Being in sales requires being an optimist.  Regular rejection and the pressure of hitting your numbers means you have to believe in what you are doing.  Keeping your salespeople optimistic is a must and relying on their predictions of sales revenue requires some filtering.

Nobody told me I’d have to generate my own leads!

Hi Does Your Sales Leadership Team Provide consistent Coaching & Mentoring For Your Sales Team?

I have been truly humbled in my career, by working with and for amazing sales leaders. Even today in my sales consulting firm, Sales Result inc., I am constantly amazed at how these amazing individuals, men and women,  exhibit these behaviors and assets. I have not included in this blog assets like honesty, values, proven skills, trust, leadership and communication. I will leave these for another time. 

As we all know and probably experienced in our career, there is a lot of sales training programs out there in the market place. We typically sit in a room for hours or sometimes days listening to an instructor tell you how to close more deals or improve a certain skillset. . 

One of my early experiences was with a company called Lanier. At the time we were selling a new concept for the B2B marketplace. The training was rigorous, why. They demanded that each of us trainees, could do an effective cold call, effective 1st meeting, effective discovery meeting, demo, solution presentation and close. It was "intense" to say the least. But it worked and I was very successful because of that rigor of sales certification that I implemented into my daily work life. 

When hiring or recruiting talented sales people, hiring managers generally tend to look for someone who’s outgoing, confident, and fearless. These people are great on the phone and in meeting. They ask educated questions and get the close—if they enter a meeting with a prospect, they leave one step closer to closing a client.

Cliff is not your top sales performer. A “C” player at best, Cliff rarely makes his quota. And he never tries to improve. Cliff seems perfectly happy with the status quo, which bothers you as a sales leader whose younger years were spent as a hungry sales rep, always innovating your approach and working hard to exceed your own number. To top it all off, if Cliff could just up his numbers by 10%, it would help your branch move to second place in your company.

According to a new study conducted by Sales Mastery, sub-optimal sales management coaching is the top barrier impacting an organization’s ability to reach 2018 revenue targets.

I've learned countless lessons as Sales Result's CEO, some the result of great decision-making, others from making mistakes. Fifteen years later, I use these learnings to coach sales leaders to be the best version of themselves. Today's blog features five key points that I incorporate into every executive coaching engagement, and that I believe are incredibly important for any CEO or sales leader to remember.