Sales is indisputably one of the most competitive arenas to earn a living in. With immense pressure to deliver, many new sales professionals don’t last their first year. However, there are very distinct skills that sales professionals can focus on developing that dramatically improve their chances of success. If you…...
What to Expect of Great Sales Leadership
“How do I build a great sales culture at my company?” I get that question often from small business owners. And what I always share is that it starts with your leaders. When hiring for sales leadership roles, you have to think well beyond just promoting an experienced account executive…...
6 Tips for Hiring Top Sales Performers in 2021
We can agree that having top sales talent is essential for the success of your business. But, the fact that the sales landscape has changed and evolved tremendously over the past decade, makes the already complex process of hiring the right people for the job even more challenging. No wonder…...
15 Things Every Great Sales Manager Knows
What do you consider the greatest job in the world? Maybe I'm biased, but I'm convinced I have that job. Why? Here’s what I do every day: Talk with people who are actively engaged in sharing important information with me Figure out what makes those people “tick” Work with sales…...
8 Hiring Mistakes to Avoid, According to Sales Managers
As the cheesy saying goes, there is no "I" in team. However, there are a few in "hiring mistake." Hire well and you’re more likely to have a high performing and happy team. Hire just one wrong person, commonly known as a "hiring mistake," and you’ll spend a lot of…...
How Much Do You Know About Sales Hiring? Three Steps to Hiring A-Players for Your Business
If you’re looking to add a top sales performer to your team that has the skills, knowledge, leadership, drive, values, and forward-thinking to help take your business to the next level, there are measures you can take to make sure you avoid common hiring pitfalls. Believe it or not, interviewing and hiring,…...
Leading Your Team to Success: 3 Key Competencies of a Sales Manager
What makes an effective sales manager? Acting as sales manager can be a difficult job because you wear two bulls-eyes: one on your front and one on your back. Your senior management is pushing for results, numbers, revenue, and profit. Your sales people are looking to you for guidance. At…...
Grow the Sales Division – By Improving Your Talent Pipeline
Quick quiz for sales leaders: Over the past three working days, how many total hours did you devote to expanding your pipeline of qualified sales applicants? If you’re like most of the leaders we talk to, the answer was either a small number, an embarrassed silence, or both. Deepening the…...
Don’t Waste Millions of Dollars on Bad Sales Hires
Making poor hiring decisions is expensive. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) suggests that replacing a bad hire costs 30 percent of their total compensation. Considering opportunity loss, I’ve seen replacement costs as high as a million per person in an enterprise B2B complex sales environment. That’s a painful reality.…...
4 Tips for Building an Awesome Team Culture
In a previous post I talked about how creating an awesome company culture has tremendous ROI in terms of increased profits, decreased turnover, higher goal attainment, and becoming a lightning rod for top talent…not to mention the amazing customer experience the results! So how can you go about creating an awesome culture in your team…...
Why You Should Shift Hiring Focus to Skills
When was the last time you reviewed the position description you use to hire sales reps for your organization? If it’s been awhile, you might want to consider rewriting the description to shift hiring focus to skills, instead of college degrees. That advice comes from Virginia Rometty, who stepped away from…...
How to win the war for sales talent
A high performing sales team is invaluable to a growing startup. Winning the most promising candidates is a cutthroat battle. It takes a lot more than a generous compensation package to get top candidates to accept your offer. You need to show them early on that they’re joining a company…...
15 Communication Skills That Are Crucial to Sales Success
Good communication is crucial to sales success. Sounds obvious, right? You can’t make a sale unless you’ve demonstrated value to a prospect. You can’t do that unless you’ve understood their problems and devised a strategy to solve them. In turn, you can’t do that until you get your prospect to tell you what’s wrong.…...
How to lead a sales team without micromanaging everyone
Managing people can be tough. Managing a sales team can be even more challenging with all the priorities, tasks, pressure from the C-Suite and the stress of hitting monthly or quarterly quotas. The most challenging part of the sales job is having the right balance between not enough or too…...
How to improve the performance of your sales team in 2020
No matter whether it is a small or prosperous company, everybody wants to sell more. But how to achieve that result? How to increase sales team performance? What techniques can be applied to sell more? Let’s have a look at this question in greater detail. What Is Sales Performance? This term means how…...
Why You Believe There Are No Good Salespeople
Entrepreneurs and leaders often complain that there are “no good salespeople” available in their market. Maybe you’ve muttered that yourself. But even if the salespeople you hired didn’t produce good results, the truth is that there are good salespeople in every market! As a leader, it’s your responsibility to attract them and get…...