One of the primary roles of a sales leader is to make his/her team members better – to develop their skill sets.  However, this often gets lost in all the noise of pipelines and forecasts and strategizing on the deal of the day.   Sales leaders get so busy with the noise, that their team can […]

Have you ever just hit a roadblock with another person and you don’t know why?  That person could be a prospect, a customer, a co-worker, a peer or even your boss.  Many times the problem is your “style” or approach of how you communicate with the other person.  If you are a hard-driving, results-oriented person […]

In dealing with hundreds of sales managers, we at Pivotal have found that sales managers generally fall into two different categories when it comes to how they manage their sales teams.  Now we acknowledge that there could be some variations to this, but overall it is uncanny how you can almost drop a manager into […]

I’m sure that as a sales leader or a CEO/Business Owner, you’ve never uttered these words or anything like them, but let’s just pretend for a minute that you have sales people that aren’t necessarily living up to your expectations.  Play along with me.  Why does that happen?  Is it because they are all arrogant […]

If you are like many other companies, you just got done completing your plan for 2017.  You may have spent hours with the executive team deciding what your strategy was and different things that you should focus on.  But you have a concern – can you get the sales team to execute on it?  One […]

Problems with Introducing Change Leaders introduce change all the time. Sometimes it is very intentional like rolling out new sales training and wanting reps to adopt it, introducing a new sales initiative, changing a comp plan, changing territory assignments or quotas, etc. Sometimes leaders introduce change and don’t even realize it. They just feel like […]

The typical “onboarding” program for many companies can be described as either “Drinking from the Firehose” or “On the job training.”  This consists of a few days at the office for the new sales person getting a barrage of information about all the products/services the company offers, time spent in each department to understand what […]

CEOs and owners are rarely happy with their sales. They always believe that the company should sell more or grow faster than they actually are. So, many of them go to the old standards for "fixing sales." See if you've ever tried any of these: There may be others, but these are the most common […]

CEOs are always looking for growth.  It’s one of the truths in life.   Many entrepreneurs start companies with a great idea.  They have a great product or service, hire really good people, land a few good clients and these companies are off to the races.  Then the company reaches profitability and they continue adding more […]

When we start working with sales leaders, we often start by establishing a rhythm for how they manage their business – we call it a Sales Operating System and it often includes items such as one-on-ones, ride-alongs, team meetings, etc.  The goal is for the manager to be clear on expectations, to drive accountability and […]

It may appear to be critical these days, but the fact is that CEOs have lamented for years over their need for more sales. Whether it’s a small business or a large corporation, growth is king. Numerous studies and a variety of personal interviews state that growing sales is #1 or near the top of […]

What do you expect from your sales people?  The short answer to that question is typically, “I want them to hit their numbers.”  Yes, that is an easy one and an important one.  But what other expectations do you have of your team?  What are the things that they do or don’t do that drive […]