Categories: Sales Transformation
If you've ever launched a sales initiative, you know that you gain a significant return on the investment in the weeks immediately following rollout. The critical events that happen after training can make the difference between a sales initiative that moves the needle and one that falls flat. Here are a few ways to counteract the fading enthusiasm that can happen right after a sales training or a sales kickoff.
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Categories: Buyer Alignment | Sales Messaging | Sales Transformation
Product-led growth (PLG) is leading many B2B companies to drive rapid revenue success. While PLG solutions can propel organizations forward efficiently, this approach also brings specific and complex challenges of its own. If your company is aiming to scale revenue, your cross-functional team may already be considering shifts to go-to-market (GTM) distribution efforts and strategies. What do successful sales leaders prioritize to align their sales organizations accordingly?
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Categories: Podcasts
If your New Year's resolution is to find small ways, every day, to provide value to your salespeople then you've come to the right place. Our December episodes focused on key sales skills and topics that lead to better numbers and faster close rates. Your front-line managers and reps can implement these actions into their daily activities to ensure consistent application of desired sales skills or methodologies. Peruse each episode and share them with your front-line managers and your reps. Find our show on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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Categories: Talent Management
As shocking as it may be, your next career opportunity is often in the hands of someone that will spend less than SIX seconds determining if you are a good fit. For the few of us that can remember when Jim Lange hosted a game show – before Jane Krakowski was tapped last year to resurrect it – you know it was called Name That Tune. The original show, which had contestants try to name a song after hearing the least amount of piano keystrokes, has some scary similarities with today's approach to assessing talent. Today's research shows that the people responsible for bringing in the right talent to their organizations spend mere seconds viewing the years of professional experiences their potential employees possess.
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Categories: Sales Leadership
Motivating and supporting sales teams in an ever-changing economic environment is no easy feat. Congratulations on making it through another year. As you settle into your new normal or continue to navigate ongoing change, here are a few topics that may help you stay the course.
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Categories: Sales Leadership
For many of us, despite our best efforts, we’ll find ourselves crashing on the couch this holiday. Whether it’s from all the food or exhaustion of non-stop holiday cheer, it’s nice to veg out for a bit over the holiday. Instead of simply scrolling through your favorite streaming service, take a look at some of these motivational stories to give you some spirit this holiday and maybe even some motivation as you move into next year.
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Categories: Talent Management
The Frustrations with Job Postings I am old. Fifty three to be exact. I was fortunate enough to get my start in recruitment before the internet, job boards or LinkedIn. Over the past twenty years, I have continued to experience the transactional nature of the way the world goes about attracting its most valuable asset, talent. Posting a job description that has a ton to be desired and hoping that the right person will come to us is fools gold. Can companies fill open roles with job postings? Of course they can, but a job posting is not recruiting. I highly doubt any professional sports teams are putting up a posting in hopes that their next franchise player will miraculously author the perfect resume to take them to the championship. Although being a lifelong NY Giants fan maybe that is the exact methodology they have implemented over the last ten years ...
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Categories: Podcasts
Each of our November episodes share ways sales leaders, managers and reps can prepare for a successful new quarter or year. Each episode digs deep into tactics your salespeople can use to plan for aggressive growth goals, reduce competitive losses, and minimize margin cuts. Peruse each episode to find those worth listening to or sharing with your sales team. You may find a few that would be a great addition to upcoming company emails, newsletters or initiatives. Find our show on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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Categories: Sales Leadership | Sales Process
The team at Force Management loves sales. We love salespeople. We know good salespeople when we see them. We are thankful for the ones who get it. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we are sharing a little gratitude on The Command Center blog. Here are five things we are thankful for in any sales organization:
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Categories: Sales Leadership
Driving organizational transformation is no easy feat, whether it’s your first initiative or your 10th. Force Management President, John Kaplan, answered timely questions during a webinar on sales leadership, sharing the tactics leaders are using now to achieve critical outcomes. Here are some of the most relevant questions answered, along with valuable resources to help you be successful.
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Categories: Sales Leadership
Get more out of your team and cut through the noise of remote working challenges. In our recent webinar, Force Management President, John Kaplan, answered timely questions on sales leadership actions related to the “post-Covid” world and remote working strategies. We’ve compiled some of the most impactful topics and resources that you may find valuable as you decide what’s needed to support your sales team in hitting revenue goals.
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Categories: Podcasts
Our October episodes provide a refresher on key sales fundamentals that your reps can use to stand out from the competition and move their deals forward faster. Each episode provides tactics your salespeople can add to their approach as they prepare for their next sales conversation. Send these episodes to your sales team today. Have your managers listen as well so they can coach on those critical skills during future opportunity review sessions. Find our show on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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Categories: Sales Messaging
The remote work environment is forcing sales leaders to motivate their teams and increase collaboration within groups and cross-functionally. Building alignment around how to best serve your customers can be a force multiplier that drives significant company-wide improvements, even when it comes to motivating employees and improving collaboration in work-from-home environments.
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Categories: Buyer Alignment | Company Alignment | Sales Leadership
Every sales leader wants to get more out of their current sales team and implement a strategy that drives immediate results. In our recent webinar, Force Management President, John Kaplan, discussed three critical areas where leadership alignment supports sales resilience and growth. We’ve compiled some of the most impactful topics and resources that you may find valuable to support your sales team in hitting revenue goals.
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Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Coaching Tools
Your front-line managers can be one of the most valuable assets for any sales organization. Top sales leaders should always be looking for ways to support and enable these critical team players. Our own Paddy Mac (In official terms, Force Management’s Senior Director of Consulting and Facilitation Patrick McLoughlin) is loud and proud when it comes to enabling managers. You may have caught his “Manager Thought of the Day” on his LinkedIn. It’s a great list so we’re sharing it with you here.
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Categories: Sales Process | Sales Qualification
If you want to get your sales teams working smarter, you need a well-defined sales process and qualification approach. Why do so many organizations struggle with consistently qualifying and progressing the right opportunities?
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Categories: Podcasts
If you're focused on providing tangible value to your salespeople and outlets for them to grow and become elite — this month's episodes are exactly what you need. Each episode covers specific ways you can take action right now, as well as insights you can use as you develop next year's sales kickoff. Review the episodes below and share them with your salespeople and managers as you see fit. Find our show on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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Categories: Sales Kickoff | Sales Leadership
You’ve put in the work to achieve your new position and now you’re aiming to make an immediate impact on sales success. We’ve pulled together some of our most popular resources that apply to people in a new sales leadership role. As you build your execution plan, leverage these insights to avoid setbacks and implement a strategy that gets results.
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Categories: Sales Kickoff | Sales Leadership
If you’re aiming to boost seller capabilities through an enablement initiative, ensure your efforts and resources drive the front-line impacts you need. Consider a strategic sales initiative that not only uplifts employee skill sets but also their engagement, or commitment to solving customer problems and getting results. A Gallup study recently cited in this Wall Street Journal article showed replacing an employee can cost twice as much as the annual salary. Costs that could be avoided with effective engagement programs.
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Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Leadership
You may know the reason why a specific deal was won or lost, but can you and your account teams reverse engineer that process to improve results on the next deal? Is your team currently leveraging those insights to repeat successes and avoid known setbacks? Don’t scream at the scoreboard, or just tell your people what to do. Help your managers provide the how. Define exactly what’s working and what isn’t so you can focus on the best opportunities to support your salespeople in improving win rates. First, you need to equip your managers to get beyond the data of why deals are won and lost.
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Categories: Sales Kickoff
SKO season is quickly approaching. If your company is making strategic shifts that you need to align your sales organization behind, the time to start defining your execution plan is now. There are good SKOs, great SKOs and ones that unfortunately fall flat. Help your enablement team avoid common mistakes that will negatively impact seller engagement and outcomes. Here are our top resources that sales leaders like yourself have found the most value in:
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Categories: Podcasts
Your number one priority is always to drive numbers up, but your number one job is to help your salespeople grow, improve and become top performers. Fortunately, those two tasks go hand in hand. Use these episodes to meet your sales reps and managers where they are and help them build the skills and capabilities they need to become elite. Be sure to share last month's final episode, The Brandon Burlsworth Story, with your team. It covers motivational lessons on how to commit yourself to become the best of the best. Review each episode and share them with your salespeople and managers as you see fit. Find our show on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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Categories: Sales Kickoff
In the flurry of SKO planning, it’s easy to get bogged down on the details. You and your enablement team are making a slew of decisions — who’s presenting, where are you doing it, what’s the agenda, etc. While those details are important to your overall success, don’t lose focus on your most important asset, your salespeople.
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Categories: Sales Leadership | Sales Transformation
If you want to align your organization behind company goals, growth benchmarks and evolving customer needs, you’ll need to successfully move your organization through rapid change and enable your sales team to execute. Here are three critical areas where leadership alignment supports sales resilience and growth. If you’re interested in how sales leaders successfully capture alignment in these three areas, watch our on-demand webinar. John Kaplan discussed what’s top-of-mind for sales leaders as they work to significantly improve revenue and growth.
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Categories: Sales Kickoff
Aligning the sales strategy with the company growth strategy is a key component to successfully growing a sales organization. There’s no better time than the sales kickoff to make sure your sales team knows the company growth plan and how they as salespeople are a key component to making that happen. What do you need to do now to make sure your sales organization is set up for success next year? Consider how you can use the SKO to ensure your sales organization is aligned, equipped and motivated to execute. Here’s what to consider:
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Categories: Company Alignment | Sales Kickoff
Check out all our sales kickoff resources and tools in the Ultimate Sales Kickoff Resource Guide. Strategizing around this year’s sales kickoff (SKO), coming out of last year’s challenges, may require a shift in your approach. Whether you’re considering a full in-person event, a virtual meeting or a combination of the two, one thing you don’t want to do is wait too long to pull your SKO plan together. Ensure you roll out something strategic that drives the critical business impacts you need. We've helped countless sales leaders roll out transformative sales initiatives as part of their SKO. Those experiences have shown us some common mistakes that leaders often make when planning their SKOs. Here are our top four and how to avoid them.
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Categories: Sales Leadership
Five-time CRO John McMahon’s book, The Qualified Sales Leader: Proven Lessons from a Five Time CRO, has been at the top of sales leaders’ reading lists since it was published in April. McMahon recently joined John Kaplan on The Audible-Ready Sales podcast to discuss the book’s themes and key takeaways for sales leaders. Listen to their conversation here. Here are our top five takeaways from the conversation.
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Categories: Podcasts
There are numerous ways you can improve your sales organization's competitive advantage in the market. This month's episodes cover multiple tactics you can implement into your talent management approach and your sales team's go-to-market approach to improve your company's overall ability to compete. We even have a special guest this month. Sales Leader Veteran John McMahon joins John Kaplan to discuss takeaways from his new book, “The Qualified Sales Leader”. Review each episode and share them with your salespeople and managers as you see fit. Find our show on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Coaching Tools
One of the key ways sales leaders can improve sales performance is by helping their managers coach their teams. Ensure your managers are spending the right amount of time coaching the right people all while taking into account their skills and level of motivation. A Skill/Will matrix can help your front-line sales managers account for differences on their team and coach individuals to success. We cover this matrix and how to use it in a special series on The Audible-Ready Sales Podcast.
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Categories: Sales Kickoff
This blog contains content from our Ultimate Sales Kickoff Resource Guide. Check out all our sales kickoff resources, best practices and tools here. There is an often overlooked component to a company's sales kickoff. In the middle of product announcements and new process rollouts, there will be a handful of people who are going to use the SKO to determine if they want to sign up for another year of selling for your company. This group often contains your top performers who have many options when it comes to companies to work for. Ensure your SKO provides the clarity your people are looking for. The SKO is your opportunity to articulate what’s expected of your salespeople next year and how you’re going to help them get there. What you do (or don’t) say will have a large impact on your sales team’s actions after they log off or return home from your SKO. Use the critical concepts below to provide clarity to your salespeople around what they can expect for the upcoming year. Understand what you need to communicate to them, early and often, throughout your SKO journey and afterward.
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Categories: Sales Kickoff
This blog contains content from our Ultimate Sales Kickoff Resource Guide. Check out all of our sales kickoff resources, best practices and tools here. Defining the plan for this year's sales kickoff (SKO) has many sales leaders focused on using this year’s event to motivate and build momentum for the upcoming year. The SKO isn’t something that should just be delegated to an enablement team. It should be viewed as a strategic event that launches the sales team on a plan for success for the year. As a sales leader, it’s too important for you not to be fully involved.
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Categories: Sales Kickoff
This blog contains content from our Ultimate Sales Kickoff Resource Guide. Check out all of our sales kickoff resources, best practices and tools here. Sales Kickoffs are meant to get the sales team motivated towards a common goal for the upcoming year. Whether it be increased revenue, a new product launch, a shift in your pricing model, it’s important to think through what specifically you want your sales team to achieve this year. What are your specific objectives for the year? What do you want to accomplish with your SKO in relation to those goals? Before you and your enablement team get too far into the strategy of how you’re going to execute, take a step back. Set clear, measurable objectives for your SKO and ultimately, your sales team. What outcomes do you want to see from your sales organization one month, one year, after you log off or return home?
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Categories: Sales Kickoff
This blog contains content from our Ultimate Sales Kickoff Resource Guide. Check out all of our sales kickoff resources, best practices and tools here. Sales kickoffs are a useful tool to enable a sales organization to execute on the organization’s top goals for the year. It is easy to delegate the SKO event or get bogged down in the details of who’s doing what, where they’re doing it and how it’s going to go. After all, it may be an event you do every year. However, the key question that needs to be at the forefront for every sales leader is how are you going to use the SKO to align your sales organization around the critical outcomes you need to achieve in the upcoming year?
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Categories: Company Alignment | Sales Kickoff
This blog contains content from our Ultimate Sales Kickoff Resource Guide. Check out all our sales kickoff resources, best practices and tools here. One of the keys to a successful sales kickoff is to execute it in a way that aligns with your organization's overall business strategy. Sales alignment with the yearly goals of the company are critical. One of the ways you can capture this alignment is to make sure the right outcomes and objectives are prioritized in your SKO agenda, in a way that drives that company strategy. Because you have a limited amount of time and frankly attention of your attendees, it’s important that you ensure what is presented, trained on and delivered during the SKO supports your team’s ability to execute next year. Focus on the areas below to align your company’s business strategy to your SKO agenda:
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Categories: Sales Productivity
Are this year's sales initiatives bringing the results you hoped to achieve thus far? The mid-year mark is a good time to get a quick snapshot of where your team is at and determine your next plan of action.
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Categories: Sales Kickoff
This blog contains content from our Ultimate Sales Kickoff Resource Guide. Check out all of our sales kickoff resources, best practices and tools here. We are working with leaders right now who are rethinking their sales kickoffs, using the event next year to launch a broader sales transformation initiative, aligned to their company’s overall growth strategy. Whether they’re launching something new or aligning the sales team behind company shifts (i.e. acquisitions, shifted market segments, etc.) — it becomes clear pretty quickly that changing sales behaviors and mindsets requires more than a two-day SKO event or one-off virtual training session.
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Categories: Talent Management
Build a process you and your managers can leverage to make your B2B sales talent a competitive advantage. The remote and hybrid work environment provides companies the opportunity to hire talent with fewer geographical restraints creating the ability for leaders to expand their talent pool. Your competition may be leveraging that talent pool to build its sales team, and may be swiping your top performers. If you're considering a renewed focus on your sales talent approach, ensure you have the right foundations to make people successful in your organization and avoid your top talent jumping ship. With more options and more competition, you have the opportunity to ensure you’re maximizing your talent approach. Take ownership of your talent and coaching process.
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Categories: Sales Negotiation
A defined negotiation strategy is a critical component to an organization’s success. If you’re seeing these challenges across your sales organization, it’s time to shift your sales team’s approach:
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Categories: Podcasts
How have you created value for your sales team this year? In our most recent podcasts, we discuss ways you can support your people and coach your entire team to success. As a sales leader, finding the time to fix execution gaps that you know exist, while in the flurry to hit your number is a common challenge. These episodes give you easy ways to enable your sales reps, support your managers and evaluate your own leadership skill set. Find each episode on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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Categories: Sales Productivity
Take a deep dive into the content and expertise other sales leaders have found insightful as they operationalize new initiatives. We asked the Force Management team what assets resonate the most with the leaders they’re talking to every day. This list is the result. You may also find them valuable as you work to improve your team’s sales performance.
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Categories: Sales Coaching Tools
Great leaders are great leaders — no matter the court they operate in. On the Audible-Ready Sales Podcast, John Kaplan, Force Management President, had a chance to chat with Coach John Mosley Jr. from Netflix's Last Chance U and East Los Angeles College. Coaching inspiration can come from anywhere. Below are our top takeaways that you can apply to your own sales teams.
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Categories: Sales Productivity
Enable your sales team to pick up the pace this year, particularly if they’re in a competitive sales environment. Maybe you know what’s working well and what isn't, but you’re unsure how to move forward. Maybe you’re looking for strategic ways to course-correct existing challenges, while in the flurry to hit your number this quarter. In a competitive market, the best sales leaders are the ones who enable their teams to differentiate based on buyer needs. Define and align on what’s next for your sales team and how you can act now to enable them to survive and thrive this year. Here are a few areas to consider.
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Categories: Buyer Alignment | Sales Messaging
There are a lot of organizations that tout what makes them different from the competition. However, at times, that differentiation is simply talk because sales reps are unable to articulate that differentiation in terms of buyer needs. Cross-functional alignment on the competitive differentiation of a great B2B solution and a sales consumable framework that enables reps to leverage that differentiation, can have a major impact on the sales team’s ability to win more and close higher-value opportunities. See how successful sales leaders generate this alignment and operationalize it in a way that drives repeatable sales impacts and company-wide benefits.
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Categories: Podcasts
This month's episodes packed an extra punch. With timely front-line sales tips and a guest appearance for ELAC Men's Basketball Coach, John Mosley Jr. (as seen on Netflix's Last Chance U: Basketball Series) — each episode has something for everyone in your organization. Here's a rundown of what each episode covers. Tune in and share with your sales reps, managers and other leaders in your organization. Find each episode on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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Categories: Sales Coaching Tools | Sales Leadership
The best sales leaders are great coaches. If you’ve made the jump from sales rep to sales manager, you know that effective coaching is a learned skill. If you’ve seen the latest season of Netflix’s Last Chance U: Basketball, you know that Coach John Mosley Junior, Men’s Basketball coach at East Los Angeles College, thrives on coaching his players to success. I had the chance to interview him for a two-part series on The Audible-Ready Sales Podcast.
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Categories: Customer Success | Sales Messaging | Sales Negotiation
Quarterly Business Reviews are a common practice for B2B sales companies. They’re meant to provide value for the customer and also provide an opportunity for the sales team to discover ways to help customers be successful, but all too often they miss the mark. Most executives have been through countless lackluster or for lack of a better term, bad QBRs. That’s why your buyers may avoid these important discussions and opt to not come altogether. With a well-defined process on how your customer-facing teams create and capture value, you can differentiate your approach to these important meetings.
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Categories: Sales Leadership
I often have the conversation on “balancing long- and short-term sales goals” with sales leaders. Finding the time to fix execution gaps that you know exist, while in the flurry to hit your number is a common challenge. So the question becomes, “How do you handle the pressure of the quarter while ensuring achievement of the long-term goals for your sales organization?”
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Categories: Podcasts
Our April episodes cover sales fundamentals that reps can implement right now to improve win rates and margins. From influencing decision criteria to attaching to big business problems that demand urgency — each episode shares proven best practices and actionable tactics salespeople can use to beat the competition and close at a premium price. Review each episode below, and encourage your sales reps and managers to listen in. Find each episode on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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Categories: Sales Messaging | Sales Transformation
How can you grow sales revenue when you’re selling a product that simply isn’t a line item in most buyer budgets? Selling a product that represents a new way of doing business demands that salespeople are equipped to be relevant to their buyers’ business-level challenges. When groundbreaking high-tech companies aim to scale sales success, solidifying alignment with their buyer is a key first step and one that can drive company-wide benefits in the process.
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Categories: Buyer Alignment | Sales Productivity | Sales Transformation
Every sales leader wants to get more out of their current sales team. How do you boost sales performance with what you have? In our recent webinar, Force Management's President, John Kaplan, and Chief Operating Officer, Dave Davies, discussed what sales leaders are doing right now. We’ve broken down our top five takeaways and action items from their conversation. If you want to watch the full discussion, get access to the on-demand webinar here.
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Categories: Sales Productivity | Sales Qualification
If "not right now" or "no decision" deals are crippling your pipeline, you likely need a concerted sales effort to minimize their impact on your forecast. Do you have clarity around what’s leading to not right now decisions? The top-tier sales leaders we’re working with are successfully driving win rates and numbers up by helping their reps align with their buyers through their sales process and message. Define where deals are breaking down in your customer engagement process. Here are two areas to assess.
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Categories: Podcasts
Our March episodes focused on key steps in the sales process. Help your salespeople improve their ability to execute on selling fundamentals like, influencing decision criteria and selling higher. Listen, and share with your managers, front-line reps and BDR/SDR organization to help them improve front-line execution over the next few sales cycles. Find each episode on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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Categories: Company Alignment | Sales Productivity
Companies often function in silos, with sales, marketing, product and operations working separately, instead of together toward common goals. As each department works to meet company goals on their own, inefficiencies become rampant, with sales performance likely becoming one of the largest frustrations. Removing those silos can create and capture customer value, as well as streamline internal processes and administrative burdens.
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Categories: Sales Transformation
Changing the sales behaviors of an entire organization requires time, commitment and a plan for reinforcement that drives lasting results. When done right, a well-thought-out strategic initiative creates organizational transformation in a way that accelerates growth and powers valuable exits for growing companies. Successful transformation is an outcome of a concerted effort to reinforce behavior change within the sales organization.
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Categories: Adoption and Reinforcement | Sales Transformation
With any strategic change initiative, there’s always the question of whether or not it will stick. If you’re tasked with ensuring your sales organization can execute against aggressive growth goals, you’re likely readying your plan. Building sales capabilities and driving on-going reinforcement is not easy. Even veteran leaders aren’t immune to the risks that come with investing coveted time and resources in a sales transformation initiative. However, experience does provide insight on what not to do and how to lead from the front in a way that drives on-going results.
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Categories: Sales Coaching Tools
We’re regularly updating our robust content library, focused on sales best practices. Many of the topics come from our own prospects and customers who are dealing with sales challenges as they look to accelerate growth, drive more pipeline and capture value throughout the sales process. Many sales leaders find value in sharing this content with their sales teams. Whether you’re reinforcing a recent training or trying to get your teams to up their game in certain areas, you may find some of the resources helpful. Here is a list of some of our most popular content that may be worth passing along to your front-line managers, account reps, and your BDR/SDR team.
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Categories: Podcasts
Our February episodes aim to help sales leaders and managers improve seller skill sets and productivity this year. Help your salespeople stand out from competitors, avoid a dreaded "not right now" decision, and improve their ability to execute the fundamentals of great selling. From preparation, to building business acumen and being relevant to multiple decision makers — each episode this month covers key sales fundamentals your sellers should constantly be focusing on. Listen, and share with your sales teams to help them improve their ability to execute and hit quotas. Find each episode on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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Categories: Adoption and Reinforcement | Sales Kickoff
If you launched some type of virtual sales kickoff event this year or you’re building momentum for an upcoming sales initiative, what’s your plan to reinforce it throughout the year? Anyone who has launched a strategic sales initiative knows it’s a big effort. This year, company leaders are getting strategic with how they’re planning to maintain SKO momentum, adapting their reinforcement efforts to drive success in the increasingly remote sales environment.
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Categories: Sales Messaging
SaaS trends show companies are increasingly making the shift to usage-based pricing models. The ability to increase monetization over time and emphasize a land and expand strategy makes consumption-based models attractive to growing companies. Aligning to new ways buyers use your product likely requires a shifted sales approach, one that equips sellers to communicate value in a way that improves their ability to (1) land high-consumption accounts and (2) ensure long-term adoption within them. Easier said than done.
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Categories: Podcasts
Our January episodes aimed to help sales teams start the year right. Each episode shares insights sales reps, managers and leaders can use to make an immediate impact on the pipeline. Listen, and share with your sales teams to support them in driving better numbers right away this year. Find each episode on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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Categories: Sales Transformation
Many of you had a killer year, despite its challenges. It may have been the best you’ve ever had as a sales organization and company. However, with any success, comes new challenges. Can you repeat the same success next year? How are you preparing to ensure the growth your sales organization has achieved doesn't stagnate?
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Categories: Opportunity Reviews | Sales Coaching Tools
If you’ve launched a strategic initiative to improve your sales organization’s success rate this year, ensure your managers are prepared to drive consistent execution and make it stick. Opportunity coaching sessions are an ideal place to reinforce new methodologies and sales behaviors. However, they have to be structured and executed in a way that salespeople see the value in these sessions and managers know how to provide it. When implemented with the right foundation, a coaching approach to regular deal reviews provides reps with actions to take on an account and a way to learn how to execute better in the future.
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Categories: Company Alignment | Sales Messaging
Acquiring a company can be an exciting time for an organization. It may bring new capabilities and solution differentiators, perks for employees, verticals to target, etc… On the flip side, an acquisition also brings the challenge of incorporating updates and changes into the sales function. Depending on what was acquired, it may bring changes to your sales process, your qualification process, your negotiation frameworks and/or your sales message. Putting a disciplined plan together that equips your teams to execute at the buyer-level is critical. That plan often starts with your sales messaging framework. Here are key areas to consider as you start aligning your sales team after an acquisition.
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Categories: Talent Management
You monitor rep performance, but what processes have you put in place to build “B” sellers into “A”s and retain your highest performing people? Do you hire what you think are top performers, only to see that they aren’t worth their cost in the long run? As a sales leader, you cannot underestimate the importance of owning your sales talent process. Don’t make the mistake of relying solely on human resources to navigate the recruiting process for new sellers, especially when you have the opportunity to make your sales talent a competitive advantage in your market. Regular evaluation of your talent (and the tools you’re providing them with) are critical to successfully managing and growing revenue year after year.
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Categories: Sales Leadership
"We first make our habits, and then our habits make us." - John Dryden With 2020 being the year it was, many of us have likely picked up some new habits - some great and a few we may want to leave behind. Habits are critical to being successful in sales. Being purposeful with your habits now can help you seize this year’s opportunities to achieve new goals, both personal and professional. John Kaplan recently shared this post on LinkedIn around how he’s planning to clean up some habits rolling into 2021. It sparked a great conversation and a list of habits to aspire to in the new year. You may find them valuable too. Here are a few that were shared:
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Categories: Podcasts | Sales Messaging
Proof Points are a critical component to the sales process. They provide proof that you do what you say you can do. The more they’re aligned to your buyer through industry, problem or positive business outcome, the more effective they’ll be. Sales organizations that have a process for developing and maximizing the effectiveness of their proof points are able to leverage this important tool in a way that creates and preserves value in the sales process.
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Categories: Podcasts
Each December episode can help your sales reps make an impact on current pipeline opportunities, no matter what stage of the sales process they're in. Share these episodes with your managers, account reps and even SDR/BDR organization to help them improve their ability to execute on critical deals and start the new year strong. Review our rundown of episodes below. Find each episode on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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Categories: Sales Productivity
2020 was a year unlike any other. Many of us are still working through unexpected and unique challenges. The Force Management content team worked to publish content that was relevant and helpful to a sales community that was navigating unprecedented times. Taking a look back, we put together a list of the content that resonated most with our network of revenue leaders. You may find value in these insights as well, as you assess how you can improve your sales team’s ability to compete next year.
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Categories: Sales Messaging
Through podcasts, conversations and LinkedIn activity, you’ve probably heard me call 2020 the “great teacher.” No matter who you are or where you are in this world, we all have learned something about ourselves this year. I like to compare the 2020 business landscape to boats in the harbor. The water level lowered and ALL of our boats went down at the same time, but not all of our boats rose at the same time. Why did some boats raise back up and others have not and maybe will not? As I pondered that question, I thought about a few metaphors that may help explain my thoughts on why some will come out of this Pandemic stronger and in a better place to win. Here are three concepts that I think pertain to that current situation:
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Categories: Podcasts
End this complex year on a high note and define your plan for next year. Our November episodes share tips and insights to consider as you make strategic decisions (for yourself or your sales team) heading into next year. Review our rundown of episodes below. Each episode is available on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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Categories: Sales Messaging
There's not a salesperson out there that doesn't love having a multitude of case studies and customer testimonials that demonstrate the value and differentiation of your solutions. Proof points help move individual opportunities forward, gaining attention of prospects and mitigating purchasing risk. Elite salespeople know how to use them effectively. Elite sales organizations have a process around capturing them and using them.
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Categories: Sales Transformation
The way you launch and implement a new sales methodology is critical to its success. In fact, it may be even more important than the methodology you choose to adopt in the first place. That’s the findings from the latest study from MetaCX. Researchers surveyed 400 revenue leaders within B2B SaaS companies on sales methodology trends. Not surprisingly, the research shows that application powers success. Here are our two other major takeaways from the study:
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Categories: Sales Planning
Whether you're facing end-of-year territory reviews and or planning to drive more business in the upcoming quarter, one thing is certain — you've got numbers to hit. As a leader, it's critical to support your sales managers and reps in developing a plan to drive consistent pipeline and ensure your sales team isn’t missing out on high-value accounts. Now is a great time to align your team around a consistent sales planning mindset.
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Categories: Sales Messaging | Sales Process
Remote selling, buying, prospecting and training is here to stay. Even as lockdowns and restrictions loosen, B2B buyers continue to embrace, but also seem to prefer, remote interactions over face-to face meetings. That’s according to new research just published by McKinsey. At Force, we’ve found similar trends. Elite sales leaders are analyzing how well they’re supporting their salespeople in the remote environment, and making strategic changes to drive continued success or improve numbers.
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Categories: Podcasts
To help sales teams secure critical pipeline deals before year end, each of our episodes this month focused on ensuring successful execution in various areas of sales effectiveness. Review our rundown of episodes below. Share these insights with sales managers and reps to help them improve their ability to hit their numbers. Each episode is available on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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If you’re responsible for your sales organization’s success and need to make an immediate impact — we’ve outlined a roadmap you can use to scale success. Use your sales force as a way to accelerate your company's flywheel. Assess your sales organization’s ability to execute in these four areas of sales effectiveness. Prioritize your best opportunity to scale and maximize your sales organization's current success. Equip your sales team to accelerate revenue growth by improving their ability to execute in one or more of these areas:
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Categories: MEDDICC
Company leaders are moving quickly to make sure their their qualification process is set up to ensure their sales teams can execute against it and they can effectively predict the business. In our recent webinar, How MEDDICC Helps Drive Revenue Predictability, John Kaplan explored how companies are using MEDDICC today to drive revenue predictability, despite market uncertainties.
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Categories: Company Alignment | Sales Productivity
We spend a lot of time on our blog talking about challenges our customers face and possible solutions. We try to practice what we preach, making our blog content focused on our customer, and less about us. However, today we are breaking with the norm and sharing a little more about Force Management to help you align on your biggest opportunity to drive sales impact.
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Categories: Adoption and Reinforcement | Sales Transformation
This post is an extension of the Ten Reasons Why Our Sales Training Is Different. Read the original article to learn more about why our process equips our customers to achieve lasting results. Read it here. The impacts of the pandemic left many sales leaders to shift priorities and find new ways to equip their sales teams to succeed. To help ramp up sales teams and enable teams to hit aggressive growth goals, many sales organizations are choosing virtual sales training engagements as a way to move forward with internal process changes. We’re supporting customers right now in implementing their strategic initiatives virtually to ensure their sales organization can execute on new revenue goals and benchmarks.
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Categories: Buyer Alignment | Sales Kickoff | Sales Messaging
Your sales reps are having conversations with critical leads right now. The challenge for many organizations is that those buyer needs may have changed or perhaps the solutions they’re selling have shifted. In the flurry of trying to drive pipeline and close deals, stopping to train sales teams on the tools they need to excel in this environment may unfortunately, fall by the wayside.
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Categories: Podcasts
The goal of this month's episodes was to share how your sales organization can pivot in their mindset and their daily sales activities to drive results — even during challenging times. Each episode covers timely tactics sales leaders, managers and reps can use to move and close high-value deals. Review our rundown of episodes below. Share these insights with your sales team to improve execution and their ability to hit their numbers. Each episode is available on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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Categories: Sales Kickoff | Sales Leadership | Sales Process
With any strategic change initiative, there’s always the question of whether or not it will stick. Anyone who’s been involved in a sales transformation knows, going from point A to point B, the desired future state, is no simple feat. The key to ensuring your change initiative’s success is to understand what it takes from the sales reps, managers and yourself as the leader to drive lasting outcomes. Then, commit to making it happen.
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Categories: Sales Messaging | Sales and Marketing
Our economic environment has forced many sales teams to dig deeper into their territories for potential pipeline and put a critical focus on effectively executing on every valuable lead. Because of the shift in many buyer environments, it’s never been more important to effectively communicate the value and differentiation of your solution in a way that aligns to your customer's greatest business challenge. That need demands marketing and sales communicate a consistent buyer-focused message.
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Categories: MEDDICC | Sales Qualification
A great qualification approach matters in today’s changing environment. Every buyer is dealing with something they haven’t dealt with before. Because of this, their buying processes are changing. It's likely that new budget cuts, executive-level sign off requirements and solution requirements have caused customer buying processes to evolve. Elite companies are moving quickly to adapt their qualification methods and ensure their sales teams can effectively qualify the right opportunities and move them forward efficiently. These sales organizations are anchoring on methodologies, like MEDDICC, to help their salespeople maintain a healthy pipeline, close high-value opportunities and increase overall deal velocity. Now is a great time to equip your sales teams to keep pipelines moving and improve revenue predictability in these challenging times.
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Categories: Podcasts
The goal of this month's episodes was to share key strategies for sales teams looking to execute on critical pipeline deals. Each episode covers timely tactics sales leaders, managers and reps can use to build and maintain pipeline. Review our rundown of episodes below. Share these strategies with your sales teams to help keep them focused and motivated. Each episode is available on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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This blog contains content from originally from Clozd. We're excited to announce that our very own Tim Caito, Senior Partner at Force Managment, will be taking part of Clozd's #winlossweek, the largest online event dedicated to win-loss analysis. The free conference runs from Sept. 15-17, you can register here. Mark your calendar to join Tim for a conversation on September 17th as he discusses how to build an organizational competency around winning the deals you want to win and avoiding the ones you shouldn't pursue. When a B2B deal goes south, the most common reason initially identified by both buyers and vendors is price. Of course, price runs through every decision, and no one loves shelling out cash. Unless probed further, the buyer may simply use the statement "the price is too high" to summarize his or her overall dissatisfaction with the vendor’s value offering.
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Categories: Sales Kickoff | Sales Leadership | Sales Transformation
Many companies spend significant time and resources planning and executing their sales transformation initiatives and/or sales kickoff events. If done right, the effort can set your sales organization (and yourself) up for long-term success. Positive results can accumulate in the coming quarters and years down the line ... that is if you can ensure that critical concepts of your initiative stick with your sales team. Achieving sales transformation demands relevancy to your sales organization to ensure lasting outcomes.
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Categories: Sales Kickoff | Sales Process
First-line managers, more often than not, are the linchpin to whether a sales enablement initiative sticks or falls by the wayside. If your managers see how invested you are in the change initiative’s success, they’ll see the importance of driving long-term reinforcement and adoption. To get managers to put in the work required to drive results, 30, 60, 90 days after the launch of your initiative, you’ve got to put in the work 30, 60, 90 days before the launch of your initiative. Here’s how you can get your managers on board and equipped to move the needle.
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Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Kickoff | Sales Messaging | Sales Process
Cracking into new accounts is the top challenge of sales leaders in the current environment. Sales Mastery just released new data after asking 200+ sales leaders for their top sales objective moving forward. While new accounts topped the list, selling more in existing accounts, optimizing lead generation and conversion, and decreasing churn rounded out the top challenges for sales leaders and managers. as they plan to hit their numbers in 2020. At the same time, these challenges are driving key sales enablement priorities. Below are the top three sales enablement initiatives CROs are using to move the needle, according to Sales Mastery, and how to use them to right the course in your sales organization.
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Categories: Company Alignment | Front-line Managers | Sales Messaging
If you're a sales leader, it can be helpful to hear from others in your role to know how they’re dealing with similar challenges and where they’re finding success. We recently talked sales challenges with a group of sales leaders in the high-tech industry, as part of an event with Modern Sales Pros. The organization leads several peer-to-peer discussions and virtual events throughout the year. Not surprisingly, other company leaders are focusing on improving their organization’s ability to compete and perform. Here were our top three takeaways from the conversation:
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Categories: Buyer Alignment | Sales Messaging
Finding new ways to meet evolving buyer needs is the cornerstone of every great sales organization. The current environment has many companies adjusting product road maps and sales campaigns, trying to align with the most pressing needs of their specific marketplace. Given the current state, you, as a sales leader, have a huge opportunity to enable your sales teams to sell new products (or your exciting offerings) in a way that drives competitive revenue growth. How you enable your sales organization to sell your technology will play the biggest role in their success, and your success. Here’s how you can make the biggest impact:
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Categories: Sales Kickoff
This blog contains content from our Ultimate Sales Kickoff Resource Guide. Check out all our great virtual sales kickoff resources and tools here. When the pandemic hit, plans were already in the works for many sales organizations to launch a new sales initiative. But those plans had to wait, while companies tried to figure out what they were going to do and how they were going to move forward. Lately, we've seen a lot of companies come forward, ready to take action. Their leaders realized their company can’t wait any longer to launch initiatives that are critical to their future success. Sales leaders are making decisions on ways to keep their sales reps productive in this economic environment. The organizations that will succeed are the ones that choose to move forward, despite the circumstances.
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Categories: Sales Kickoff
This blog contains content from our Ultimate Sales Kickoff Resource Guide. Check out all our great virtual sales kickoff resources and tools here. The typical sales kickoff event is going to look different this year. With the possibility of an in-person event becoming more and more unlikely, company leaders are using this opportunity to invest in strategic sales initiatives that they can launch virtually, during the time of their would-be SKO. The move often shifts travel and entertainment funds into tools, content and training to improve critical components of sales execution. Done right, the switch can get companies moving faster and help them bridge critical gaps in achieving their 2021 goals.
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Categories: Podcasts
The goal of this month's episodes was to share key strategies sales teams can implement right now to close opportunities. Each episode covers timely tactics sales leaders, managers and reps can use to make an impact on the live deals in the pipeline. Review our rundown of episodes below. Share these effective strategies with your sales teams to help them hit their numbers this quarter and the next. Each episode is available on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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We’ve been publishing a lot of content this year. We even set a record for website visits. Sometimes, we even have trouble keeping up with everything we’re publishing. So, we’re thinking some of you may have missed some of the assets we’ve put out this year.
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Over the past few months, many sales organizations have been struggling with margins, deal size and overall sales productivity due to the current economic climate. While some sales leaders are simply trying to keep their teams focused, others are trying to do anything to stop the bleeding and recoup lost revenue.
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Categories: Podcasts
he goal of this month's episodes was to highlight the key things sales leaders, managers and reps should be focusing on to improve pipeline health and increase margins. Check out our rundown of episodes below. Use them as ways to keep yourself and your sales teams motivated. Each episode is available on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
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Categories: Sales Kickoff | Sales Messaging
If you decide to move forward with a virtual sales kickoff event, it will have its benefits. You can forego the hefty budget required for hotel stays, travel expenses and other in-person provisions. Your sellers will be "out of the field" less, which means less time away from critical sales activities. You can also reset the event according to your organization's priorities, which may mean getting busy with SKO planning earlier or later than you’re used to.
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Categories: MEDDICC | Sales Messaging | Sales Qualification
At any company life cycle stage, there are challenges that come with driving scalable growth. Defining where the biggest gaps or opportunities lie within a sales process is one complication sales leaders, their executive teams, and even their investment firms often struggle with. Determining which sales initiative will drive the most impactful results takes careful consideration.
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Categories: MEDDICC
Over the past few months new challenges may have forced the need for changes and shifts in your sales process. As you consider ways to help reps faster qualify opportunities, improve forecast accuracy, and increase win rates, make sure you’re looking beyond the process.
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Categories: Company Alignment
BDR/SDRs are vital to an organization's ability to gain market awareness, grow and scale. Keeping a growth engine going around this function is not easy. Its propensity for high turnover can make it difficult to enable BDR/SDR teams to make a consistent impact.
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Categories: Podcasts
The goal of this month’s podcasts were to stay timely and relevant to the issues sales teams are dealing with right now. In each episode, we covered topics aimed at helping sales leaders, managers and reps navigate new buyer concerns and make positive tweaks to their process to improve the pipeline. For your convenience we’ve summed up the episodes below. Launch them on your favorite podcast player, download, listen and share with your colleagues!
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Categories: Sales Productivity
One of the most commonly asked questions our sales experts are receiving is, “ What are other companies doing right now?” We pulled together what we’ve been hearing from our customers into some key action steps for our blog readers. Our teams are talking to sales leaders across the country, every day. Below are the major themes we are hearing right now.
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Categories: Sales Transformation
When companies invest in sales initiatives, they have specific outcomes they’re looking to achieve. Many sales leaders are trying to decide between (1) waiting for when they can schedule an in-person session or (2) moving forward now with a virtual training.
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Categories: Buyer Alignment | Company Alignment | Front-line Managers
The main goal right now for many organizations, including Force Management, is to effectively lead through the turnaround while supporting customers, employees and communities in the best way possible. That’s why we wanted to share some of the insights in this recent article by McKinsey & Company on how marketing and sales leaders can shape the next normal.
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Categories: Sales Training Initiative | Sales Transformation
Right now, sales leaders around the globe are trying to determine what is the best course of action for their sales teams. Perhaps they planned a training initiative that they put on hold or they’re waiting to roll out a new solution to their buyers, and they’re trying to wait for the right time to start ramping up their sales team on the new strategy.
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Categories: Podcasts
Our podcasts are a great way to refresh you and your teams on selling best practices. This month’s episodes featured some short episodes on how sales leaders can maintain productivity and improve focus on the pipeline. For your convenience we’ve summed up the episodes below. Launch them on your favorite podcast player, download, listen and tell your colleagues!
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Categories: Company Alignment | Sales Messaging | Sales Transformation
Cross-functional alignment on the value your solutions provide for your customer is the key to accelerating growth. This symmetry is an essential link between your product team and your sales organization. If your salespeople aren't able to articulate the business value of the products you develop, customers won't realize their full potential. How many times have you seen a deal closed where the buyer is only buying one part of your solution, and therefore missing the bigger value for his/her business by not using the platform?
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Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Coaching Tools | Sales Leadership | Sales Productivity
Sales managers play a critical role in driving the success of their organization. They’re the people charged with reinforcing methodologies, coaching sales reps, communicating up in their organization and ultimately meeting team revenue goals. The good ones are expert multi-taskers and that’s why we often say that sales managers have one of the most difficult jobs in their organizations. Managers are a key component to your sales organization’s ability to maintain sales productivity right now. Enable them effectively. Distinguish yourself as a sales leader by finding areas where you can provide the most support to your front-line managers.
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Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Coaching Tools | Sales Leadership | Sales Process
Maintaining rep productivity is one of the top focus areas for the sales leaders right now. The most effective sales teams are the ones who are keeping focus on their buyer and executing a plan that's setting them up for success when business opens again. We've written a lot about productivity over the years. So, we're pulling together our top content resources for maintaining productivity.
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Categories: Buyer Alignment | Sales Productivity
In the changing environment, your buyer’s challenges may also be constantly shifting. Elite sales organizations are assessing how this economic environment is impacting their buyers and adjusting their sales message accordingly.
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Categories: Sales Messaging | Sales Productivity
With the news about the COVID-19 pandemic changing daily, focus can be a challenge for a sales leader. The constant shift likely means pivoting between heavy-hearted decisions, board meetings, conversations with employees and the albeit adjusted revenue numbers. Your customers are facing the same difficult decisions. How are you keeping your sales reps focused? Your managers equipped to maintain productivity? And, readying your organization for when the panic dies down? Here are five ways you can keep your teams focused.
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Categories: Company Alignment | Sales Negotiation
Many companies mistake sales negotiation as a function conducted exclusively by sellers. We consider negotiation a team effort. In a complex B2B sales environment, it is rare for an individual seller to negotiate an entire deal on his/her own without the support, guidance and active participation from the rest of the organization. There are multiple functions and teams involved in negotiation alongside the sales team. You would be doing a disservice to your company to only involve your sales team in the creation and execution of your negotiation strategy. Each function must have a clear understanding as to how negotiation is executed and agree upon what a great deal looks like.
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Categories: Podcasts
We recently launched our new Audible-Ready podcast with four new episodes focused on how you can impact your numbers right now. Our focus is to provide short episodes that give you tangible tips you can use in your sales environments. Below is a rundown of our most recent episodes. Listen to a clip and launch your favorite podcast player to subscribe, listen or download and save for later.
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Categories: Sales Enablement Technology
Best Practices to Drive Great Outcomes Your work environments may be shifting, but you and your team still have revenue goals to make. Nothing has changed about the need to use your time productively. Until further notice – the goal in today’s changing business world is to make the necessary transitions and stay the course.
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It's Saturday morning and I am reflecting on this past week. It started off with my sluggish reaction to the time change; moved through a free-fall of personal wealth and ended with overwhelming public health concerns for my company and global community. I like to talk and write about things that give people “spirit”. What often happens, is that I wind up getting the most spirit out of the exercise. I think today is one of those days.
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Categories: Front-line Managers
I was at the airport when I learned about the death of Jack Welch. The former Chairman and CEO of GE died Monday at the age of 84. As I boarded my plane that was taking me to meetings for my own company, I reflected on the impact his books Straight from the Gut and Winning had on my early business thinking.
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Categories: Sales Messaging
The only way your reps are going to be consistently successful is if they're able to effectively align with their buyer's needs and desired outcomes throughout the sales process. We've compiled our best resources for uncovering customer needs in discovery and aligning your sales process with your buyer's process below.
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Categories: Company Alignment
Many companies underestimate the importance of alignment, especially when it comes to the growth strategy and the overall sales execution process. Without alignment, it's difficult to scale and keep a buyer-focus throughout your organization. If your cross-functional leadership team isn't aligned on what the focus is for your customers, how can your sales team effectively execute?
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Categories: Front-line Managers
Developing effective feedback skills is an important component of being an effective leader. How can you coach your teams to success if you don't possess the ability to provide feedback in a way that's constructive and actionable. Below are some of our most often used resources for front-line managers on giving effective feedback.
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Categories: Customer Success | Sales Messaging
Champions are a key component to selling high-level enterprise deals. If you know how to effectively enable and test a champion, you have an effective tool to advance your opportunities. We have covered Champions in a variety of our content. Here are a few of our most popular resources.
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Categories: Sales Planning
I hope that you enjoyed this year’s Super Bowl as much as I did. I am just getting back into the office after a great first part of the week on the road. I have enjoyed writing my recent football recaps, as I'm passionate about what sports can teach us off the field. My own experience playing athletics has taught me a great deal about life. And in Sunday's game, there were plenty of lessons in action.
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Categories: Sales Negotiation
"Shift Left" is a saying we often promote to our Value Negotiation customers. What we mean by this saying is that your salespeople need to start the negotiation strategy early on in the sales process. It needs to be a part of the far left columns in your sales process, not just in the late stages of the opportunity (the sections to the right of the page).
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Categories: Sales Negotiation | Sales Process
There are two sides to every sales negotiation - the negotiation with the customer and the internal process that's going on in your own company, as your salespeople try to move a deal forward. When we ask sellers if their internal process helps or hinders their customer negotiations, the answer is always the latter. Most of sales leaders agree their internal process isn't really a process at all, rather a series of one-off requests and fire drills. That's why we encourage growing organizations to develop a negotiation strategy at the organizational level that's aligned with the company's overall growth strategy. Developing that plan requires intention and a concerted effort across your company, but the measurable results are worth the effort. The negative consequences of not taking action may be the very things that prevent your organization from truly realizing your revenue goals.
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Categories: Front-line Managers | Talent Management
As many of you know, I am a huge college football fan. I love the National Championship game (and playoffs) regardless of who is playing because there is so much “life” going on during the games. This week’s game between LSU and Clemson was no disappointment. Many of my friends turned the game off in the third quarter when LSU went up by ten. It is amazing that in the second quarter, LSU was down by ten points and looking like they were going to have a very tough night. I watched every play because I have so much interest and respect for what it takes to play on that national stage.
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Categories: Sales Enablement Technology | Sales Process
If you're making sizable shifts next year to enable your sales team to sell a platform solution, you need to ensure they're able to make that jump. These ideas look good on paper, but when it comes to actually getting your salespeople to convince the customer to buy, you likely need to invest in some enablement.
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Categories: Company Alignment | Sales Kickoff | Sales Productivity
Many of you are prepping for your sales kickoff. We often put so much into the planning of the SKO, that sometimes we fail to give the same amount of attention to the actual presentation we will give at the event. The sales kickoff is often the one chance sales leaders have to get the momentum going at the beginning of the fiscal year. Past quarters are over and done with and the SKO is a time to start fresh, right the course and chart the path towards increased sales productivity and revenue.
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Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Leadership | Sales Productivity
How important are front-line sales leaders to the execution of your sales initiatives? Absolutely critical. Of course, it sounds like common sense when you say it, but many companies still don’t understand how to support their front-line managers in a way that truly supports success.
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Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Leadership | Sales Transformation
Lots of companies seem to forget that when you put the word "manager" behind a sales title, you’re asking folks to become a developer of people. Many times, companies don’t actually put the right processes and tools in place to help front-line sales managers drive success for their teams.
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Categories: Sales Planning
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry It’s that time of year again when elite sellers are putting together their plan for the new year. Early in my career, I remember having an incredible year of performance. I was the top rep in my region and preparing to go to Hawaii for President’s Club. It was, by far, my biggest income year to date. Sounds like a great story, right? It was actually one of my darkest hours in selling. Let me set the stage for you.
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Categories: Sales Messaging | Sales Transformation
A channel program is an effective way to increase your capacity and expand market share. However, without putting resources behind enabling this avenue for revenue, you’ll likely do more harm than good. To garner the many benefits that come from a robust channel program, you need to put the time and resources into ensuring your channel sellers have the same understanding of your value and differentiation as your own field or inside sales teams.
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Categories: Sales Transformation
There are many things that fuel sales performance, but two of the most critical are discipline and practicality for your reps. Without these two elements, it is difficult to achieve repeated performance and quota attainment.
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Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Leadership | Sales Transformation
Sales managers play a critical role in driving your sales organization’s success. Leaders in today’s top companies understand that it takes an enabled, successful sales management team to really impact revenue.
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Categories: Sales Coaching Tools
The other day I was working with a seller who was a little frustrated with how hard it is to get people on the phone. He told me about a prospect who was furious when she realized she was on the other end of a cold call. The prospect yelled, “Are you really cold calling me right now? Why would you waste your time and more importantly why would you attempt to waste my time?!” The seller asked me if I could believe that someone would be so rude and my answer was an emphatic YES! I asked the seller, “What was your answer to the prospect?” There was a bit of a pause, so I interjected, “There is your answer”.
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Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Leadership
Sales managers deserve support from your organization, starting with a clear definition of what success looks like in their role. Great companies start with a strong blueprint that includes the processes and tools that enable sales managers to drive success at the team level.
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Categories: Sales Leadership | Sales Productivity
Now is the time many of us assess how our year has gone. Some of you may be scrambling to make the number, hinging the year on a few deals that you're waiting to close. Others of you may be riding out the quarter, perhaps pushing some deals into next year to give yourself a little runway.
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Categories: Sales Enablement Technology | Sales Leadership
Matt Payne is the Senior Sales Enablement Manager at Jama Software which is a leading product development platform provider for companies building complex products and integrated systems. Matt is in charge of equipping the company's global sales team with the ability to sell business value.
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Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Conversation
If your growth model has you moving from a point solution to a platform solution, it's likely you are assessing how well your sales organization is enabled to execute this new type of sale. It's a trend we see frequently with the high-tech companies with which we work. The decision to create and sell a broader solution has its benefits, but without enabling your sales teams to sell that new functionality, the decision will never realize its potential. Don't simply train your sales teams on the features and functions of your platform, rather equip them with how to sell the value of the holistic solution broader and deeper in the prospect organizations. It's about articulating value and differentiation, but it's also necessary to define the sales process and qualification method that will enable your reps to effectively maneuver through more complex sales.
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Categories: Sales Messaging | Sales Transformation
Marco Davi is a sales enablement professional with 15 years' experience in high-growth companies. He has worked with Force Management on our Command of the Message® offering, implementing the program with a global sales force. Marco was responsible for the rollout in the UK office which included about 100 people. He is also a certified facilitator of the program having participated in our training certification program. Introducing and rolling out Command of the Message (CoM) in an organization is a major step in improving the overall sales strategy. As a sales enablement leader, I have seen and implemented my share of training programs. However, in my experience, Command of the Message is different than other off-the-shelf-type offerings because of its customization, particularly around the products and/or services that you sell. This customization is what creates immediate impact and provides sales reps with something they can use directly after attending the in-person training session.
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Categories: Sales Messaging | Sales Negotiation | Sales Process
Melissa Short is the VP of Reporting Services at Primary Intelligence. Primary Intelligence is a global leader in Win Loss and Customer Experience Analysis. Both solutions provide analytical insights that help companies win more and identify the root causes that lead to lost revenue and customer churn. In advance of her webinar with Brian Walsh, Force's content team asked Melissa to share some perspective on her research and the companies with which she works.
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Categories: Sales Kickoff
It is never too early to start thinking about your sales kickoff, whatever it may look like. Having a specific plan to align the event with the overall company growth goals and objectives for the year is critical to not only the event's success, but will help drive results after the kickoff. Going virtual for this year's event may also bring up new considerations and shifts in how you approach the event altogether. The best sales leaders in the world understand these events, regardless if they're in-person or virtual, are about more than just an "event". Used strategically, they can align the overall company on what's most important - the customer. That's why we've been writing a lot about the sales kickoff these past few weeks. The more your event is aligned with company-level objectives, the more it will set your salespeople up for success in the next four quarters.
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Categories: Sales Kickoff
Many companies spend significant time and resources planning and executing their sales kickoff. If done right, the effort can be well worth it in the long run. Positive results can accumulate in the coming quarters and years down the line. In our webinar, "Your Next SKO: Stop the Insanity," we received several questions about planning a sales kickoff that will stick with your team. You can't underestimate the importance effective planning has on achieving these results.
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Categories: Sales Messaging | Sales and Marketing
It's a topic we get asked about frequently. Is Command of the Message a marketing initiative? Or, why is Command of the Message a sales initiative and not a marketing one? Indeed, the name may leave some confused, but once you understand Force Management's point-of-view, it begins to make sense for sales and marketing leaders, particularly those who are looking to create a better buyer and customer experience.
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Categories: Sales Negotiation
Too many sales organizations approach negotiations as a series of tactics that need to be executed at the end of a sales process. Reps negotiate without a defined strategy, that leaves them helpless when dealing with much more experienced procurement professionals. They don't know what their give-gets are and if they do, they aren't aligned to the overall company strategy. Legal is going into the negotiations blind without the context they need to effectively respond in the negotiation. Frankly, by the time the deal is done, the margin is no where near where it should've been and sales leaders are left shaking their heads in frustration.
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Categories: Sales Discovery Process
Do you find yourself consistently frustrated with deals coming across your desk that: give away too much margin; aren't tied to the biggest business issue; have limited access to the economic buyer?
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Categories: Sales Training Initiative | Sales Transformation
It's a conversation that can be uncomfortable. When we are talking to sales leaders and executives, we are most often dealing with very smart people. They know how to lead, how to sell, what's needed to be successful and perhaps more importantly, what's not.
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