When should sales managers focus on inspecting Opps during the Pipeline Review – higher up in the funnel (i.e. early) or later? Most sales managers engage later in the process when there is some problem with an Opportunity but by that point it’s too late. It’s natural to focus there…  Read More >

Every VP of Sales has 3 key managing responsibilities and roles at the company: People manager: Build a successful sales team Customer manager: Provide exceptional customer experience Business manager: Attain the business and sales goals Sales Manager: Create and manage the system for the sales force Originally this was covered by…  Read More >

A successful business is all about great People! Recruiting and bringing in exceptional people is the key to success.  You can have a great product but without great people your company will either not go very far or simple won’t reach it’s full potential.  When I recruit and interview candidates to…  Read More >

Price vs. Cost There is a big difference between Price vs. Cost that is important to communicate when helping a prospect make a buying decision. A price is what you pay.  A cost is the “Total Cost of Ownership” (TCO = Cost) of something.  For example, you can look at…  Read More >

I’ve been a fan of the Farnam Street blog by Shane Parrish for the past 4-5 years.  One of his Principles is “Thoughtful Opinions Held Loosely”. This is based on what Paul Saffo introduced as “Strong opinions, weakly held” concept. Bub Sutton (who wrote Good Boss, Bad Boss) wrote about…  Read More >

The sales function at any company is very complex. A successful sales organization is the result of many variegated factors which are directly affected and also indirectly influenced by the sales leaders of those organization (i.e. a EVP or VP of Sales or the CRO – the executive who is…  Read More >

Every effective VP of Sales needs to create and use a tool known as a Skillset Matrix to validate the skills, knowledge, and proficiency of their sales teams. There are different types – one can be based on ratings which rate the skills available on the team.  And it will…  Read More >

Here are some great books I read by professional sports coaches which I thought apply perfectly to Sales Leaders who want to learn the real art of coaching from the best: Bill Walsh – Finding a Winning Edge Bill Walsh – The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of…  Read More >

A couple of years ago, I was invited to present at the annual Inside Sales – Sales Acceleration Summit and I talked about “The Science of Sales” (InsideSales.com posted the presentation on Slideshare). It was fun to see that the other presenters at this event were the likes of Steve Young, a…  Read More >

Several years ago Google wanted to determine whether managers matter and, if so, then what makes a manager great. Their research team first tried to prove that managers actually don’t matter and that the quality of a manager didn’t affect a team’s performance.  This hypothesis was due to a belief held…  Read More >