Categories: Competitors | Sales Productivity | Sales Transformation
Determining the budget line item for a sales initiative can be difficult until you start talking to vendors. There are a multitude of sales consultants out there with prices that vary just as much. Once you determine the key knowledge gaps you're trying to fill in your organization or the challenges you're trying to overcome, then it's time to connect with the right solution for your budget and pain points.
Share
Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Coaching Tools | Sales Leadership | Talent Management
Top sales teams differentiate themselves with a proven system for finding and attracting elite talent. But landing strong candidates is only the first step in the journey. The best organizations know how to retain sellers with the most potential and ensure they’re positioned to perform and excel as they advance up the ranks. Making the move from sales rep to manager is a common career pathway. Some individuals may not be ready for this transition today, but could become ready with time and development. Others may prefer to remain as individual contributors. Learn to recognize the difference so that you can make wise choices in offering promotions. Support your entire team by using the following tips to identify management potential and lay the foundation for new manager success. Here are six attributes to look for in sales manager candidates:
Share
Get the latest tips and advice delivered right to your inbox.
Categories: Buyer Alignment | Company Alignment | Sales Leadership | Sales Messaging
We recently hosted a live session on Driving a Revenue Mindset with our Managing Director and Facilitator Brian Walsh. He shared insights on what’s changing in sales, what remains critical, and what the most successful organizations are focusing on to maintain revenue momentum. Be sure to check out the full on-demand recording here.
Share
Categories: Sales Training Initiative | Sales Transformation
In more than 20 years of helping companies transform their sales and go-to-market organizations, we've worked with hundreds of different sales leaders. Most have been through more than their fair share of sales trainings, and they know the methodologies and best practices that win. You don't become the leader of a sales team without being great at what you do. So, it's natural to ask: Can we just do it ourselves? Can we take on our sales challenges internally? As a sales leader, you probably have years of sales experience and a talented leadership team capable of launching and executing a project. Would a sales transformation partner be worth the investment?
Share
Categories: Podcasts
March on the Revenue Builders Podcast consisted of so many great lessons and conversations with leaders both familiar and new. John McMahon and John Kaplan were joined by guests experienced in building and scaling elite sales teams, who shared insights on hiring great sales teams, leading them to success, and helping them execute next-level go-to-market strategy. Tune in to the below episodes for stories, strategy and wisdom that will help you successfully scale revenue teams as a leader. We recently started publishing two episodes per week, so there are even more great lessons in leadership to unpack! Make sure to subscribe to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you never miss an episode.
Share
Categories: Sales Messaging | Selling to the C-Suite
Your opportunities, especially at the enterprise level, are rarely ever sold to a single decision-maker. Top-performing organizations have go-to-market teams that successfully navigate buying committees of multiple stakeholders, as well as the parties who influence them, to sell deals at a high value. The best revenue teams have the cross-functional credibility and willingness to have multi-faceted sales conversations that drive a collective “YES” from all stakeholders. They build widespread agreement on positive business outcomes, success metrics, and the requirements needed to get there. This agreement helps to drive the urgency of solving the customer’s business challenges. The key to driving this kind of unanimous support for your solution in all purchase, subscription, or renewal processes is to coach your revenue team to identify, early and accurately, certain archetypes in the sales process. We call this charting the buyer landscape.
Share
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’ll want to ensure that the investment you're making in a new approach pays off. Whether you are wrapping up a sales kickoff or delivering a new training initiative to your team, the ROI of the new strategy depends on your post-implementation plan. Building sales capabilities and driving ongoing 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 ongoing results.
Share
Categories: Company Alignment | MEDDICC | Sales Messaging | Sales Transformation
When one deal slips, that’s a deal problem. Nobody likes a missed opportunity, though sales professionals accept that some slippage comes with the territory. But when slipped deals are a consistent end-of-quarter occurrence, that’s an organizational problem with serious negative consequences. Companies that can’t rely on forecasts feel ripple effects across the organization, impacting manufacturing, delivery, operations, and finance. For publicly traded companies, the snowball effect can be devastating. Frequent deal slippage indicates a broader issue with your qualification and sales execution process. It signals that reps aren’t qualifying deals appropriately and managers aren’t coaching effectively. Leaders of revenue teams with a high slip rate need a systematic fix for an organizational challenge. In a recent Revenue Builders Podcast, hosts John Kaplan and John McMahon met with featured guest John Donnelly III, CRO with DTiQ and Co-Founder of e2log, to break down the reasons why deals slip, and the strategies leaders can use to solve the problem.
Share
Categories: Company Alignment | Sales Conversation | Sales Messaging
If you’re leading an organization that’s selling a solution, whether in an established market or a new vertical, you’re competing for your buyers’ attention. The competition is high – we are all faced with hundreds of sales messages each day. Successful sales organizations know how to consistently rise above the noise and command greater market share. These organizations ensure that the entire customer-facing team understands how to communicate the value of their solution in a way that’s meaningful to the buyer’s needs and outcomes. The customer journey no longer begins and ends with the salesperson; to stay competitive, it's critical to ensure that value is being created and captured at every stage of the buyer experience. Start by equipping every member of your go-to-market team with the customer-first mindset associated with the business conversation.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
We've wrapped up another exciting month of podcast episodes, and this time we're bringing you some great tactical conversations on the current best practices in sales from seasoned sales leaders. Whether you're an upcoming leader or are currently managing a sales organization, there are some valuable lessons to be learned from these guests. From preventing deal slippage to mastering customer success to maximizing the value of Sales Engineers and Sales Development Representatives, dig into these conversations to learn what strategies leaders are finding success with right now. We recently started publishing two episodes per week, so there are even more great lessons in leadership to unpack! Make sure to subscribe to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you never miss an episode.
Share
Categories: Sales Coaching Tools | Sales Planning | Sales Transformation | Talent Management
Leading your organization to sustained revenue growth begins by honing your greatest asset: your talent. Every organization has its top performers, and usually others within the ranks hold the potential to become elite. When organizations invest in the learning, coaching, and development needed to level-up each team and player, they give themselves a competitive advantage at every touch-point in the customer journey. A great talent development strategy begins when you identify and codify the behaviors that drive your core business objectives. These behaviors apply to more than just sales reps; BDRs, SEs, and even Marketing and Customer Success roles are more successful when they leverage a common mindset. Raise up your entire customer-facing organization with a plan for identifying and developing the characteristics within individuals and teams that help elevate your organization to greater heights. Here are five traits that we encourage leaders to seek and develop in their revenue teams:
Share
Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Planning | Sales Process
Healthy sales pipelines and accurate forecasts are grounded in structured territory, account and opportunity planning processes. These processes provide sales managers with an unrestricted line of sight into their sales organizations. Without this line of sight, sales organizations often miss quota goals, forecast revenue inaccurately, and close the majority of deals late in the quarter – or year.
Share
Categories: Company Alignment | Sales Transformation | Sales and Marketing
In today's highly competitive market, it's no longer enough for a sales organization to differentiate itself solely based on its offering. The most successful companies today are those that create differentiation in their initial sales process and the customer’s journey. That level of execution requires that leaders enable every customer-facing team and role to be fluent in a unified sales message, strategy, and execution.
Share
Categories: Adoption and Reinforcement | Sales Enablement Technology
If you want to lead a top-performing organization, you need a way to equip the daily grind of sales. Training programs are effective, but what happens after the training stops? You need an enablement engine with content, curriculum and community. That's the power of our platform Ascender®. Right now, we’re working with sales leaders who have seen measurable improvements in quota attainment and forecast accuracy leveraging Ascender. Here are eight ways they’re maximizing their value from the platform.
Share
Categories: Adoption and Reinforcement | Sales Kickoff | Sales Leadership
Lasting SKO success takes more than a well-thought-out event. There are five actions successful sales leaders take to drive immediate and lasting results after the launch of a sales kickoff or training initiative. Actions that help sales teams start strong, finish ahead and accelerate revenue growth. Whether you're approaching your sales kickoff or you've just wrapped up your event, these five actions will help you get the greatest return on investment and ensure your efforts drive results all year.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
Whether you're leading an early-stage startup or an established organization, one of the most important things a leader can do is to cultivate a culture of accountability, curiosity and excellence. This month, our guests on the Revenue Builders podcast offered some insightful perspectives on building a successful sales culture. These leaders have spearheaded culture transformations and spurred massive growth at some of the most influential sales organizations of our time. Tune in to the episodes below to hear their stories and advice on building, scaling, and enabling a winning culture as a sales leader. We recently started publishing two episodes per week, so there's even more great lessons in leadership to dig in to! Make sure to subscribe to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you never miss an episode.
Share
Categories: Adoption and Reinforcement | Company Alignment | Sales Training Initiative
A sales training initiative is a big investment - one you want to ensure provides a long-term return. The key to ensuring a return on the investment is increasing the breadth and depth of your engagement, ensuring long-term adoption and extending training to all customer-facing professionals, not just the direct sales team. Today’s top enablement teams are expanding their efforts to a wider set of roles to ensure new strategies permeate into the daily sales motion. This includes Lead Gen, Pre-Sales, Sales, Post-Sales, Channel, Marketing, and Product roles.
Share
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.
Share
Categories: Company Alignment | Sales Leadership | Sales Transformation
There’s no doubt that the way sales organizations and their customers interact has shifted in the past few years. From a new remote-first approach to rapid digital technology advancement, the customer journey is new and requires active participation from more than just your sales team. The companies that succeed in 2024 will be those who adopt a cross-functional revenue mindset, equipping every customer-facing role to articulate and negotiate on the value of their solution.
Share
Categories: Sales Planning
Many sales organizations struggle with building consistent, qualified pipeline because their sales teams are spending too much time “working around the opportunities.” The key to driving qualified pipeline is focusing your team on the territory, not the opportunities. When your sales team views their territory as their own business unit, they’re more accountable for the forecast and able to execute on next-level pipeline building. Let's examine three ways you can switch up your team's approach to pipeline and give them the tools and agency to deliver more qualified opportunities.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
2023 was a great year for the Revenue Builders Podcast. We enjoyed hosting conversations with some truly transformative leaders, from sales executives at "Unicorn" tech companies to founders of inspiring charitable organizations. Our hosts John Kaplan and John McMahon welcomed over 50 guests whose conversations covered topics like product-led growth, selling to champions and C-level decision-makers, growing your personal sales career and making great sales hires. Today, we're sharing our top 10 most-listened podcasts of the year. Listen, save and share these greatest hits to guide you as you aim even higher in 2024. Thanks for tuning in to the Revenue Builders Podcast this year. We're so grateful you're here, and we love to hear your comments, suggestions and discussions about the show. Make sure to follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram so you can keep up with all the latest wisdom from our guests and tag us when you share your favorite episodes. If you haven't already, subscribe to the Revenue Builders Podcast on your favorite podcast player.
Share
Categories: Sales Coaching Tools | Sales Enablement Technology | Sales Leadership | Sales Productivity
With a new year comes a clean slate – our once-annual fresh start. For revenue team leaders, today’s decisions will help define where the company ends up in twelve months. As budgets get approved and your annual kickoff approaches, give your organization an edge by making sure your plan for the coming year incorporates digital tools and technology that drive results and power today’s top teams. Recent survey research examined the mindsets of B2B technology sales professionals, collecting data from across diverse roles, ages, and company sizes. One question asked respondents, “What would help you and your organization have greater sales success?” The number one answer: Sales Tools, Platforms & Software (44%). Keep this reality top-of-mind as you identify and gather the building blocks for executing your strategy. Revenue team members are hungry for sales technology and platforms that can be harnessed for success. They’re eager to reach professional goals, determined to help their organization meet this year’s goals, and confident that the right digital tools will support these efforts in their everyday selling activities. Help your team step up their game by providing them with tech tools built to boost performance, keep morale high, and sustain long-term success.
Share
Categories: Buyer Alignment | Company Alignment | Front-line Managers
At the intersection of recent economic shifts, restructurings and rapid technology development, the sales reality is changing. The rules of engagement have shifted, and the way that customers discover, assess and ultimately choose your product may look very different from a few years ago.
Share
Categories: Partners | Sales Leadership | Sales Productivity | Scaling Sales
A channel program is an effective way to increase your capacity and expand market share, helping you reach your growth goals faster. When executed well, your channel program will decrease the cost of a sale, improve reach into new markets, and grow overall seller capacity without increasing internal headcount. However, backing your program with the right resources will be critical to its success. To expand market share, you'll need Productivity x Capacity to drive growth. A robust channel partner program will take focus and attention to develop both sides of this equation. For today, we'll set aside the capacity piece of the formula and dig into the actions leaders can take to boost productivity from channel partners. Increasing Channel Partner Productivity When it comes to channel sales, your ability to control the sales process is limited. You have to accept that your partner controls the time frame, message to the customer, and, ultimately, your forecast. What you can control is the tools you provide to help that partner sell your solution. It's important to put time and resources into helping your channel sellers understand your company's value and differentiation as well as your internal revenue teams do. Successful channel execution starts with clearly defined practices that drive bottom-line impact. Five steps to secure channel partner success: 1. Ensure that your company's message and your partner’s message are consistent Driving consistency between your organization's message and your partner's message is critical to align with your customer's buying process. The amount of digital content available today means customers are educating themselves about your offerings prior to any conversation with an actual salesperson. If your partner's message is misaligned with your content, you could miss opportunities to move good deals forward. The best channel enablement programs equip their partners with the ability to communicate their value proposition and give them the ability to answer essential questions on their behalf: • What problems do we solve for our customers? • How do we specifically solve these problems with your solution? • How do we do it differently from the competition? • What is our proof? These questions are simple, but the answers typically are not. Most companies don’t have internal alignment on these questions. If you asked executive leaders in your company these four questions, how much would their answers differ? Align internally on the answers, and then make sure your partners are aligned in the same way. Does your message support the channel buyer’s journey? Can your partners execute that message? Do their marketing materials, sales tools, and presentation decks all have that same unified message? 2. Educate the partner community on the critical skills to be successful in today’s markets Your partners won’t be successful in selling your solutions if they can’t effectively execute in front of the customer. Secure a plan to make sure that every person selling your solution can execute these three critical sales skills: 1. Uncover customer needs by executing an effective discovery session 2. Articulate value and differentiation in a way that has meaning to the buyer 3. Position and negotiate value, preserving margin and avoiding price cuts 3. Implement and inspect what channel leadership adopts in the field Ensuring that your channel leaders are driving enablement and adoption in the field will help produce greater success rates. Just as you do with your internal managers, make sure you provide the how, not just the what. Give partners the tools and processes that help drive the right behaviors and coach them on the desired sales motion. Actions like pre-call planning, asking deep discovery questions and role playing all help increase transaction sizes across the board. 4. Arm partners with competitive intelligence to accelerate the sales process How does your solution differ from the competition? How is that differentiation tied to what drives value for your buyer? Provide partners with competitive information that outlines how your solution is: • UNIQUE — your competition doesn’t have the same features or capabilities • COMPARATIVELY DIFFERENT — features or capabilities that are similar, but are delivered in ways that are more valuable to the buyer • HOLISTICALLY BETTER — qualities about your company that would mitigate risk in the buying decision (e.g., years in business) 5. Provide the channel with proof points that demonstrate your success Customer testimonials are an asset to any sales conversation. Providing tangible and consumable points of reference on the results your solution provides will strengthen your message and put evidence behind your claims. If your solution saved another customer X% of revenue, then that’s valuable information for a channel partner to have. Develop a way for channel partners to easily tap into case studies, testimonial quotes, and proof points for use in their own sales conversations.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
This month, the Revenue Builders podcast features conversations with some truly inspiring leaders. In their discussions with John Kaplan and John McMahon, these leaders shared stories of leading and scaling some of the most influential sales organizations of our time. They didn't always get it right on the first try, but now their lessons can be yours too. From hiring, training and promoting to selling the vision for a startup, dig in to these nuggets of knowledge to find strategies that you can use to lead your organization to new levels of growth in the coming year. We recently started publishing two episodes per week, so there's even more great lessons in leadership to dig in to! Make sure to subscribe to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you never miss an episode.
Share
Categories: Sales Leadership | Sales Messaging | Sales Transformation
Today's leaders have an uphill battle to successfully tackle revenue growth goals. Externally, marketplace dynamics have shifted and buyers have redefined why and how they buy. Internally, revenue organizations have to adapt and align their message in a way that communicates their value in today's dynamic selling environment. Strategies for growth and evolution should drive alignment across all your revenue teams. Start with a buyer-focused messaging framework that’s proven to help revenue teams align behind company goals and support front-line sales success. Everyone in your organization should have the same answers to four essential questions. Alignment around these answers will help equip your revenue teams with a consistent message around the value you bring to the market. Aligning the sales organization around new ways buyers are purchasing your solution requires a shift in the sales approach, one that equips sellers to focus on their buyers and be relevant in sales conversations. One of the most critical ways to align customer-facing teams on a new GTM approach is by ensuring the entire sales organization has a consistent understanding of the business value their solution provides and their competitive differentiation in their marketplace. This alignment starts with the executive team. When leaders generate cross-functional agreement on the value drivers and differentiators that are top-of-mind for their most influential buying audiences, they lay the groundwork for creating a consistent, buyer-focused sales message.
Share
Categories: Company Alignment | MEDDICC | Sales Leadership | Sales Qualification
How do you help your organization to evolve and grow? Economic indicators suggest that the sluggish economy is taking a positive turn. Now may be the time to shift your strategy from hold-the-line to a focus on growth and transformation. The organizations that come out on top will be the ones who embrace this new era with a strategic plan to hit the ground running.
Share
Categories: Company Alignment | Customer Success | Opportunity Reviews | Sales Coaching Tools
When a growing EdTech firm set assertive revenue targets, it partnered with Force Management to help create the transformation necessary for reaching those goals. Skillsoft is a global leader in corporate training and enterprise learning experiences. Together, we implemented a multi-phase engagement to redefine their selling motion and align teams worldwide around the new, customized approach for driving consistent revenue.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
This month, our Revenue Builders guests shared some valuable breakdowns of key leadership skills. From hiring to reporting and developing innovative and effective processes — these guests have definitely been there, done that in the sales world, and we're proud to bring you their stories. These podcasts include insights from leaders of some of the top startups and tech companies of the past decade: Hubspot, Snowflake, MongoDB and more. Dig in to the below episodes to get the inside scoop on the skills needed to lead an elite sales team. We recently started publishing two episodes per week, so there's even more great lessons in leadership to dig in to! Make sure to subscribe to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you never miss an episode.
Share
Categories: Sales Messaging | Sales Process
In today's economic climate, cross-selling and upselling have become more challenging due to the budget constraints of customers. While gaining new customers is always a positive outcome for any organization, the ability of your sales representatives to sell additional products or services to existing customers is often the key to meeting your revenue targets consistently. Unfortunately, many sales leaders may instruct their teams to pull resources from existing accounts in an effort to meet quarterly goals, without equipping them with the necessary tools and strategies to succeed in upselling. This can lead to disorganized sales behavior and increased discounts, creating unnecessary stress for managers and sales representatives alike as they try to close deals that are not yet fully developed.
Share
Categories:
It’s easy to find a sales training company to help you enable your teams. Google it and you’ll find plenty of options that run the gamut of experience and cost. The challenge lies in finding the right sales transformation solution to help you solve the challenges you’re currently facing and drive the outcomes you need.
Share
Categories: Company Alignment | Sales Planning | Scaling Sales
Competitive differentiation is at the core of every organization’s sales strategy. It’s why customers choose your solution and why sellers get excited about bringing your product to market. As markets change, though, customer needs change too. It’s possible that your differentiation may need to adapt to fit these changing customer behaviors.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
This month, the Revenue Builders Podcast featured some great deep dives into tactical sales strategies. Each episode covered a different element of a great sales motion, breaking it down step-by-step in conversation with seasoned leaders and experts with years in the industry. The result is a collection of hard-earned lessons, blueprints for success, and golden nuggets of advice that can only come from leaders who have been in the barrel. Don't miss out - listen, save, and share these episodes to start applying the knowledge that gets your team on the top of their game for a strong showing in Q4. We recently started publishing two episodes per week, so there's even more great lessons in leadership to dig in to! Make sure to subscribe to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you never miss an episode.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Sales Kickoff
As we approach 2024, sales leaders face a critical task: setting the right priorities for your Sales Kickoff event. The past year, marked by economic downturns and shifting market dynamics, may have presented new challenges for your sales team. Those challenges can be opportunities for your team to learn and strengthen your approach in the coming year.
Share
Categories: Sales Leadership | Sales Planning | Sales Transformation
A new quarter is upon us, and it’s time to strategize on how you can make this one even better than the last. Often, sales leaders know where their sales team falls short – but it can be a challenge to identify the root of these problems and determine what action will have the greatest impact in solving them.
Share
Categories: Economic Change
Ongoing uncertainty in our economy may demand a strategic pivot for how you reach revenue goals in your sales organization in the coming year. Like many sales organizations, you may have faced new challenges due to economic shifts this year. As we enter into sales kickoff planning season without a clear picture of what next year will look like, the challenge becomes identifying which priorities are most critical to devote resources to. Your sales kickoff is an opportunity to create the momentum your team needs to tackle whatever happens in the coming year. Take advantage of that opportunity by using this event to align on strategic initiatives, reinforce core methodologies, and lay the groundwork for habits and practices that will drive revenue even through the unexpected. Start making your plan now to reinforce these priorities before, during and after the SKO so you can ensure a high-impact event that helps your team successfully move through a challenging environment and hit revenue targets.
Share
Categories: MEDDICC | Sales Kickoff | Sales Negotiation
It’s no secret selling in the B2B SaaS market got a little harder over the past several quarters. Now more than ever, organizations are looking for ways to gain an edge, keep pipelines healthy, and identify which prospects are most likely to land.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
Last month, the Revenue Builders Podcast featured some hard-hitting tactical conversations about the journey to elite sales leadership and the decisions we make along the way. Dig in to the episodes below to get real-life advice from leaders who have been there and done that. These conversations cover everything from calculating business value for a prospect to defining a repeatable sales process that enables rapid scaling. These episodes are valuable for high achievers in every stage of their sales career, so check them out below. Make sure to tune in to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen, and share.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Partners | Sales Leadership | Scaling Sales
Channel organizations are an often overlooked, but critical component to increasing market share for complex B2B sales organizations. During my time as VP of PTC’s Worldwide Channel Program, I leaned on a core formula: Productivity x Capacity = Growth. In this article, we will focus on capacity, but stay tuned for part two in this series for the other side of the equation: How to Increase Channel Partner Productivity.
Share
Categories: Sales Negotiation | Selling to the C-Suite
The sales landscape has changed more rapidly in the past few years than ever before. From a worldwide pandemic to emerging technologies and fluctuating economic factors, the way that buyers make a purchase decision has evolved. In some ways, these changes require new sales approaches. More likely, these changes have created a stark disparity in the skills of teams who succeed and those who fall behind.
Share
Categories: Sales Process
The buying committee is changing. The average buying committee is now between 8 and 10 decision-makers. This means the sales process is more complex than ever, and ongoing budget concerns add another layer of challenges for your sales team. When you're putting time and resources into sales cycles that last an entire quarter or much longer, the last thing you want is for an unexpected requirement, budget allocation or a last-minute stakeholder interjection to throw a wrench in your plan and stall or kill your deal.
Share
Categories: CRO Best Practices | Economic Change | Sales Leadership
We recently hosted a panel discussion with several top revenue leaders in the sales industry, facilitated by sales veteran and Force Management Partner Brian Walsh. Boomi CRO Marcy Campbell, NWN Carousel CEO and President Jim Sullivan, and Battery Ventures Operating Partner Bill Binch joined us to share each of their unique perspectives on what's driving positive revenue outcomes for sales organizations in our ever-changing economic environment.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
There's no one recipe for success. Every leader has their own unique strategies and practices that they swear by. And yet, there are some great habits that are undeniably shared between many great leaders, including the ones who join us on Revenue Builders. Some of the most common themes in our discussions with the sales greats are a learning mindset, a focus on people, and a willingness to push on through hardship and failures. Our guests last month on Revenue Builders all live by those themes, but they each have their own personal approaches and anecdotes. Wherever you are in your career, dig into the four episodes below to get inspired. Make sure to tune in to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen, and share.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Sales Leadership
We recently hosted an Industry Leadership Panel where we talked to three growth-oriented business leaders about what top organizations are doing to drive success in the current market. There were a few questions we saw over and over again from the audience, so we wanted to take the time to provide some relevant resources around those topics. Keep reading for podcasts, blogs and videos from our library that address the four most commonly asked questions from our webinar about economic change. We got even more nuanced and unique perspectives on these topics from our panel guests during the event. If you missed the panel discussion, you can watch it on demand here. The conversation dove into specific lessons and action items for leaders in every industry on how to support teams, shift priorities, and drive growth outcomes in our current economy.
Share
Categories: Cloud Computing | Cybersecurity | Economic Change
Every industry is impacted by the ongoing economic uncertainty in recent months, including cloud data and cybersecurity sales. Whether your team sells SaaS, IaaS or PaaS solutions, you’ve likely been faced with customers changing purchasing protocols and placing higher scrutiny on budget approvals. These obstacles may present a huge threat to your company’s growth goals unless you’re able to adapt your sales approach to address these new challenges. Now is the time to support new behaviors on your sales team to help reps have greater impact and meet your revenue objectives. We’ve outlined three of the most critical skills for cloud data and security sales reps in today’s market and how sales leaders can enable them.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Sales Leadership | Sales Transformation
Guiding a sales organization to growth through today's uncertain economy demands a higher level of efficiency. Changing customer needs and increased competition for budgets have the potential to expose gaps in the alignment of your go-to-market teams. Symptoms of misalignment show up as longer sales cycles, high rates of discounting, and the inability to close large deals due to buyer budget concerns. To get your sales teams firing on all cylinders and making aggressive progress on your growth goals, your most valuable tool right now is true organizational alignment. Here are three critical areas where organizational alignment supports sales resilience and growth. If you’re interested in how sales leaders successfully capture alignment in these three areas, check out this video of our recent panel discussion with three industry leaders. Boomi CRO Marcy Campbell, Battery Ventures Partner Bill Binch and NWN Carousel CEO Jim Sullivan shared insights on how they're aligning their teams for success in the current market.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Podcasts | Sales Messaging | Sales Process
Few tools in your sales team’s arsenal can move the needle like effective proof points. They verify that you do what you say you can do. The more proof points are aligned with your buyer’s industry, problem, or positive business outcome (PBO), the more effective they’ll be. Sales organizations with a process for developing and maximizing the effectiveness of their proof points can leverage these important tools in ways that create and preserve value in the sales process.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
This month, the Revenue Builders Podcast featured six guests who are experienced in driving efficiency and creating repeatable success that fuels growth. Their conversations ranged from strategies for increasing deal size within the sales process, to creating a culture of accountability and improvement within your team. We even shared a special episode featuring three guests who offered unique perspectives from outside investors on what drives growth across their portfolios. There's no doubt that the key to unlocking growth is a combination of great interpersonal leadership and collaboration, as well as solid execution and data-driven business decisions. Dig in to our June episodes to get insights on every element of a great revenue growth strategy. Make sure to tune in to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen, and share.
Share
Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Leadership | Unicorn Companies
In 2013, a venture capitalist coined the term “Unicorn” to refer to privately owned firms valued at over $1B. Back then, only 39 companies fit the criteria. Legislation had cleared the path for private companies to pursue funding and Unicorns became less mythical. By 2020, there were over 600. The real Unicorn stampede occurred in the wake of pandemic-era restrictions, fueled by rapid tech adoption and an exuberant funding environment. During 2021 alone, 537 new Unicorns were minted. Today, there are over 1250. There is no roadmap for becoming a Unicorn, but there are common threads. Most have great timing with a disruptive idea, scalable technology and a relationship with investors marked by two-way trust. But once they've reached the coveted Unicorn status, how do companies maintain performance and continue their steep growth trajectory? For leaders at these companies who have reached great heights and want to keep the pedal to the floor, there are three critical areas they'll need to maintain and support continued success. First, fast-growing teams need a unified sales message to leverage clarity on the value they’re bringing to the market. Second, streamline your selling processes: qualification methods, deep discovery, capturing and sharing proof points – fine-tune each component into a repeatable process embedded in your operating rhythm. Third, maintain strong talent while emphasizing retention and development. Let’s examine these three focus areas:
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Front-line Managers | Sales Leadership
Changing course to weather the economic storm is a little like other initiatives that require leader visibility. To pivot successfully, you’ll need to rally the troops and build buy-in around the shifted approach. But unlike a launch, your plan for steering the ship through choppy waters comes with added background noise. Tightened budgets, longer sales cycles, and “not right now”... the realities of today’s market can take a toll on morale. In a challenging economy, it’s critical to retain and maximize the talent you have by providing support. In an environment where your sales organization may be asked to do more with less, you don’t want to risk losing your A-players. Without a clear understanding of your company’s future and plans for how you’ll move forward, economic challenges can make employees feel insecure. Your strategies to hit your revenue goals in a down economy can only be impactful if your workforce is committed to making them a reality.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Sales Negotiation
We’ve talked a lot in blogs and other content about the importance of negotiating early and often. Negotiation isn’t an event that happens with procurement at the end of a deal, but a process of establishing and validating the value of your solution throughout the life of a deal. How does that process change in today’s environment, where buyers are hyper-focused on cost and sales teams are struggling with reduced pipeline?
Share
Categories: Podcasts
This past month of the Revenue Builders Podcast has featured some all-star leaders. These inspiring conversations have explored everything from game-changing sales strategies to leadership actions that transform teams and people. At a time when many of us are being confronted with new and complex challenges, these stories from experienced leaders offer perspective and advice that will keep you on the path toward growth. Dig into the episodes below to get into the elite leader's mindset. Make sure to tune in to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Sales Discovery Process | Sales Leadership
Recently, we’ve all been living in a constant state of economic uncertainty. 2023 market trends show a leveling off of growth and consumer confidence is steadily declining across global markets.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Sales Conversation | Selling to the C-Suite
The Chief Financial Officer is an influential voice in any sales conversation. If you’re looking to drive growth for your organization, your reps must be able to influence the CFO to close higher-value deals. Recently, due to economic pressure and budget constraints, many sales teams are seeing CFOs get involved in every deal, regardless of size. The ability to sell to the CFO is now a crucial skill every seller needs in order to hit revenue targets in today’s market.
Share
Categories: Company Alignment | Sales Messaging | Sales and Marketing
Recent economic uncertainty has forced many sales teams to dig deeper into their territories for potential pipeline and put a critical focus on effectively maximizing every lead. As buyers become more budget-conscious and develop more stringent criteria, it’s never been more important to communicate value from the very first interaction.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
Last month, the Revenue Builders Podcast explored the concept of influence: how to identify it, access it, and wield it in the sales process. Our esteemed guests shared expert insights on core sales fundamentals as well as emerging strategies in the market. From nailing negotiations and upselling to converting champions and CFOs, this month's episodes are a masterclass on how to maximize your impact in a challenging sales environment. Dig into our April episodes below and share them with your team to stay prepared for whatever the market throws at you. Make sure to tune in to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Sales Leadership | Talent Management
Economic challenges can take a huge toll on workforce morale. Your sales force is likely encountering obstacles they haven’t faced before, and it’s possible that’s affecting their ability to win.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Scaling Sales | Selling to the C-Suite
Selling to C-level leaders is a crucial skill for your sales force if you want to grow your average deal size. Especially in today’s environment of economic uncertainty, big price tags are not getting approved without skillful execution of these conversations.
Share
Categories: MEDDICC | Sales Messaging | Sales Qualification
Most sales organizations have been affected by the economic downturn, which has resulted in rapid changes in buyer behavior, business priorities and decision criteria. You may be experiencing stagnation of growth, declining win rates or struggles with inconsistency in sales performance. Depending on your organization's current challenges, a sales qualification and/or messaging transformation can improve your sales teams’ ability to increase average deal size and win rates consistently. One initiative complements the other, and the true power of each is maximized when they’re executed together.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
As leaders, we serve as guides for our teams through challenging times. In the current economic landscape, when the challenges are unpredictable, it helps to have guides of our own. Last month on the Revenue Builders Podcast, we talked to multiple leaders who have guided teams successfully through crises. They spoke to the power of gratitude, communication, culture, and humility. Dig in to these five episodes for sales strategies, wisdom, and inspiration to help you stay at the top of your game through any challenge. Listen to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
Categories: Company Alignment | Economic Change | Scaling Sales | Unicorn Companies
As the external economic environment continues to shift, many organizations are looking for ways to optimize costs and make their sales force more efficient. One focus area has emerged as a key differentiator for those organizations who have been able to do more with less, accelerate revenue, and exceed their objectives during this economic time: alignment. Succeeding during economic change requires all hands on deck and a united motion toward your goals. Perhaps the recent market shifts have exposed misalignment in your teams that wasn’t as critical before. Or maybe your organization has struggled to pivot to match the speed of the market, resulting in misalignment on how you’re addressing changing customer needs.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Sales Enablement Technology | Sales Leadership
Sometimes change comes in the form of a tidal wave: immediate, dramatic, and undeniable. More often, change happens slowly and steadily: hard to perceive until we’ve drifted so far from the shore that we can’t see where we started. Whether you’re trying to minimize “drift” that’s occurred within your sales organization over time or respond to the immediate impact of the turbulent economic environment, ensure you’re focusing on crucial aspects that enable your team to succeed. Remain focused on the fundamental aspects of good selling while using every advantage to stay competitive in the modern selling landscape.
Share
Categories: Front-line Managers | Opportunity Reviews | Sales Coaching Tools
For the modern sales organization, certain technologies are universal in the age of Sales 2.0. We rely on CRMs and continuous learning platforms to increase the efficiency of our sales force and drive organizational outcomes. The recent economic downturn has most sales organizations looking for ways to achieve even greater cost efficiency and support revenue-driving activities. One high-impact area where leaders are choosing to invest is manager enablement. Emerging sales technologies can optimize opportunity reviews and coaching to increase front-line manager effectiveness. These managers have a unique potential to impact your organization’s success; an investment in their efficacy is an investment in overall sales velocity.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Sales Negotiation
Today's sales environment is highly competitive. Rising economic headwinds mean that many buyers are adopting more complex purchasing processes, and sales organizations are looking for any way to preserve vital margins. As a sales leader, you don't want your sellers resorting to discounting to close deals in this environment.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
This month on Revenue Builders, our guests reminded us of the power of the mind. In leadership and life, the power of your mindset is clear - it affects your outlook, motivation and most importantly those around you. We look for a great mindset in those we partner with and who we hire. These are four stories that convey the transformative power of the mindset, from entrepreneurship to service. Dig in to the episodes below for inspiration and personal growth tactics for leaders in every stage of their career. Listen to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Sales Leadership | Sales Messaging
What do today’s most successful revenue-driving sales forces have in common? The top teams all feature the same traits: (1) a customer-focused qualification and discovery process, (2) the ability to attach to desired business outcomes (3) and clear, tangible differentiation. How can leaders help their organization achieve these things? By operationalizing a powerful messaging framework.
Share
Categories: Buyer Alignment | Sales Discovery Process | Sales Qualification
Many of today’s top sales organizations are starting to feel the effects of the economic downturn through increased selling criteria and buyer scrutiny. The new B2B customer is more focused on ROI than ever before, and they likely have multiple parties approving the deal through different criteria. What does this mean for sales leaders?
Share
Categories: Talent Management
I have been very fortunate to be a part of some great teams in my life. My freshman year in college I played football for the Defending National Champions of I-AA (now D-I), Boise State University. I transferred my sophomore year to Bowling Green State University in Ohio and played for one of the greatest teams in BGSU history. During the 1985 season we were ranked 20th in the nation ahead of some of the powerhouse schools like Texas and Georgia!
Share
Categories: Podcasts
The roadmap for building effective teams begins with the leader. As sales leaders, we can only command the best possible team when we're operating at our own maximum potential. This month’s guests on the Revenue Builders podcast give insight on the essential building blocks for creating company cultures where teams thrive and exceed collective goals. Tune in as four guests discuss the life experiences which led to their own evolution and personal growth, and how the lessons learned have helped them develop teams that get results, again and again. Listen to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
Categories: Sales Planning | Sales Qualification | Scaling Sales
Achieving 100% forecast accuracy is a goal for any sales organization, but at times it can feel out of our hands. So many factors affect a successful forecast: external economic factors, problems within the buyer organization and the ability of sales teams to predict and execute their number. How do you improve forecast accuracy as a sales leader?
Share
Categories: Differentiation | Sales Messaging | Scaling Sales | Unicorn Companies
If you’re a leader in a high-growth tech sector, you’ve probably heard the phrase “unicorn company.” It’s the dream of any tech startup – to reach a valuation of $1 billion without an IPO. But what do companies in this coveted spot have that puts them so far ahead of the competition? Conventional wisdom points to a great product, but we know that’s not the whole story. A great product sets the stage, but sales runs the show – so what can sales leaders in the tech world and beyond learn from the sales process of these standout firms?
Share
Categories: Company Alignment | Sales Kickoff | Sales Productivity
As we start the new year, many of us are also launched into SKO season. We've been planning for months to create an event that brings the team together, boosts morale and aligns everyone on our organization's priorities for the upcoming year. Often the resulting strategy focuses on training up new or underperforming members of the sales team and communicating expectations to improve productivity in the new year. The sales kickoff is a prime opportunity to build momentum, right the course and chart the path towards increased sales productivity and revenue. In order to achieve desired levels of growth and productivity, leaders must ensure that their presentation addresses the needs of every member of their sales team.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Sales Kickoff | Sales Messaging
As we close out a year of widespread economic uncertainty, many leaders are looking for ways to boost morale and prepare their teams to maintain or even recover revenue in a competitive market. The start of the year is an opportunity to capitalize on the mindset of a fresh start. Your sales team is setting goals and habits for the new year, and SKOs and strategy sessions are shifting their approach. The first month or two will be crucial in setting the foundation that will determine your organization’s success this year. Now is the time to lay out a bold strategy and empower reps to take control of closing bigger deals, stacking pipeline and driving toward organizational goals. Here are three strategies that leaders are using to start the year strong with a message that reinforces their value in a competitive market.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
In February 2022, we published the first episode of Revenue Builders. Veteran sales leaders and friends John Kaplan and John McMahon are passionate about sharing their wealth of knowledge with current and future leaders, and along the years they've rubbed shoulders with some of the most influential and inspiring leaders of the sales world and beyond. The result: a podcast that explores leadership in all its forms, from leading an army to coaching a football team to accelerating industry-transforming growth. What we learned is that sometimes, they're not all that different. As we gear up for a new year of going in the barrel with some of the best, we're looking back on some of our most memorable episodes. Listen to these, then follow the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
Categories: Sales Leadership
It's been another year full of unexpected challenges, big wins and learning opportunities. Now is a time to congratulate yourself on this year's journey and gear up for more growth. As we look forward to 2023, we're taking a look back on some of the most powerful lessons we've shared this year.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
Leadership is a tough job. Luckily, we don't have to go it alone. This month on Revenue Builders, our guests remind us of the power of the team. Through the story of four very different journeys, these podcast episodes show that humility, mentorship and continuous learning make for more than just great leaders. They create great teams who produce great results. Dig into the episodes below for inspiration on how you can be, and create, better leaders. Listen to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
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, especially in a year of challenge and growth:
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Mission Critical Success Series | Sales Process
This blog is part of our Mission Critical Success Series, where we dive into the strategies leaders are using to execute on mission critical sales objectives during times of economic change. Each week, we will cover a different essential area of sales effectiveness. Check our blog next week for the newest installment, or subscribe for updates straight to your inbox. Buyers are more cautious when the economy is uncertain. If these heightened concerns aren’t identified and addressed early in the sales cycle, deal times may get longer and stalling is more likely as more stakeholders get involved. Sellers need to be able to tie your solution directly to the business outcomes that will capture buy-in from each decision maker.
Share
Categories: Mission Critical Success Series | Sales Leadership | Sales Qualification
This blog is part of our Mission Critical Success Series, where we dive into the strategies leaders are using to execute on mission critical sales objectives during times of economic change. Each week, we will cover a different essential area of sales effectiveness. Check our blog next week for the newest installment, or subscribe for updates straight to your inbox. Changes in the economy mean that most sales leaders are looking to make a shift in strategy right now. No strategic pivot is immediate – many sales initiatives can take at least a full sales cycle to reach full adoption and have visible impact on revenue numbers. If you’re looking to supplement your strategy with something that can affect revenue as soon as this quarter, consider adding qualification training into your initiative.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
Business leaders in all stages of their career can benefit from self-reflection and improvement. That's why Revenue Builders hosts John McMahon and John Kaplan get real with leaders from all backgrounds and with many different paths to success. This month, the podcast welcomed four guests with wisdom only experience can make. Tune in as they describe their journeys, sharing lessons they've learned about life, people and themselves - and how each has made them a better leader. Listen to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
Categories: Company Alignment | Economic Change | Mission Critical Success Series
This blog is part of our Mission Critical Success Series, where we dive into the strategies leaders are using to execute on mission critical sales objectives during times of economic change. Each week, we will cover a different essential area of sales effectiveness. Check our blog next week for the newest installment, or subscribe for updates straight to your inbox. With recent uncertainty and shifts in the economy, price-based decisions are becoming more common. More sales organizations are competing for less budget, creating a challenging market for sellers. Leaders can support their sales teams by providing them with a repeatable value-based framework for sales messaging and elite customer care that will intrinsically link their solution to the customer’s success.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Mission Critical Success Series
This blog is part of our Mission Critical Success Series, where we dive into the strategies leaders are using to execute on mission critical sales objectives during times of economic change. Each week, we will cover a different essential area of sales effectiveness. Check our blog next week for the newest installment, or subscribe for updates straight to your inbox. Given recent economic headwinds, many sales leaders are launching initiatives to pivot their strategy or reinforce key practices that will enable their team to be effective in a challenging market. We cover some of the top priorities leaders are acting on to keep up with changing buyer needs in this webinar conversation. But how can you make sure that the initiative you’re investing in really sticks and becomes a part of the day-to-day practice of sellers?
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Mission Critical Success Series
This blog is part of our Mission Critical Success Series, where we dive into the strategies leaders are using to execute on mission critical sales objectives during times of economic change. Each week, we will cover a different essential area of sales effectiveness. Check our blog next week for the newest installment, or subscribe for updates straight to your inbox. Getting customer-focused is an organization-wide initiative that requires alignment of strategy, messaging, content and seller skills. The ability to center your customer in the sales process is a major growth driver, and especially important when customers are dealing with challenges like economic change. Budgets are tightening, and decision makers are under increased scrutiny. When effectively executed, a customer-focused sales process will lead the buyer to view your solution as vital to their success.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
At some point, every leader will have to guide their team through some level of change. Our guests this month on the Revenue Builders Podcast are familiar with that task. Tune in to these eye-opening episodes for lessons on leading with confidence, building connections and building the leaders of tomorrow. Whether it's building a company from the ground up, tracking our ever-shifting economy or even building a grassroots movement, the insights shared this month are highly relevant and actionable for the leaders of today. Listen to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
Categories: Economic Change
In times of economic change, the most resilient sales organizations evolve their sales strategy to align with buyer needs. There’s no better time than the sales kickoff to align your team on a powerful, relevant strategy that serves the most critical outcomes on your organization’s agenda.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Sales Leadership
Times of economic uncertainty and decreased consumer confidence are inevitable, and these downturns during the economic cycle can be particularly challenging for sales organizations. It’s no secret that 2022 trends show a leveling of growth and steadily declining consumer confidence across global markets. Even though market stagnation can make it harder for your team to sell and meet quota, it also offers an opportunity to distinguish yourself from the competition and double down on sales fundamentals to emerge with renewed growth.
Share
Categories: Adoption and Reinforcement | Economic Change | Sales Kickoff
With the season for sales kickoffs approaching, the current economy is likely a driving influence on your plan. Given the shifting market dynamics, ensure you use your SKO resources where it matters most, and equip your team to drive lasting results long after the SKO ends. Affecting real change on sales behaviors requires more than a two-day SKO event or one-off virtual training session. Teams that compete next year, will be the ones who were equipped from the get go, at the SKO, and then supported along the way as they adjusted their sales actions. In times of economic pressure, elite leaders use their SKO as a critical event to build proficiency around key components of sales effectiveness, whether it be sales messaging, planning, execution or qualification. While the work may start at the SKO event, it’s critical that there’s also a plan to maintain momentum beyond the event, measure ongoing performance and drive the adoption of new sales behaviors.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
The best leadership requires a combination of skill and character. Last month's guests on the Revenue Builders podcast shared the qualities that they've found to separate the good leaders from the great. Dig into these leadership stories and hear key takeaways from individuals who come from diverse backgrounds, industries and cultures. From military-level discipline to the ability to be vulnerable, there's a quality in each episode that each of us can aspire to as leaders. Listen to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Sales Kickoff | Sales Leadership
Your sales kickoff is a crucial tool for maximizing your sales team's potential. As the economy shifts, leaders are looking to increase efficiency in critical areas to hit their revenue goals.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | Sales Kickoff
Rising economic headwinds are changing the selling landscape for your sales organization. As revenue pressures mount and buyer pushback increases, help your salespeople weather the storm and come out stronger. Right now, elite leaders are identifying opportunities to strengthen their salespeople’s core selling competencies, so they can better serve customers and maintain pipeline through this season. These are the three must-have skills your sellers can use to sell consistently in a challenging economic climate.
Share
Categories: Sales Productivity
Given the current economic headwinds, now is a good time to get a quick snapshot of where your team is at and determine any mission-critical sales opportunities to focus on.
Share
Categories: Economic Change | MEDDICC
Given the current economic downturn, your salespeople may be more inclined to invest time in an unqualified deal or skip important steps in the sales process to keep pipelines moving. If the current economic landscape is amplifying the pressure your sales team is feeling to hit revenue targets, address this challenge head on and have a direct conversation with your team now. Early action will help to minimize forecast inaccuracy and ensure your salespeople aren’t getting stuck in deals that are more likely to stall out or lose.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
Overcoming adversity is part of getting to the next level in your leadership career. This month's Revenue Builder's guests dig into the adversities they've faced and share valuable advice for those leading through challenging circumstances. Whether you're faced with hard-to-coach teams or tasked with defining a strategy to help your entire organization sell through ongoing external complexities, dig in. Review this week's epsidoes for advice you can leverage to take action and define the plan to drive revenue results. Listen to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Leadership | Sales Transformation
Front-line managers play an impactful role in driving your sales organization’s success. As a sales leader, it's critical that you show your managers support by helping them build their leadership skills.
Share
Categories: Sales Transformation
With recent speculation around the economic landscape, many organizations are preparing their teams for a difficult sales season ahead. Whether you're already seeing your sales team struggle with unexpected deal delays or economic uncertainty has begun to amplify underlying sales execution issues, one thing is certain: you’ve still got numbers to hit. In these moments, it’s tempting to go back to basics and manage expectations. What separates good sales leaders from great ones is their commitment to their people, no matter the season. Do more with who you have and what you have. Identify how you can help your salespeople build the critical skills they need to be relevant to customer needs, drive pipeline and close deals.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
Hear tangible leadership takeaways from pioneers across industries and professions. In each June episode, John McMahon and John Kaplan brought out key insights on how successful leaders manage their most important asset, their people. Hear from five leaders, each with a different background and approach to leadership. In each conversation, one common sentiment rang true: you can't be a great leader without investing in and connecting with your people. Spend time with these thought-provoking episodes to gain actionable insight you can use to improve your approach to leadership, and even your own self, all to provide more value to your people. Listen to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
Categories: Adoption and Reinforcement | Customer Success
We build strategic partnerships with our clients with a focus on helping customer-facing organizations achieve both quick wins and long-term outcomes. To ensure we help our clients achieve that success, we partner with them throughout the journey. We help our customers build out a forward-looking success plan to maximize adoption, drive consistent bottom-line impact and significantly increase the ROI from their engagement.
Share
Categories: Adoption and Reinforcement | Customer Success
Through hard work and a successful delivery, you’ve created momentum for your customer-facing team, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to improve front-line numbers. Now is the time to refine and amplify your team's skill set — taking them from good to elite.
Share
Categories: Product-Led Growth | Sales Messaging
Product-led growth (PLG) is driving some of the fastest growing B2B companies. While these solutions can propel organizations forward, this approach requires business leaders to make strategic decisions around what’s needed to scale that success.
Share
Categories: Sales Messaging
Companies that drive significant growth in their markets all have one thing in common — cross-functional alignment around buyer value and solution differentiation. Through a conversation on the Revenue Builders podcast, Chief Marketing Officer at TripActions, Meagen Eisenberg shares why generating this company-wide alignment is critical, “To fight for larger players and enterprise deals, the entire company needs to know the value your solutions drive for your customers and understand how to develop and sustain that value for customers.” As you work closely with company leaders to define opportunities to improve sales performance, you may find there is a lack of agreement cross-functionally on what's important to your buyer. These gaps and misunderstandings are not uncommon, especially as companies mature into their B,C, or even D-level rounds and new executives join the business. However, misalignment can significantly impact your sales organization's ability to land high-value accounts. When you correct this misalignment, it can lead to increased margins and market share.
Share
Categories: Company Alignment | Sales Messaging
While the delineation between marketing and sales can vary from one organization to the next, establishing a close working relationship between both areas remains critical. The most successful companies are the ones with leaders who can mitigate any silos and ensure the entire customer-facing organization is aligned with what’s most important to their buyer. Find ways to establish clear alignment with your marketing counterparts to build a revenue engine that powers aggressive growth in your market.
Share
Categories: Talent Management
Your most important asset is your people. How can you own the talent management process to make your people your sales organization's biggest competitive advantage? In this era of mass resignations and global hiring, it's critical for sales leaders to take ownership of their talent management process. Recently, a Microsoft survey stated that 52% of young people polled say they are likely to consider changing employers this year. On the Revenue Builders podcast, leaders have been sharing similar findings. Mike McSally, an accomplished talent leader with 30+ years in the business, shares his insight on the Great Resignation, highlighting that nearly, “8 out of 10 people that are gainfully employed today are willing to entertain a new opportunity.” Next-level leaders are finding ways to differentiate their approach to talent management. See how you can take ownership, make an impact and retain your top sales talent.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
What do the most successful business leaders do to take themselves and their people to the next level? Tune into these episodes for insight on how to build and lead elite sales teams. Hear from dynamic revenue leaders on how they got to where they are now, and the trials and tribulations of their journeys. Take actionable advice, enjoy John McMahon and John Kaplan's banter (we hear it's a hit), and dig in. Listen to the Revenue Builders podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
Categories: Sales Planning | Sales Process
Each player on the executive team has a different perspective. The CFO is the ears of an organization. They combine everything they hear from leadership to create a balanced plan. They want to yield healthy growth. They go for accuracy.
Share
Categories: Talent Management
In this wave of mass resignations and global hiring, reduce hiring challenges and cost by narrowing your sales manager's focus. Define what the ideal sales talent candidate looks like for your organization so you can help your managers hire the right people for growth. The topic of sales talent has come up often on the Revenue Builders Podcast. John McMahon and John Kaplan dig deep with their guests, pulling out top-level advice you can use to make your sales talent a competitive advantage for your company.
Share
Categories: Sales Planning
A salesperson’s time is valuable. Ensure your sales team is spending their time building a pipeline of high-value accounts. Support your sales managers and reps in developing a result-driven plan that focuses them on pursuing these high-value opportunities. Put a process in place that helps your salespeople repeatedly and consistently drive effective sales plans. Provide your managers the tools and resources to support their salespeople in finding revenue gaps in their territory, uncovering value in existing accounts and creating targeted lists based on what’s uncovered. Align your team around a consistent sales planning mindset. Here's how:
Share
Categories: Sales Coaching Tools
Efficiency and alignment are critical elements of sales productivity. An effective sales process provides a vehicle to enforce discipline, repeatability, predictability and validation of progress throughout a sale. Most importantly, it allows for inspection and planning – in advance. Part of the beauty of a revenue-driving sales process is its simplicity. Ensure your sales process provides the rigor and support that sales teams need to accurately predict their numbers. Here are five must-haves for every great sales process.
Share
Categories: Press Release
CHARLOTTE, N.C. & ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DecisionLink, a leader in secure, SaaS-based Customer Value Management solutions that simplify and automate customer value conversations at all stages of the customer journey, today announced a partnership with Force Management, a leading provider of sales force transformation solutions.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
The Revenue Builders Podcast, hosted by John McMahon and John Kaplan, has quickly become part of the weekly routine for business leaders in all stages of their careers. McMahon, Kaplan and their guests get real, digging into timely topics with some of the most successful business leaders in all company disciplines (i.e., Sales, Finance, Product, Engineering, Customer Success, Executive Leadership, etc.). McMahon and Kaplan highlight the characteristics of great leadership no matter the environment, interviewing leaders with impressive backgrounds. Take a look at the recent episodes below. Listen to the Revenue Builders Podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Coaching Tools | Talent Management
Successful companies are finding new ways to differentiate their approach to talent management as they face the ongoing complexities of the Great Resignation.
Share
Categories: Front-line Managers
There’s not a sales leader out there who isn’t trying to accelerate growth. Even if you are working at a company that is driving record numbers, you're likely focused on ensuring you can scale that growth and avoid stalls. How do successful leaders ensure that they are able to maintain their company's growth rate over time?
Share
Categories: Podcasts | Talent Management
The past few years led to drastic shifts in hiring and recruitment process, impacting organizations of all sizes and in all industries. More recently, it has been imperative that organizations have a strategic approach in order to hire and retain top performers. Ensure you’re hiring the right talent for growth and at the same time creating an environment that supports your people’s success.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
With this month's podcasts, there's no shortage of educational insights and quick tips for sales reps, managers and leaders. Review the episodes below for actions you can take to drive accountability around your priority sales initiatives. Share the episodes with your front-line managers to help them improve their coaching skill set. Listen to the Audible-Ready Sales Podcast on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
Categories: Sales Coaching Tools | Talent Management
Sales managers are charged with training, motivating and coaching sales professionals on a daily basis. Your salespeople look to your front-line managers for professional development and expect to be provided the necessary resources, guidance and knowledge to be successful in their role. Remember, people quit managers before they quit companies. Drive talent engagement and improve retention by enabling your managers to give reps the critical feedback they need to improve current and future outcomes.
Share
Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Planning | Sales Process
The greatest leaders are the ones who never let their team rest on their success, or wallow in defeat. At the end of the quarter, avoid screaming at the scoreboard. The final score only gives you the end result. It doesn’t tell you the whole story. It’s your responsibility as a sales leader to help your team uncover and address execution challenges.
Share
Categories: Adoption and Reinforcement
Creating true change within your sales team, and the revenue results that follow, takes more than a set of spreadsheets and a simple day of training. If you implement a hasty training session, you’ll short-change yourself and your salespeople. Creating organizational change requires time, commitment and a plan for reinforcement that drives lasting results. When done right, a well-thought-out strategic initiative creates transformation in a way that accelerates growth and powers valuable exits for growing companies. Here are five ways sales leaders can create top-performing sales organizations that drive significant bottom-line impacts.
Share
Categories: Podcasts
Give your salespeople the knowledge, skills and tools to differentiate their sales approach from tough competition. The past few years have created permanent shifts to the way buyers and sellers approach sales conversations. Regardless, good selling is good selling. Enable your salespeople to differentiate not just what they sell but also how they sell to help them win more opportunities this year. Listen to each episode and share them with your front-line managers and reps. Find our show on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
Categories: Buyer Alignment | Sales Negotiation
Whether you've recently launched a sales initiative or are simply looking for ways to support your sales team as the quarter progresses, one thing is certain — you've got numbers to hit. While driving a lasting change to front-line numbers takes consistent effort and leadership, find simple strategies to help your sales reps improve on core areas of sales effectiveness. After all, great selling is great selling. Encouraging reps to hone their sales skills will only further the success of your current initiatives and help your salespeople focus on closing more deals, faster.
Share
Categories: Front-line Managers | Sales Leadership
Sales managers deserve support from your organization. After the launch of a strategic initiative or sales kickoff, managers can have a significant impact on rep adoption and growth, but their success will relate back to how well they were supported. Start with a clear definition of what good looks like for your front-line managers as they reinforce current initiatives and build top performers. Great companies start with a strong blueprint that includes the processes and tools that enable sales managers to drive success at the team level.
Share
Categories: Product-Led Growth | Sales Leadership
Product-led growth (PLG) can propel emerging portfolio companies forward. Some of these companies scale that success and significantly reduce time-to-realization, while others face complex sales execution challenges that they aren’t able to overcome. What do successful CROs prioritize to enable their sales organization to achieve critical company outcomes?
Share
Categories: Podcasts
Provide the fuel your sales engine needs to have one of its best years yet. Each of these episodes share the critical actions sales leaders can take to ignite momentum around new sales initiatives, help managers make an impact, and ultimately, have a great year. It all starts with this quarter's number. To get your organization headed in the right direction, listen to each episode and share them with your front-line managers and reps. Find our show on your favorite podcast player, so you can easily download, listen and share.
Share
Categories: Buyer Alignment | Company Alignment | Sales Transformation
Scaling the success that comes with product-led growth (PLG) brings both opportunities and challenges. If your company is aiming to drive ongoing outcomes, while reducing inefficiencies across customer-facing organizations (Product, Customer Success, etc.) you may find value in what Segment prioritized, as a company, to take their organization to the next level.
Share
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.
Share
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?
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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 ...
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
Categories: Sales Transformation
[CHARLOTTE, N.C.] — February 3, 2022 — Force Management, a leading provider of sales force training solutions to the high-growth technology sector, was selected as one of Training Industry’s Watch List Sales Training and Enablement Companies for 2022.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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?
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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:
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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:
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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. Your sales talent is your only sustainable competitive advantage. In the flurry of preparing the business to face economic challenges, don't lose sight of your people. Find ways to communicate critical concepts that will drive motivation and engagement around mission-critical sales priorities. Given the current economic landscape, 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.
Share
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.
Share
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 toward a common goal for the upcoming year. Given the changing economy, your SKO will be an important opportunity to instill this motivation and align your team to execute mission-critical sales activities. Ensure the right outcomes and objectives are prioritized in your SKO agenda in a way that drives that company strategy. Set clear, measurable objectives for your SKO and ultimately, your sales team. After all, the SKO, whether virtual or in-person, is just one or two weeks of the fiscal year. Clear objectives for the kickoff and beyond, will be imperative to drive consistent sales performance in a complex selling environment. Set your objectives now so you and your enablement team know what you have to achieve to drive revenue goals. Below are a few things to factor in when you begin to set clear objectives for your next sales kickoff.
Share
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?
Share
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. Given the current economic landscape, your company's strategy may be evolving or shifting. Sales alignment with the yearly goals of the company are critical. Because you have a limited amount of time and frankly, attention of your attendees, it’s important that you ensure what is presented and delivered during the SKO supports your team’s ability to execute next year. As the external market continues to shift, your salespeople will likely welcome the transparency on business initiatives and support for hitting critical revenue targets. Focus on the areas below to align your company’s business strategy to your SKO agenda:
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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:
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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?”
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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?
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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:
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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:
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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:
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
Categories:
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:
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
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.
Share
