Sales leadership: the coaching imperative

For sales managers, developing others abilities is even more important today than it ever has been. Indeed, it's the emotional competence most frequently found among those at the top of the field. This is a person-to-person art, and the effectiveness of counseling hinges on empathy and the ability to focus on our own feelings and share them.

How to ramp up new salespeople

The average cost of a failed ramp-up or miss-hire can be six times base salary for a sales person and 15 times base salary for a manager, according to the book “Topgrading,” by Bradford Smart. Also, considering that almost half of all salespeople don’t reach their targets, the importance of effective recruitment and ramp-up should be a topic in focus for sales managers.

5 tips to high performance sales coaching

One of the most important aspects in high performing sales organizations is sales managers’ ability to coach and give effective feedback. This was one of the main findings in ProSales research, “Performance management in B2B sales.” But how can sales managers coach and give feedback effectively? Here are 5 tips to get the best out of your sales performance coaching efforts.

Can checklists increase your sales by 20%?

I just read a fascinating book called “The Checklist” by surgeon Atul Gawande. The advice in the book is 100% applicable for sales leaders who are looking for ways to improve processes that positively impact performance.

CEOs: Are your sales people systematically outselling the competition?

“It is not the strongest species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

This quote rings true in our competitive market economy. Over the last few decades, we’ve seen impressive improvements in efficiency and quality when it comes to production and other business processes. But how much has your sales process evolved and improved? 

Why does leadership accept a 41.9% failure rate in sales?

In CSO Insight’s study “Sales Performance Optimization - 2015 Key Trends Analysis,” there are alarming data showing that sales effectiveness, despite picking up after the financial crisis of 2008, has actually fallen since 2012.