.

TextUs.Biz is better than ever with the latest launch of TextUs.Biz v2.0! We've always valued any and all feedback that our users have given us over the years and are happy to launch the latest updates based on the feedback we've received. With a focus on user experience, the new update has a fresh, modern look and newly added features.

In some industries, technology adoption may still be optional. But for sales and recruiting, it’s an absolute imperative. The average American now owns four digital devices and spends 60 hours per week consuming content on those devices. That’s more than a full-time job.

In this new tech-driven world, companies need equally tech-driven sales and recruiting processes. Consider these statistics:

• 35% to 50% of sales go to the vendor that responds first. (source)
• Reps who use social selling are 50% more likely to meet or exceed their sales quota than those who don’t. (source)
• 62% of job seekers browse for jobs on a mobile device. (source)
• 78% of people would apply for jobs using a mobile device if the process were easy. (source)

Posted by Karen Locke via Staffing Robot

97% of text messages are opened in the first five minutes after they are sent, according to Bullhorn (via Smashfly), so it’s no surprise that jobseekers are embracing mobile recruiting. You’ve probably noticed candidates haven’t been super excited about a ton of phone calls from you. This is because the average jobseeker isn’t using his or her phone to make phone calls anymore.

Text messages have a high open rate and the delivery method is fast. This means job seekers can act quickly on opportunities in a competitive market. If you’re a recruiter and you haven’t been tapping into this communication method, you may be missing out.

Our friends over at Staffing Robot have a great post on the disconnect of mobile thinking in staffing and recruiting.

According to Jobvite, despite 43% of job seekers using mobile in their job search, 59% of recruiters currently invest nothing in mobile career sites.

SAY WHAT? 59% of recruiters in this survey invest zero dollars?

Maybe you’ve been putting it off because you’ve heard that apps are expensive. You’re in luck because you don’t need an app! You need a responsive mobile site!

We're always looking to improve TextUs.Biz and now we've made it easy to send those texts you find yourself repeating over and over again. We're very excited to announce our newest feature, TextUs.Biz Message Templates! Here's a quick rundown of how it works.

The TextUs.Biz Resource Center is now available to help educate you and your team about the efficiency and power of business text messaging. We've assembled our resources in one place to make it easy to learn how to add SMS to your business communication.

It's a new year and with the continued emphasis being placed on the use of mobile devices within business communication, text messaging stands as a viable option that is under utilized in the business world. It's easily incorporated alongside other communication channels, and for many reasons is preferred by the end user. Recent studies analyzing the effectiveness of various communication channels have identified some key benefits of adding text messaging to your business communication.

TextUs.Biz™ is pioneering the first Business SMS 2.0 platform. We're adding personal two-way text messaging service to your existing business’ landline phone number!

SMS 2.0 is the natural and technological evolution of business text messaging by breaking away from impersonal, robotic, 5-digit, short-codes and harnessing the capability of the landlines and 800 numbers that businesses are already paying for and using for voice communication with their customers.

TextUs.Biz is now available in the Salesforce App Exchange!

Fully integrated with Salesforce CRM and Salesforce1 application, TextUs.Biz for Salesforce uses your existing landline phone number to send, receive, and log two-way text message conversations with your leads and opportunities.

• Send, receive and log your texts directly from within Salesforce

• Text messages are sent using your existing, 10-digit landline phone number

• Click-2-Text phone number reverse look-up to identify lead cell phone numbers

The TEXTCELLERATE™ team is out in San Francisco this week for Dreamforce 2014! We're out meeting with customers and looking to learn new ways to help you add SMS 2.0 to your sales tool box.