Consider these stats [i]:

• In the U.S., average turnover in sales is between 20% to 30% annually. This means that for many firms, the equivalent of the entire sales team must be hired, trained, and socialized every 3 – 5 years.
• Depending upon the position, it now takes 3-4 months to hire a salesperson and,  once hired, getting to full productivity takes more than 9 months. That is more than a year without a fully productive seller, and each hire becomes a sunk cost for a longer time while a bad hire is very costly.

Hiring in sales is often more expensive than many companies’ cap­ex decisions, but typically treated with less rigour than purchasing software. How can you get better at this core task?

First, recognize the challenges inherent in sales hiring:

Unlike many other business functions, there is no easily identified resource pool or educational priors for sales positions.

If you’re looking for an engineer, you can go to an engineering school and find people who have studied engineering. For an accountant, finance person or software developer, you can find majors in those subjects. But few colleges and universities have sales programs or even a sales course. Yet, it’s estimated that more than 50% of graduates (in U.S. colleges) will work in sales at some point in their careers, regardless of their major.

Hence, most salespeople start with little preparation and must learn by doing on the job. And selling jobs vary greatly depending on the product or service sold, the customers a salesperson is responsible for, and the relative importance of technical knowledge during sales calls.

In dealing with these hiring challenges, here are two common mistakes to avoid:

(1) Hunters versus Farmers

Sales roles are far more diverse than that cliched dichotomy. Consider the difference between reps who sell direct to customers versus those who sell thru channel partners, those who work in highly automated inside sales models focused on SMB prospects versus those who call on enterprise accounts, those who sell individual products versus a bundled package solution, or those who sell multi­year software license agreements versus monthly SAAS contracts.

The Hunter/Farmer dichotomy is of little use in setting hiring criteria between those roles. In fact, hunters and farmers are, in my experience, usually used by managers as after-the-fact rationalisations for their hiring choices, not ex­-ante hiring criteria. Make sure your managers have relevant criteria before they make an offer, not just when they try to justify the decision.

(2) Chasing Stars

Talent matters and differences in individual sales performance are typically very wide in most firms. The top 20% of salespeople often account for ­60% of company revenues.

If 20% of your salespeople are making 60% of revenue, that’s a 3X multiplier; and since the remaining 80% bring in only 40% of revenue, the top sellers are 6X more productive than their peers. Sales is like other creative occupations where the stardom phenomenon is well documented. In areas like software programming, the arts, sports and others, the best are typically a lot better than the average. Performance profiles in those areas are (in statistics jargon) a “power distribution curve,” not a normal­ distribution bell curve.

However, stardom is not easily portable because it typically depends upon firm-specific qualities and resources—e.g., brand, training, team chemistry, and other factors—as well as individual capabilities. [ii] This is especially true in sales where tasks are determined by a firm’s business strategy and choices about which customers to focus on.

In turn, selling behaviours are affected by your control systems, culture and how you hire. Those are all firm­-specific factors and, when you hire someone from another firm, they leave all of that behind. Talk to the corporation who hires the high performing star from a competitor and finds that she does not perform the same way she performed there. Or consider startups who bring in an experienced big­ company rep and he flounders in the early-stage firm. Those people didn’t suddenly get stupid or lose individual capabilities. In business, there’s no such thing as performance in the abstract. There is only performance in each context—here, not there—and much of selling depends upon the relationships, knowledge, and mutual trust that the rep establishes with others in his or her company.

Sales is a performance art and salespeople exhibit a wide range in performance outcomes. Those outcomes depend upon innate talent as well as the context in which that talent is nurtured and deployed. Further, the effects of talent management are cumulative as people learn from each other. Reps get better by watching how the best of their peers perform key tasks. They pick up lessons about how to pitch, answer objections, and other aspects of selling that product at that price in that market.

Here are 4 tips for screening and hiring high performing sales professionals:

(1) Hire for the Task

Effective hiring starts with knowing what you need. Sales tasks are determined by buying contexts which differ greatly by industry. In computers and electronics, channel management is a key capability, but not in metals and mining. In the former, the products are often part of a package that customers buy at one-stop-shop intermediaries; in the latter sectors, direct bulk buys are the norm. Account management skills are important in chemicals where managing a portfolio of specialty and commodity products is a key sales task, but not so much in electronics where channel partners often perform account management tasks.

Every sales job has implicit required behaviours. Take the time to clarify and make that explicit in your job postings. When companies focus on the tasks, not job titles, the relevant labour pool typically expands. Coding boot camps, for instance, are now an accepted source of software talent because after a few months of task focused work the participants have job relevant skills without (and often despite) previous formal degrees. The same is true in sales. Relevant talent comes in all shapes and sizes but is dependent upon the job to be done, not some abstract ideal of undifferentiated selling skills.

(2) Avoid Behaviourally Useless Cliches

Ask sales managers what they’re looking for in candidates and you typically get lists of cliches like Sense of Urgency, Passion, Motivated by Money, Work Ethic, Coachability, Emotional Resilience, Communication Skills, Listening, Integrity, Humility, Efficiency, Commitment to Succeed, and so on.

These traits are behaviourally useless for doing what a hiring process must do: say yes or no to an individual applicant for a given job. When you’re speaking with someone at an interview, how do you unearth whether they have a “sense of urgency”? One author says, “Look for answers around impatience and 4th quarter comebacks.” Really? Confusing this stuff with job skills and evaluations is a waste of time and resources. In a job interview, who would not want to come across as hardworking, resourceful, efficient, and so on?

You’re hiring the person and not the interview version of the person. But only about a third of companies monitor whether their hiring practices lead to good employees or track cost per hire. Another problem with these lists is the assumption that a salesperson needs all of those qualities to be effective. However, it’s often advisable to shrink the span of sales activities. This requires understanding where the salesperson (versus marketing, service, or a customer success team) has the most influence. In many inside sales models, activities like lead generation and qualification are the jobs of Sales Development Reps (SDRs) and renewals are given to service personnel. This allows the firm to focus more precisely on recruiting for Account Executive roles where product demonstrations, pricing, and closing the sale with a multifunctional buying unit are the key tasks.

(3) Complement Interviews with Behavioural Assessments

Decades of research consistently show that managers overrate their ability to predict someone’s performance and fit for job tasks on the basis of a few interviews. Correlations between interview ratings and job success vary from about 0.1 to 0.4 — less than the 50/50 odds of a coin toss. [iii] In fact, some studies show a negative correlation between interview assessments and subsequent job performance: the firm would have been better-off selecting at random!

Judging a person’s fit for a sales job is, in most circumstances, a complex task. It involves evaluating the relevance of past experience, personality, fit with the culture, and so on. But people are inconsistent in making summary judgments of complex information, so always get multiple opinions and perspectives in evaluating candidates. Doing multiple assessments also often motivates people in your firm to discuss and communicate the tasks you’re hiring for and the questions and activities likely to elicit relevant skills. Conversely, this approach provides the interviewee with a better basis to judge fit.

Then, complement interviews with role plays, task assignments and, whenever possible, internship type hiring scenarios. Selling is about behaviour. Job performance from one time period to the next correlates at a much higher rate than interviews. So probationary periods are better predictors of actual performance. Meanwhile, technology is increasing options for behavioural assessments via game-like activities, video, and online media.

(4) Assume Mistakes Will Happen

Sales hiring requires judging people’s future performance in a changing market environment. Mistakes are inevitable, but the sunk cost fallacy—continuing to throw good money after bad—is not.

Consider Amazon’s policy of offering a voluntary severance package called “The Offer.” Annually, each service and warehouse employee are offered up to $5,000 to quit. The policy helps to deal with inevitable mistakes—by the hirer or the person hired—and with the reality that people change and their relationship to their work can change with marriage, divorce, sickness, the need to take care of an aging parent, or any of the other natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Amazon believes “The Offer” helps it shed less-committed employees while improving retention among others. [iv]

Sales reps represent your company to customers and prospects. A poor hire is not only costly but can also do collateral damage to your brand. It’s worth your time and effort to improve your sales hiring criteria and process.

Frank Cespedes teaches at Harvard Business School and is the author of six books. This article is adapted from Sales Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing. Published by Harvard Business Review Press.

[i] See Boris Groysberg, Chasing Stars: The Myth of Talent and the Portability of Performance (Princeton University Press).

[ii] For a review of this research, see Jason Dana, Robyn Dawes, and Nathaniel Peterson, “Belief in the Unstructured Interview: The Persistence of an Illusion,” Judgment and Decision Making 8, no. 5: 512-520. 

[iii] For a review of this research, see Jason Dana, Robyn Dawes, and Nathaniel Peterson, “Belief in the Unstructured Interview: The Persistence of an Illusion,” Judgment and Decision Making 8, no. 5: 512-520. 

[iv] Alana Samuels, “Why Amazon Pays Some of Its Workers to Quit,” The Atlantic:  https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/amazon-offer-pay-quit/553202/.

The post Valuable Tips for Improving Sales Hiring appeared first on Head Of Sales.

While I had always been a reader, during my recovery, I started reading a book a day. I told my neurologist that I was sure my brain was making new neural pathways and that it was on fire. He listened patiently and then told me there was no evidence that my theory was accurate and that it was more likely I was compensating for losing a significant part of my brain. We didn’t yet fully understand neuroplasticity, and it turns out both of us may have been correct.

At some point, I started picking up books on sales and business. The first book I stumbled upon was SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham. If you heard my story behind my book, The Lost Art of Closing, it was the three pages where Rackham described “the advance” as a key to success in sales. Once I understood I needed a commitment for another meeting, selling got quite a bit easier. I wrote a list of questions for each part of the SPIN model and started to work towards Implications (clumsily, I might add) and needed payoffs.

The book was so helpful that I picked up Major Account Sales Strategy, Rackham’s second book—and in some ways, his better book. I had been winning large accounts in California, but I didn’t have a very strategic view or a process. Mostly I just called on people who spent a lot of money in my category. Major Account Sales Strategy provided me with frameworks for thinking about big deals. I eventually read everything Rackham wrote and multiple times.

One book I picked up appeared to be new, but it was quite old at the time I picked it up. The book was Consultative Selling by Mack Hanan. Parts of the book were difficult for me, but what I learned that was useful was Hanan’s idea that you shift the conversation away from price to the increased profit the client will make by adopting your solution. The application of this idea made it easier for me to start sharing the soft costs my clients were not calculating in their overall costs.

The Miller Heiman books were both beneficial, The New Strategic Selling and The New Conceptual Sale. The first had me looking at stakeholders differently, even though the evolution of my thought here shows up very differently in Eat Their Lunch, which you might expect since 34 years have passed since they first published Strategic Selling. I don’t remember New Conceptual as well, but I remember it caused me to take sales calls seriously enough to plan them.

I read all of Stephen Covey’s work before my brain surgery, and even those books were not on sales, they caused me to recognize I had to improve who I was before I could improve my sales results. They also led me to read a lot more books on business improvement.

Some books that were not sales-related on their face were valuable to me. One of those books was Tom Peter’s Circle of Innovation, a book that made me think deeply about differentiation and allowed me to put technological solutions long before my larger competitors could do so, grabbing a competitive advantage in big deals. Another was Michael Hammer’s The Agenda: What Every Business Must Do to Dominate the Decade. From this work, I took the idea that my business existed to take care of its customers. I started to present how what I did for my clients helped them serve their customers. Pondering that idea for a while is an excellent way to get better at selling.

One of the more useful and transformative books I read was Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play by Mahan Khalsa. The ideas and the dialogue in this book massively improved my ability to have conversations about the changes the customer would have to make to produce the results they needed.

There were hundreds of other books on sales and business I read, all of which had some value, even if I didn’t recognize it right away. These few were core to my development and the ones I remember as changing my sales results.

The post The Books That Taught Me How to Sell appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Some would look at the lists and use external factors to explain why less than fifty percent of salespeople fail to achieve their targets. They would be wrong to believe that things like buyers giving salespeople less time, or needing consensus, cause their poor results.

Salespeople and sales organisations struggle because they haven’t changed their sales approach to address the new realities and challenges of selling effectively. It’s not external; it’s internal.

The Limits of Your Perception

The fundamentals of selling are durable, and they don’t change very much over time. Things like prospecting, closing, negotiation, good questioning techniques, and differentiating yourself and your offering will always be part of selling. Over time, these things evolve, even if you do not recognise the evolution and even if you choose not to respond.

Recently, a sales leader told me about a person on his team who walked into a customer’s office and opened his catalogue to show the prospective client their new offerings. The salesperson is an order-taker in a world that belongs to value creators, something his sales leader knows to be true. You might not be using an approach that is as outdated as this one, but there are other areas where you need to update your traditional methods.

Prospecting Problems

Now, one of the most challenging outcomes in sales is gaining the first meeting. It’s always been difficult, but over time, their companies ask more of them, and they are less willing to meet with salespeople whom, they suspect, will waste their time. Much of the response to this trend has been the exact opposite of what is useful, believing that technology will improve results. This approach is the same as yelling at someone who doesn’t understand what you are saying, thinking that relentlessly repeating yourself but louder, is the key to changing their mind.

To improve your prospecting results, you need to change your approach by improving your value proposition for the meeting, offering your contacts a meeting that they will benefit from even if they never work with you. You make prospecting much more difficult without an approach that allows you to create value in the first call, one that provides your contact with a higher resolution lens through which to see their business and decision.

It’s an “old school” to use the phone, but it is still the best way to attend a meeting. It’s a “new school” to have an unassailable value proposition that improves your effectiveness on the phone.

Too Many Stakeholders

Another difficult challenge is avoiding the “no decision” that follows when the contacts and stakeholders in a company struggle to agree to move forward. Certain words project that a salesperson has a limited perception of the problem, like suggesting that the single contact they have been working with will be the sole decision-maker. The story concludes with a phone call from the contact, informing the salesperson that the decision-makers have decided to go in another direction.

There is every reason to believe that you are missing stakeholders, that you are going to have to work to acquire them, and that some will be opposed to the change you are helping to create. It’s also likely true that your primary contact will fear losing control of things once people express their opinions and needs.

It’s an “old school” to acquire a stakeholder in leadership who will support your initiative, which will always be helpful. It’s a “new school” approach to develop an approach to identifying the stakeholders necessary to a deal, the buying committee, and understand how to approach consensus building.

Being of Value

One of the mistakes we sometimes make in sales is loading up the sales force with so much product knowledge and technical information that their competency around pitching the product exceeds their ability to sell effectively. At some large sales kickoff meetings where I have spoken, the sales force might be required to attend five sessions on the product without a single workshop on sales skills. The emphasis on the solution can cause you to believe the solution is the value you offer.

For a salesperson to serve their clients, they have to know more about where their client’s company and their company come together. The client will always know more about their business than the salesperson, but the salesperson should still know more about the decision they are helping the client make. When you help people decide every day, and those same people make the decision infrequently, you must be the expert.

The solution is not the value you create in the sales conversation you are having with your clients. Your insights, experience, approach, and ability to provide new potential and new opportunities make up the value you provide; this is also what creates a preference to buy from you. Your solution is how you execute the advice you provide to your clients, which is an important distinction.

Selling is going to continue to evolve—maybe more than other areas of business. If you are not actively working on getting better, you are getting worse. Don’t let the limits of your perception be the limits of your results.

The post Get Better At Selling, Or You Will Get Worse appeared first on Head Of Sales.

In his bestselling book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcom Gladwell wrote about the average number of hours an individual needs to become an expert in their chosen field. The 10,000-hour rule of “achievement [equals] talent plus preparation” has entered popular culture as the key to success in a field. Does this apply with sales? Yes. As sales leaders, we spend time coaching, mentoring, and developing our teams to ensure we give them the best possible opportunity for success.

I was never in the military. The closest I came to be was attending the Air Cadets with some friends from high school a few times. It wasn’t the most inspirational experience, as far as I could see it involved static drill and marching in formation for hours on end. Sometime later, one of those friends graduated from the Royal Military College in our nation’s capital. I distinctly remember that cold Canberra morning as the passing out parade occurred. My memory is of a dignified ceremony, a grand spectacle, an excellent brass band and the cadets all resplendent and beautifully drilled.

How many hours of rehearsal did it take to perfect those marches? Numerous.

The lesson for salespeople is simple, to be the best, practice is critical. Each step in a sales process has multiple intricacies and ensuring your team performs to their best level at every step along the way is critical. Like military cadets learning a quick step, we need to assess our processes and examine the skills and capabilities of each individual team member to home in on development opportunities.

In Learning and Development, we use various methods of practice, rehearsal, role-playing, and discussion to effect skills and competency development, and reinforce a sales training program. Educational theory gives us significant insights into the importance of practice to excel in skills, Psychologist Anders Ericsson famously studied violin students at the Music Academy of West Berlin. By the age of 20, the top performers had practiced an average of 10,000 hours; the good violinists an average of 8,000 hours and the least able only 4,000 hours. Gladwell took this research further. And though some have claimed flaws in his methodology, the key premise is the importance of practice. Is 10,000 hours a magical number? No, but it emphasises the fact that for most of us, natural skills and abilities are developed and improved upon through hard work, practice and skilful coaching and mentoring.

Is there a nature vs nurture debate in the world of sales development and enablement? Do some people just have the “it” factor? What does a successful salesperson look like? These are all important and powerful questions. Businesses I have been part of have attempted to analyse and theorise the ideal salesperson. In reality, it is near impossible to visualise and find the so-called “perfect” salesperson. Rather, an investment in an individual’s development to enhance certain skills is a far better strategy.

Let’s review three skills that can be taught, practiced and measured; questioning skills, social selling and product knowledge.

Learning how to ask relevant and salient questions is a skill that can be taught. The ability to learn when to ask an open-ended question or to seek clarification through a closed question is one such example.

Social selling, whilst it may cause fear and trepidation for some, is a skill that a sales professional can learn. Appropriate posting, commenting and engaging is a proven method for prospecting, rapport building and client engagement.

Finally, product knowledge. Learning the features, functionality and competitive benefits of the product or service you sell is of vital importance and builds credibility and confidence when dealing with a client.  An individual salesperson can practice all these skills again and again, and they all can be assessed and measured.

Though a salesperson may never achieve the 10,000 hours of practice on anyone of these, they can develop a degree of proficiency, expertise and fluency in that skill.

As sales leaders, how do we enforce practice and make it part of an ongoing professional development program?

Here are three practical scenarios you can implement immediately:

1. Understand the term, deliberate practice.

That is, when a sales professional is guided by an expert, skilled coach, or mentor, “someone with an expert eye,” as bestselling author Daniel Goleman would be inclined to say. Poor practice results in poor results. When coaching an individual in a prospecting scenario, for example, begin by asking three questions – Who are you calling? Why are you calling them? How are you going to open the conversation? Then ask the rep to practice their opening line, if it is not to an acceptable standard, have them practice again. By the time they make the call they are informed, confident and prepared. Is that a significant investment in time a for a leader? Yes. But once the mindset changes to follow this method the rep will instinctively follow these steps prior to picking up the phone.

2. Role Playing after micro-learning session.

Learn a new skill, competency or method and then rehearse. Enable your team to implement a skill immediately after it has been championed. Run the training, have the salesperson reflect on it and then immediately put it into practice. The power of practicing immediately after a new skill is learned is critical in slowing the forgetfulness curve. It also helps in the accumulation of a skillset. Proficiency is achieved in one area and then another is piled on until a full customer engagement scenario is explained, practiced and internalised.

3. Build a cohesive “we-are-all-sales” organisation.

Use real customers, other leaders within the business or members from non-sales teams to accentuate reality and to ensure that salespeople can communicate and practice with a wide variety of personality types and business roles. There is an additional benefit for other leaders within a business (think finance, ops and marketing), as this method provides greater insight into the daily experience of a salesperson’s life and builds a more cohesive “we-are-all-sales” organisation.

The motivational sales guru Grant Cardone, frequently espouses the mantra to Practice, Drill, and Rehearse. Practice cannot be simply repetition or rehearsing with obvious errors. It needs to be deliberate, guided by a coach or mentor, corrected where necessary. As we know from education if a fundamental step has not been grasped, go back to the basics and build up to that higher level of proficiency. If a member of the military learned a quick step march incorrectly, then on that Canberra morning there would have been an obvious flaw that would have stood out to the assembled crowd. We don’t want our sales people to be robotic, but we do want to give them the best possible chance to succeed in a competitive environment and to provide clients with the best possible engagement experience.

“It’s not necessarily the amount of time you spend at practice that counts; it’s what you put into the practice.” … Eric Lindros (professional ice hockey player)

The post 10,000 Hours Of Sales appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Every week, a new episode is released as we hear from global sales and social experts who share their very best social strategies and plays. We scour the globe looking for those who do a great job with their social plays and bring them and their ideas directly to you.

In every episode, there is at least one thing you can take immediate action on that will make a difference to your LinkedIn and digital selling approach.

Here are this month’s top selections for you.

3 Rules For Going Viral On LinkedIn.

Daniel Hochuli is LinkedIn’s head of content, APAC and China. He works with LinkedIn’s most strategic clients, big name brands such as IBM, Lamborghini, PwC, Johnson & Johnson, Audi, Philips, Pfizer and many more.

Who doesn’t want their content to go viral?

In this episode, Daniel shares with us the 3 keys to increasing the virility of your content to ensure as many people see your content as possible.

Great insights from someone who helps the best brands get their message out on social.

Sales Leaders why your LinkedIn profile says you’re FAT, DUMB and LAZY. – James Michael.

If you’re a sales leader, business owner or entrepreneur you probably don’t realise how much damage your LinkedIn profile is actually doing to your business.

You might think,

“I’m not using LinkedIn to reach out to start conversations or to support my business growth. Why does it matter”

 James Michael, from Justified Talent, tells us you’re probably driving the best sales recruits away from you and your business and you don’t even know it.

If you intend hiring anyone this year you should check out this podcast so you know what NOT to DO.

How to secure meetings, right now, from the UKs Top 10 SDR – Nia Woodhouse.

Nia is an SDR with coaching platform Refract. Nia spends her days trying to get people to take meetings with her Account Executive team.
 
Nia Woodhouse has just been awarded by Sales Confidence, as one of the TOP 10 SDR’s, in the entire UK.  

In this show, Nia shares her exact outreach strategy, how she uses LinkedIn to open doors to client conversations and a little about her cadence. All the tactics that made her a top 10 performer. 

One of the cool things we learnt is NIA is using voice notes on LinkedIn early in her outreach to create 90% conversation rate. 

If you’re an SDR, a BDM or you just need to find a way to talk to more customers NIA shares what’s working right now. You could do a lot worse than simply follow her lead here.

Automation in sales, at scale with Justin Michael.

Justin is on a mission to help sellers make a bigger commercial impact through the use of automation and technology. 

Justin has worked at a rate of 1000 – 1 doing the work of 1000 sellers in the time and space of one. A Million emails sent, 6years of pipeline built in just 6months. He has worked at Salesforce, LinkedIn and even trained Mike Weinberg’s’ sales development team.  

Who trains one of the world’s best sales trainer’s sales teams’? Justin.

Let that sink in. 

You might not like what he has to say – but you can’t ignore it.
You’re probably going to need to listen to this episode twice.  
Lucky it’s short. 

List of guests

Guests have included many of the tops trainers and specialists you would know as well as some great practitioners sharing what they do and how they do it.

• Jason Bay
• Justin Michael
• Daniel Disney
• Phil Gerbyshank
• Brynne Tilman
• Bill McCormick
• Steven Norman
• Chris Reed
• Jay Jensen
• Cynthia Barnes & more

Subscribe to the pod on your favourite podcasting channel such as Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, Stitcher or pick up the pod directly at www.markmc.co/boss-podcast

The post The Best of Social Selling – BOSS Podcast Volume 2 (Sponsored) appeared first on Head Of Sales.

Why should you listen to the podcast?

There are two ways you can get good at something.

• Work like mad, make mistakes, adjust your approach and then try again. Repeating that process until successful or
• ‘Model the Masters’. , look to those who have gone before you and who have already proven to be successful in those skills.

The BOSS podcast takes this second approach and brings those strategies to you.

Every Monday, a new episode is released as we hear from global sales and social experts who share their very best social strategies and plays. We scour the globe looking for those who do a great job with their social plays and bring them and their ideas directly to you.

In every episode, there is at least one thing you can take immediate action on that will make a difference to your LinkedIn and digital selling approach.

Here are this month’s top selections for you.

EXPOSED: LinkedIn Automation in the Sales Process. What’s working now?

In this episode, we talk to an Australian Account Exec who is currently using LinkedIn-Helper (a LinkedIn automation software tool) to help him find new clients and start conversations while he is doing other tasks.

Because using automation is against the ‘rules’ of LinkedIn, we had to ‘disguise’ our guests’ voice to protect him from having his LinkedIn account banned. In this discussion, he opens up and shares how he uses this automation in the sales process, what other tech tools are in his stack, how they all work together and what results he can achieve from the application of that automation.

A warts-and-all, sneak-peak look, under the bonnet of someone driving great results as a solo contributor in the Australian SaaS market.

Interestingly, there are a couple of astonishing things coming out of this discussion that we were not expecting.

Profile Secrets from Australia’s Leading LinkedIn Profile Specialist – Karen Tisdell.

Time and time again, LinkedIn experts have told us that having a great profile is the key to success on the platform. Having an average or lower profile makes it difficult for people to invite you to connect or to accept your connection request. Yet, with a strong profile, all of that becomes so much easier.

What happens when you get a notification that ‘someone has viewed your profile’ of course you want to go and see who that was and try to figure out what might they want.

That simple, but powerful, first impression drives everything that follows – do they send you a connection request? Do they accept yours? As you can see, a great profile is fundamental to your LinkedIn activity.

Karen Tisdell is Australia’s leading LinkedIn profile writer; as you might imagine, she spends A LOT of time thinking about LinkedIn profiles. Here, Karen shares her very best tips so that you too can have that all-important, great LinkedIn profile. A perfect place to start for newer or intermediate LinkedIn users.

LinkedIn Lurker to Influencer in just 15mins a day with Joe Apfelbaum.

LinkedIn Lurker:

Joe Apfelbaum is a high energy marketer and author. Joe wrote a best-selling book on weight loss called ‘High Energy Secrets’ after he lost 43kilos and transformed his life.

It turns out there is a lot in common between weight loss and a LinkedIn social selling strategy.

In this high-energy episode, we hear, what are the three things we need to do, every day, to go from LinkedIn lurker to LinkedIn influencer?

Why you should focus on being seen 1000 times a year by 1000 people instead of being seen just once by 10,000 people?

At one point, Joe even breaks out into a rap about B2B selling. A fun episode with plenty of great takeaways to use.

How to Increase Your Response Rates by 300% with Matt Barnett.

Video messaging has been spoken about a lot recently as a tool that will help you breakthrough with your messages whether that’s using Video via LinkedIn, Email or even Text delivery.

Matt Barnett is the CEO and Papa bear at Bonjoro, a video messaging company. Matt shares with us, what his clients are seeing as far as open rates, response rates and how his clients are currently using video to engage more effectively with both potential clients and their existing clients and how some are getting an increase in response rates of 300%

I use video all through the sales funnel and as a training tool. I think it’s an excellent substitute for face-to-face conversations and a fast way to build some rapport. it’s a great tool to create an easy pattern interrupt

Guests have included many of the tops trainers and specialists you would know as well as some great practitioners sharing what they do and how they do it.

• Jason Bay
• Justin Michael
• Daniel Disney
• Phil Gerbyshank
• Brynne Tilman
• Bill McCormick
• Steven Norman
• Chris Reed
• Jay Jensen
• Cynthia Barnes & more

Subscribe to the pod on your favourite podcasting channel such as Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, Stitcher or follow the pod on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/best-of-social-selling  

The post Best of Social Selling Wrap up. BOSS Podcast (Sponsored) appeared first on Head Of Sales.

And for a couple of reasons:

1.    Because they were from sales leaders and

2.    Because they were from salespeople.

There is a saying many of us have heard, that a ‘bad workman blames his tools’ and that was what I was seeing in reading some of the answers so I split the answers out into two lists – A and the A+.

Answers as to why only 20% met budget included (word for word):

• Bad quotas
• Lack of training and no company investment in people
• Bad coaching
• Not enough resources
• More than 80% of customers don’t need the product
• Bad hiring
• Targets are set quarterly
• Shitty product
• Bad/lack of marketing and negative brand sentiment
• Too much admin, installation type work
• No follow up
• Not knowing customer’s environment
• Through no fault of their own
• Economic downturn
• No strategy
• No goals
• They underestimate the amount of daily activity

And then some more….

• Don’t believe in self
• Don’t feel engaged
• Complacency
• Lack of execution
• Minimal effort
• Don’t believe in product
• Don’t prospect enough
• Don’t invest in development
• Don’t ask the hard questions
• Don’t push-back to those who waste time
• Don’t follow a proven sales process
• Wing their calls
• They can’t accept success

As someone who works with business owners, sales leaders and salespeople alike, I have heard all of these and even a few more, and herein lies the problem.

There is a difference between reasons why quota is not being met and excuses as to why it is not being met.

It’s a fine line, so I went to Quora for some help in defining what I know is a key missing component to success – knowing the difference between an excuse and a reason, and I found this explanation, with which I agree:

An explanation typically explains the facts of a situation, what caused it, all the factors that lead to it, even if some of these factors are self-deprecating.

An excuse, however, tends to run along the lines of an explanation except that the language is usually defensive and tends to try to protect the speaker from involvement in the incident in question.

If you notice, I segmented the answers to why only 20% of salespeople are achieving quota, into two lists above.

Can you pick the difference between the lists?

Let me help you…

List A are Excuses Yes, most sales leaders and salespeople who answered the question posed, with these answers, and there were nearly 100, all made excuses either as salespeople or for salespeople. In other words, they blamed someone or something. And these are the people who are responsible for generating our revenue and leading our businesses.

So what separates an excuse from a reason?

Pure and simply, accountability.

You see most people say they want to be successful. How many, though, will do what it takes to be successful in their given role? That is, how many people will do what it takes to be successful in selling? The question is a powerful one.

Another powerful question to ask is, ‘if you didn’t have the excuses from the top list, then how would you make sure you reached quota?’ Think on that a minute or two.

You see, each one of the items from the excuses list can be whittled down to being a valid reason, that can then be worked on.

Let’s take a couple and I’ll share with you what I mean, and you might also see if anything resonates with you personally, or with someone you know:

Lack of Training– In an era of unprecedented content with people giving away their once coveted golden IP for free, what are you doing to invest in yourself? When was the last time you read a book about prospecting in today’s sales environment, or are you waiting for the company to do it for you?

Not Enough Resources – Have you got clear on what resources you actually need and the difference they would specifically make for you meeting quota? Sometimes we forget that the thing we need is not more money, more tools, more shortcuts – that it could be a matter of tapping into our resourcefulness and finding a bit more energy and effort in doing something new and perhaps putting a business case together instead of whinging.

Bad Coaching – Do you know what good coaching looks like, sounds like and feels like? If so, are you also clear on the specific outcomes you would want and need from a coach? Great! Now start coaching yourself or set out those expectations with your manager. Step up.

More Than 80% of Customers Don’t Need the Product – My first thought was why are you in business then? Who, if not you, is responsible for qualifying a buyer and what is the depth of question you are asking or not asking, and the real reason you are asking those questions, or not asking? Who is creating the value proposition?

Bad Hiring – So let’s say it’s valid and your hiring person made a mistake – what conversations aren’t you having with that person to remove the pain for them and yourself? Who is responsible for hiring processes and what might THEY need to do differently?

Targets Are Set Quarterly – OK, so break them down to monthly, weekly, daily or hourly if that turns you on. You are the captain of your own ship, the CEO of your own mini organization so think like one and break the odd process rule if it is to serve you and the business.

Shitty Product – The first sale is always to yourself, so leave the company or go and find a product you believe in where you can stop wallowing in this story. Chances are the story will follow you!

Bad Marketing – Then Marketing need your input. You (Sales) can provide Marketing with so much in the way of stories, case studies and feedback and if everyone is clear on what the ultimate outcome is (to serve the customer), then these are conversations worth having – how are you initiating them? What channels of communication are you opening to make change happen?

Too Much Admin – What responsibility is being taken to delegate, say ‘no’ or ask for help? When command and control doesn’t work, what does? Personal leadership?

No Follow Up – What processes are in place, what is the company ethos on caring for the customer and what can you do yourself to set an example? Stand for something!

Economic Downturn – With this being a fact, is the same being said by your competitor who is still selling and one of those 20% making budget?

They Underestimate the Amount of Daily Activity Needed – We have 8 hours in a work day. By getting up 2 hours earlier what have you increased your productivity by? What will that do to your revenue opportunities and stress levels? Think about it and then act.

Usually for each excuse anyone gives, there is a valid reason sitting in the wings and that reason comes back to the person’s level of responsibility, commitment and personal leadership.

List A+ Are Reasons – the real reasons, and only by owning that fact, in all aspects, will you really smash it out of the park and become the 20%er that you know you have the potential to be.

Systems and processes, analytics, technology and automation are all key components of sales success, but behind all of those tools someone needs to drive them. If your levels of discipline are not enough, and you are big enough to admit it, get someone else to help you, because until you do, you will continue to make excuses for your lack of success. You will stay on the A List and you know you are better than that.

B an A+er and also …

Be Bold, Brave and Brilliant

The post Meet The ‘A Listers’​ Ruining Their Careers appeared first on Head Of Sales.

This belief rests on the assumption that success in sales relies on some special talent granted at birth. However,  this does not fit our experience. It may be true that some people are born with ‘talent’, meaning an abundance of charisma and ease with people. Charisma may help close some sales. However, we find that successful sales people, those who are top in their field year after year,  work diligently to develop their sales skills regardless of their starting capability.

Talent or Skill?

At this point in training discussions, people often ask: “Talent or skill. What’s the difference?” To answer this question, let’s define some terms.

• Talent – A marked innate ability, as for artistic accomplishment
• Skill – Proficiency, facility, or dexterity that is acquired or developed through training or experience.

The difference is pretty simple. Talents are natural abilities. Skills are acquired or developed abilities.

Sales Talent:

Let me make one thing clear. Talent (charisma / personality) will help make sales. However, those depending upon talent tend to ‘shoot from the hip’ when making a sales presentation. This results in a very entertaining presentation. The sales professional may seem to be able to ‘sell ice to eskimos’. Unfortunately, the majority of prospects cannot follow this type of presentation. Most people want a logical progression of information backed up by solid data. So, although the client may like the sales professional personally, they may actually purchase a similar product from someone else.

Sales Skills:

What I love about sales skills is that anyone can master them and become successful in sales. Mirriam-Webster defines a skill as:

A learned power of doing something competently : a developed aptitude or ability

Notice that a skill is something learned or developed. Hence, with the assistance of a qualified trainer and measured practice, those who have the desire to apply themselves toward mastering the task will succeed.

When I lead training sessions or have less experienced sales professionals ride along on sales calls with me, I often hear that I have a “great talent for sales.” I take the comment as a genuine compliment, and I might even agree with it if I did not know where I began in sales. This is because, except for my persistence and drive, the words and actions people see in me today bear no resemblance to what they would have seen in my performance when I started in sales. For example, I now speak about and give my absolute best effort to model:

• Focusing on benefits to my client
• Active listening
• Allowing time for the client to speak
• Working to connect with my client
• Giving my clients the time they need to reach a decision.

When I first entered sales, someone watching my sales calls would have seen me:

• Focusing on product features
• Speaking more than I listened
• Interrupting my clients
• Pushing to close the sale
• Growing impatient when clients wanted to collect more information or “think it over.”

Basically, I started with very few of the positives and nearly all of the negatives. The one thing I really had in my favor was persistence. I initially got results because I kept going in the face of rejection. My closing ratio was low, but I made lots of sales calls.

Consequently, I was frustrated by the scant sales I acquired relative to the enormous amount of time and  effort I was exerting. Over time, I began to see that I just couldn’t do any more work in the time I had. Therefore, I had to find a way to improve my results. Better results required cultivating a more effective sales process and developing greater skills for:

1. You must have leads: 

I remember hearing someone say, “Just keep throwing mud on the wall. Some of it will stick.” No! You just waste time and end up with a dirty wall. Unfortunately, driving all over town searching for someone to listen to your presentation is usually a waste of time and gas. Don’t equate being busy with productivity.  It is more effective to prequalify the leads you pursue. Above all, develop a lead generation process which includes leveraging LinkedIn, quality referrals, and industry specific leads.

2. turn your leads into appointments:

“Let your fingers do the walking” and develop the skills to book appointments on the phone. In addition, discover how to navigate the gatekeeper and reach decision makers. Making only 10-20 outbound calls per day will keep your calendar full and your pockets ‘fuller’.

3. Reading prospects:  

Become a student of human behaviour and improve your communication skills. Furthermore, discover how to connect with prospects and clients for closing more deals and developing long term, repeat business. Likewise, I’ve learned to not only care about my customers needs, but to show that I care. It may look natural, but trust me it is not. I had to really work on me to develop these skills. After I learned and began to apply the DISC Model of Human Behaviour in the way that we teach today, my closing ratio skyrocketed.

Discover what your client is thinking! The FAST, EASY way to connect more effectively with clients & CLOSE MORE DEALS

It’s like taking the Pici’s with you on your next sales call. Our flip charts will remind you how to: Recognize and adapt to your client’s communication style.
 Develop rapport
 Tweak your presentation for maximum impact
 Close the deal

4. Develop a  simple, short, and logical sales presentation

I call this your ‘core story’. Your core story should be dominated by your client talking, not you. Most noteworthy, you can achieve this by asking relevant questions. Above all, design questions that will reveal the pain your client may be experiencing. Situations that will  cause them to purchase a product/service from you.

5. Close the deal

Closing is the sales skill set that most sales professionals focus on. Yet, closing is the natural conclusion to a sales process that began with the first contact. Therefore, do not depend on one or two closing techniques. In addition, avoid being discouraged if you cannot close your prospect at the first meeting. Closing the deal may take several days/weeks/months or only a few minutes. Certainly, the study of human behavior will help you determine which time frame and approach will be best for each individual.

5. Finally, remember to follow up: 

The purpose of follow up is three fold. a) Make sure the client is satisfied with the product. Answer any questions regarding the use, installment, or difficulty with the product. b) Secure future sales including cross selling. c) Attain quality referrals. Certainly, this is the lifeblood of your business.

By improving my effectiveness through skill development, I improved my results without working harder or longer.

Improving my skills was the key element. I read books and went to sales seminars. My success was a result of becoming a student of sales.

Lots of sales people eventually burn-out due to excessive rejection, long hours, or both. Most people don’t have the stomach for tolerating rejection that I have. And most people don’t want to develop the thick skin necessary to put up with it. As a result, many otherwise great sales people give up their dreams of success when they reach the burn-out stage. I want to give people the tools to overcome that challenge before they reach burn-out.

The good news

Everyone can develop the skills.  I’m willing to share what I’ve learned so that they don’t have to go through the same amount of rejection I faced before I learned these skills. I don’t have a monopoly on what it takes to be great as a sales professional. I’ve just learned to apply some really powerful, practical, and effective ideas to the sales process. Anyone with the desire to work on themselves and grow personally can learn what I’ve learned. It really doesn’t matter where people start, as long as they view sales as a profession and invest the effort necessary to learn and perfect the skills.

The post Talent Versus Skill. Time To Sharpen Your Skills? appeared first on Head Of Sales.

How can we build effective sales teams for the short and long term?

This is the perennial question that has been asked by sales managers and business leaders for years.

The simple answer is bit by bit, over time by investing wisely in the right things.

Warren Buffett knows a thing or two about investing and his insights and wise counsel hold very true for building highly effective sales teams. Here are some of his famous quotes and how we see them in relation to building sales teams:

1. There are no bonus points for complicated investments. The truly big investment idea can usually be explained in a short paragraph.*
   • This is true for a great sales strategy. A sales strategy should be easily understood by the sales team and the whole business and be expressed in simple language. It should clearly state the purpose of the business and its sales team including which markets we are focusing on; the way we are going to go to market and what values and governance we will stand to when engaging our clients and team members. Go ahead and write a simple paragraph describing your Sales Strategy. Could your sales team follow it easily?
   • We have to stop over-complicating sales teams with the obsessive focus on reporting on the numbers and results only (forecasting, pipeline, big data, results, etc.) at the expense of actually working with our sales teams to get them selling better. You cannot coach results, you can only coach activities. We need to invest in the front end getting salespeople to sell better and then the results will come.
   • Instead of lumping all clients in one massive go-to-market plan we could instead practice micro-segmentation and equip and direct our sales teams about who they need to specifically sell to and why. Result? More targeted sales activities, client conversations, better sales results and happier clients.
     
     
2. Buy businesses that can be run by idiots. I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.
   • We need to stop relying on silver bullet point solutions to run sales teams and operations and start putting in place well-prepared sales operations frameworks and good sales strategies that allow anyone stepping into our sales world to have the best chance of getting out there and selling effectively.
   • We need to take sales management much more seriously and start to properly train and equip sales managers to be effective sales leaders. Equipping them with the right resources to make sound decisions around sales strategy, market segmentation, account mapping, sales financials, people selection and development, how they lead and deploy their sales teams, and how they work with the executive team ensuring understanding and respect for the sales function in all its complexity. At Barrett, we truly understand and appreciate that sales operations are complex systems and we can help people manage that complexity so that everyone can operate in the light and make informed decisions about what to do instead of relying on gut feel and guesses.
     
     
3. Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

Developing an effective sales team takes time, dedication, leadership and courage in the face of short-termism and fads. For instance, implementing a 70:20:10 framework that creates a Perpetual Learning Culture leads to increased sales results, better margins, happier clients and accomplished salespeople, and a marked competitive edge.

4. Bad things aren’t obvious when times are good. After all, you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.

How many businesses and their sales teams have been caught short by the GFC and the many changes in the market place since? Too many. Why? Because too many were not geared for customer centricity still focused on themselves, and they did not look ahead at what was changing, nor did they really listen to their clients and what they were wanting. The result? Too many businesses and their sales teams are in a ‘pricing=race-to-the-bottom’ syndrome because they do not know how to sell value instead of product, amongst other things.

So, to get things going and make sure you are on the right track, here is our sales operations checklist. Do you have the following in place?

1. Sales strategy, the right market segments supported by the right sales messaging, go-to-market action plan
2. The right sales structure with clear levels of accountability including standards of behaviour and values so we know what we need to do to deliver better sales results
3. The right sales processes in place that can be easily taught and applied in the real world
4. User-friendly technology that helps us to sell and not tie us up in excessive administration
5. Effective sales managers who lead, coach and support us instead of selling for us
6. A continuous learning environment that encourages regular reflection and practice and keeps us up-to-date and fit for purpose

*‘Our investments continue to be few in number and simple in concept: The truly big investment idea can usually be explained in a short paragraph. We like a business with enduring competitive advantages that are run by able and owner-oriented people. When these attributes exist, and when we can make purchases at sensible prices, it is hard to go wrong (a challenge we periodically manage to overcome). Investors should remember that their scorecard is not computed using Olympic-diving methods: Degree-of-difficulty doesn’t count. If you are right about a business whole value is largely dependent on a single key factor that is both easy to understand and enduring, the payoff is the same as if you had correctly analysed an investment alternative characterised by many constantly shifting and complex variables.’

The post What Sales Teams Can Learn From Warren Buffett’s Wisdom appeared first on Head Of Sales.

When we look at the critical role that sales leaders play in delivering tangible outcomes for the business, 75%* of the contribution comes from the sales leaders behaviour and how they communicate (* based on research by Human Synergistics). This drives the sales environment and dynamics (i.e.culture) and hence leads to how motivated and driven the sales team is, what specific action they take, and hence what outcomes they achieve. So the responsibility that sits on the shoulders of the sales leaders is huge, and when you then analyse as part of the behaviour and communication of the sales leader, leadership versus management, this can have a huge bearing on the outcome and therefore the sales and revenue results.

The responsibility of the sales leaders is to drive consistent performance, and whether you are building a team from scratch, or have inherited a team, you will start with potential – potential of the people. The challenge is to convert that potential into performance and this is achieved through leading and managing. It is important to understand that a sales leader must both lead and manage in order to drive this performance – the key is whether the majority of time is spent leading or managing. When I asked this question to the sales leaders, not surprisingly, the realisation was that around 80% of their time was being invested in managing, due largely to the demands being placed upon them by their leaders and the business pressures. The challenge for them, and for many sales leaders, is to flip this on its head and focus 80% of their time on leading and only around 20% managing.

This change can be achieved through focusing on high quality activities versus low quality activities. Here are 5 high quality activities we explored to drive higher sales leadership competency:

• Investing Time In Visibility – one of the biggest challenges these sales leaders face on a regular basis is the constant internal requests for reporting and strategy updates that absorb significant amounts of time, resulting in reduced access to and interaction with their team. They all agreed that some reporting is required and important, however, when it starts to significantly impede their ability to be with their people, productivity and effectiveness can drop. One of the attributes of great sales leaders is their relentless commitment and focus on visibility, of being with their people. Investing time with people is critical and it will pay huge dividends. It enables you to observe your people in their natural environment, build high quality relationships, and increase your influence either 1:1 or in a group setting. Often just being ‘visible’ and available is enough to increase performance, because your team know you are there to back them. So, as a sales leader, analyse your diary and determine the amount of time you spend on internal, inwardly focused activities, versus activities that are focused on developing relationships and progressing opportunities.

• Investing Time In 1:1 Coaching – another challenge many sales leaders share is the lack of available time (or the perception of lack of time!) available to get things done. Many of them are ‘time poor’ meaning that areas that will deliver higher return on their time investment, such as coaching, are placed either in the ‘nice to do’ basket, or sometimes the ‘too hard’ basket. When quizzed on this, many leaders advised that there were simply too many immediate or short term demands being placed on them by the business, forcing them to re-prioritise. The outcome? Their team were not experiencing the benefits of coaching. In reality, this is simply an excuse. What the leaders are really saying is that coaching is not a priority, and to their credit, some even confirm that they avoid coaching because they don’t know how to do it effectively, or find it really uncomfortable to do. The fact is, great sales leaders make coaching their team non-negotiable. It is either #1 or #2 on their priority list and they recognise that quality coaching time with a sales person can not only help fast track that sales person’s development and performance, it can also help unlock some time in the sales leaders calendar, because they are able to potentially delegate more, or the sales person is able to develop and implement strategies with a higher level of independence. So as a sales leader, look over your diary for the last 45 days and count up the number of hours you invested in coaching your team. Now look 45 days into the future and count how many sessions you have diarised. If the ‘cupboard is bare’, you know what must be done. This activity alone will fundamentally change your sales leadership influence in a huge way.

• Creating An Empowering Environment – logically the sales leaders understood that creating a great team culture was critical in the ability of the team to deliver on the performance objectives of the company. However, when asked how they go about creating that environment, for some, it was difficult to articulate. At a high level, a great sales leader will focus on creating an environment that people want to be part of. The team becomes a ‘destination’ and when working well, people from outside the team and outside the organisation are asking “how can I become part of that?” A key component of this environment is the standards of behaviour that are implemented and benchmarked. These standards are consistent and they are non-negotiable, and each member of the team, including the leader, will be measured against them. This drives consistency and accountability. There will also be a set of expectations put in place, for example around decision making – a great sales leader will expect his team to make decisions based on a set of agreed guiding principles and know, that if a decision is incorrect, there will be no reprisal or repercussions for making a mistake. The environment created in one where calculated risks are expected, and the leader will fully support the team in the decision making process. What environment are you creating for your sales team?

• Ensuring Feedback Is Compulsory – linked to the environment is an uncompromising focus on feedback. Great sales leaders understand that feedback is the breakfast of champions, so they quickly become feedback seeking machines. They also instil in their team a focus on self feedback and hence spend a lot of time asking the team to self reflect and provide themselves with feedback. This focus promotes constant and never ending improvement and when a team has developed a positive habit around feedback, there is less ‘heavy lifting’ required from the leader, because the capability and competency level of the entire team has been lifted. Another key aspect around feedback is that a great sales leader will never deliver feedback to the team or an individual without first asking for permission to do so. It is not in their DNA. When a sales leader has developed the empowering environment and built the muscle around feedback, very rarely, if ever, will they have an individual reject the opportunity for feedback. As a sales leader, what is your competency level around feedback? Do you constantly seek feedback? Do you ask your team to provide themselves with feedback? If not, start developing this muscle. It is critical.

• Commitment to Training & Development – leaders are learners. It may be a cliché, but it is 100% true. Great sales leaders have a commitment to continuous learning, whether it be formalised learning, small workshops, or seeking new knowledge through books, audio programs or podcasts. These sales leaders understand that you never ‘arrive’ and that there is always another level to climb to, constantly focusing on improvement. The key point to understand here is that whilst the leaders will seek new knowledge, they know that this knowledge is only powerful when it is utilised. As such, they have an uncompromising focus on training and development of their team, and will make this a priority, irrespective of what distractions may be obvious within the business. This also comes back to culture and the expectations of the sales people. When training and development is a priority and most importantly, the sales leader ‘practices what they preach’, by not only attending the training, but also implementing and embedding the outcomes of the training, high quality success habits are created within the team that will further drive performance. How committed are you towards training and development for yourself and your people? Make this a priority.

We know that sales leadership success requires both leadership and management in order to drive high performance. Through focusing on these 5 high quality activities, you will be able to put yourself in a very strong position to invest 80% of your time leading and 20% managing, and this will deliver outstanding performance.

To your continued sales leadership success.

The post Are You Leading Or Are You Managing? appeared first on Head Of Sales.