By Cheryl Powers

Daphne and Tom started their business to serve customers, create financial freedom, and give back to the community they loved.

What they never imagined is 10 years after launching their company, Daphne would still be responsible for revenue and would be her company's top salesperson, while Tom played sales manager to a team of culturally perfect but ineffective salespeople.

Despite hiring dozens of salespeople over the years, none...

by Cheryl Powers

Everything has changed except the way your salespeople sell, and that's a big problem.

Listen, I love salespeople. I love sales leaders. I love the profession of sales. So don't take this the wrong way because this is coming from a place of real caring.

Your salespeople are missing a golden opportunity.

Salespeople should be doing everything they can to connect with prospects and customers, build trust, forge relationships, and stand out as a valuable and valued trusted...

By Cheryl Powers

Your Sales Leaders play a pivotal role in a company’s ability to reach targets and satisfy the needs of their customers and their shareholders. 

That means their primary job is to put your products and services in the hands of more of the people who will use them to solve their biggest problems while creating profits for the people who own the company. 

That’s a problem when most sales managers haven't been trained for and don’t qualify for the...

by Cheryl Powers

"Nothing happens until somebody sells something."

That makes getting sales recruitment right one of the single most important things a company must do to grow. And it's not easy - for many reasons. Not the least of which is that even a terrible salesperson is probably better at controlling the interview than you are. They've done it more and they will focus all of their energy on telling you all the things that make you want to believe that they'd be perfect for the...

by Cheryl Powers

Lead, follow or get out of the way. That’s the sentiment I grew up with. My dad was a naval officer in WWII who served at the same time as Ronald Reagan was in the US Army. And my dad knew how to steer a ship. He was kind, consistent, and competent and he taught me a great deal about leadership.

Unfortunately, in today’s business climate I see far too many leaders turning over the helm to employees who haven’t a clue about leadership, budgets, revenue,...

Hiring the right salespeople is crucial to developing an effective and dynamic sales force. Developing an effective sales force is the most important job a leader has because your sales force is the vehicle through which you serve the world. No sales, no company. No company, no need for employees. Poor sales, poor company. Poor companies tend to have poor service, which also leads to no customers. You get where I'm going here.

There is an ideal candidate profile for every sales role and...

by Cheryl Powers

Sales hiring.

How hard can it be?

We just need them to sell, right?

Yet, recruiting high performing salespeople and sales leaders is one of the most difficult tasks a CEO will ever have to get right -- and keep right to stay successful.

There is much more to it than posting the ad, sifting through resumes, and hoping you picked the right one. The vast majority of ads are poorly worded, focus more on the company than on the role, and fail to attract qualified candidates.

...

Most sales managers are up to their eyeballs in busy work. Their days are full, for sure. But are they full of the right things? The things that move your company toward fulfilling your mission, delivering on your brand promise, adding value to your ideal customers, creating a world class sales organization with an unstoppable culture of winning. Often I find, not so much.

The role of sales leadership is to lead the sales team to their revenue goals and deliver high performance but most sales...

HOW SMART OWNERS AND CEOs GROW

I have never met a CEO who didn't want to know the fastest and most effective way to grow revenue and create a culture of positivity through winning. The best company leaders know that culture eats strategy for breakfast and that without the right strategy, people and processes, the culture will deteriorate and mediocrity will prevail.

Aligning your strategy to your people, processes, and systems creates the engine for a winning culture to...

A long time ago I realized that in the suburbs outside of Boston, new leaves reach full size each Spring on May 11.  This year, with the cold April we endured, May 11 came and went and the leaves were delayed.

That said, spring leaves on May 11 are exponentially more predictable than pipeline opportunities.  Why might an opportunity not close when it was forecast to?

Technically, there are seven possibilities:

1. Closes as forecast and you win.
2. Closes when forecast and you lose.
3. A...