The Power of Setting and Achieving Goals New Year resolutions are nothing more than rhetoric. Despite the initial eagerness you may feel for the goals you have set, that enthusiasm tends to wane over time, often leaving you right back to where you started. Studies indicate that only 8-12 percent of people fulfill their goal-setting resolutions. Sure, your desire to achieve the goal is real. Accomplishing it, however, can be fraught with obstacles, making even the most desirable goals seem somewhat nebulous. This makes goal setting a challenge. It’s a challenge that successful leaders have ..read more

3 Steps to Achieving Success  The challenge for most people is knowing how to achieve personal and professional success. Many people compare themselves to others to gauge how successful they are. The problem is that there will always be someone who has more money, lives in a bigger house, has more power or is more intelligent than you. This is an irrelevant success as measured by material gains. I firmly believe that success lies in how well you achieve the goals you have set for yourself. People think goal setting is something you do once a year, but it is ongoing. True feelings of succe ..read more

Sales Eagles Soar Turkeys to Get Consumed. Thanksgiving is the time to celebrate and be thankful for our family and friends and all the wonderful blessings we have. I would like to wish all my American friends a Happy Thanksgiving. Be careful not to overeat turkey, as it is high in L-tryptophan and can make you sleepy. Most of your customers will shut down in less than four weeks. If you are chasing your 2015 sales numbers, you need to return from this holiday weekend highly energetic, focused and ready to sprint to the finish line. The other reality is that the new year is less than 45 days a ..read more

How to Motivate Your Sales Team Tap into the WHY! Sales leaders agree that a highly motivated and engaged sales force drives greater performance. So one would naturally ask the question, “how do I motivate and engage my salesforce?” As we all know, the answer is not so easy.  Many sales managers ask me how to ensure that they have a highly motivated and engaged team, and I usually ask them “WHY”? I do this because if you understand “WHY” someone is putting in a high level of effort to attain a specific goal, then you know how to motivate them. The Business Dictionary defines motivations a ..read more

Why You Need To Hire A Coach Do you have a coach? If not, you could be limiting your career success. That’s because coaches help you identify and focus on what’s important, which accelerates your success. According to coaches.com, good coaches: Create a safe environment in which people see themselves more clearly; Identify gaps between where the client is and where the client needs or wants to be Ask for more intentional thought, action and behavior changes than the client would have asked of him or herself Guide the building of the structure, accountability, and support necessary to ens ..read more

Manage Your Own Motivation …this is an important one because sometimes we get frustrated as sales managers and tip #27 says to manage your own motivation.  Welcome to management. As a rep, you lived in a highly supportive environment.  In management, the environment is less supportive and filled with stress.  It is incumbent on you to stay inspired so you can inspire the people around you. The word inspiration comes from the Latin word, and I never know if I get it right, spirare, I might have gotten it wrong, which means to breathe to live.  I have found that there are man ..read more

Strategy Is Sexy, Execution is Boring. Business success is a function of brilliant strategies and excellent execution. How are your sales to date? Every sales leader I have spoken with could easily answer this question. I am sure you can as well. Here is a more challenging question: How well are you doing when it comes to strategy execution? This is a much more challenging question and there is no easy answer. Business success is a function of brilliant strategies and excellent execution. For the last 20 years, experts have talked about the challenges with business execution. Experts esti ..read more

Sales Manager’s Success Checklist Do you have a success checklist to see if you are on track for a successful year? How can you assess if you are on track? It is far too early to look at sales early. Go through the checklist below and see how many items you have completed ensuring that you are on track. Here are the top 10 questions you should ask yourself and your sales managers to gauge if you/they have set the foundation for success. The STAR 10 Point Success Checklist 1. Have You Identified Your 2-3 Key Success Factors? It is critical for your team leader 2-3 things that your team needs t ..read more

Sales are Down … What is the Boss Going to Say? I always hated having to explain why sales are down. There is never a good answer. Sales executives and managers have no shortage of challenges. I can remember numerous times. I faced challenges when sales were off. One year in February we were already behind budget in sales. I knew I had to do something. So I quickly thought up a 3 point plan and marched down to my boss’s office. I stated that I was concerned about sales and I decided that I was going to do the following: Cancel all training for the next 3 months Have the trainers out in the fi ..read more

Why Leaders Set Goals Any success story begins with a plan, a blueprint of sorts, outlining what you want to achieve and how you plan to achieve it. Essentially, that means setting goals. While the ultimate goal for sales teams is to attain weekly or monthly sales quotas, getting there may initially seem like a daunting task. That’s why I recommend breaking these goals into smaller segments, providing you with mini-successes along the way. Much like athletes — gradually increasing both the duration and the intensity of training for the big event — successful sales leaders expand the size and s ..read more