Blog - Braveheart Sales Performance

CEOs: What Should You Do About Your Sales Managers?

What does your sales manager do? What is he or she supposed to do?

If you are like many other CEOs and business owners, you have two different answers for those questions. My colleague, Karen Brown, recently blogged about the widespread misperceptions over sales managers’ value. We often witness a baseline misunderstanding about what role the sales manager should be playing in the organization.

Frequently, there is an expectation that the sales manager will sell and manage. And, in fact, the sales managers often have been promoted from the sales team after proving themselves as sales superstars, which may encourage ongoing dependence […]

10 of the Most Harmful Questions Salespeople Still Ask

Written by Frédéric Lucas. This was originally posted by our OMG Partner affiliate in Canada, Prima Ressource and has been translated from French with minor adaptation.

You’ve probably heard some absurd questions from vendors, and told yourself that it was not the way you were going to do business. There is no reason to repeat the mistakes of others.

I have assembled a list of the top 10 wrong sales questions that are frequently asked, despite their detrimental effect on the sales process.

If you are a salesperson and still use any of the questions listed below, it’s time to re-think your approach.

If you are a […]

Sales Managers: How to Win at Joint Sales Calls

I had a great conversation with a highly talented VP of Sales of a successful sales organization the other day. We had a spirited debate about the role that a sales manager should play in joint calls with their sales reps. So this got me thinking more deeply about how to best approach those joint calls for the greatest success. (Do you have an opinion about it? Weigh in on Twitter, or in the comments).

Of course there are two time frames when considering success, so it depends on your time horizon as to what success means.

For short term success, it […]

Sales Digest: How Old-School Salespeople Can Stay Relevant

Braveheart Sales Digest

Focus On: How Old-School Salespeople Can Stay Relevant

Headlines periodically appear to predict total doom and gloom for old-school salespeople. Earlier this year, Hubspot’s Emma Snider blogged about Forrester’s prediction that a full million “traditional” sales jobs will be lost before 2020 (Forrester also predicted growth for sales consultants). But Snider more recently reassured us sales folk that we are still relevant after all, based on new Gartner research published in the Harvard Business Review.

In fact, Gartner’s research indicates salespeople are “more important than ever,” ranking them the single most influential factor for B2B sales (above references, events, white papers, sales […]

4 Myths (Busted) About the Value of Sales Managers

What’s so important about having a Sales Manager? After all, isn’t their job really about herding cats? To save the day? You know what I mean . . . micromanaging so that sales representatives never fail?

You may have heard questions to this effect — questions which reflect a devaluation of the role of Sales Manager, and the idea that a Sales Manager is a “Nice to Have,” not a “Need to Have.” (Read on to see that myth busted).

That’s not the only common myth about Sales Managers. Another is the expectation that their job should come naturally to them. It might if […]

Implementing a Sales Process: 4 Classic Mistakes to Avoid

Written by Frédéric Lucas. This was originally posted by our OMG Partner affiliate in Canada, Prima Ressource and has been translated from French.

The sales process is the backbone of a company’s sales operations.

In this article, we describe the mistakes made by sales managers in the implementation of the sales process. So it is assumed that the company has defined a procedure for formal and structured sales.

Mistake # 1: The sales process is not integrated with CRM

Even an effective and well-structured sales process is useless if its steps are not integrated into your CRM (Customer Relationship Management). Without this integration, your […]

Is it Consultative or Just Insultative Selling?

Anyone who seeks knowledge about selling has likely heard the term “Consultative Sales” or “Consultative Selling.” I don’t know what the technical definition of the word consultative is, but in essence it means to operate like a consultant. Unfortunately the term gets bantered around a lot and I fear can become a gimmick or a tactic rather than a mindset.

When pretending to be consultative, ineffective salespeople sound scripted, trite and risk being insulting to prospects and clients. To use my newly-coined term, it’s insultative.

Sales managers, if you have a salesperson who you are coaching to be more consultative in their […]

How to Structure Your Sales Compensation Plans

It seems that compensation plan structure is a hot topic with many Braveheart clients. The following are a few things to keep in mind when structuring compensation plans for your sales team.

1. Not all salespeople are money-motivated.

In fact, from the work that we do with clients and the thousands of assessments we see of salespeople, it appears that the majority of salespeople are NOT motivated solely by money. This means that ─ for most salespeople ─ increasing the commission opportunity will not necessarily incent them to behave dramatically differently. You could lower the base so substantially that they can’t survive […]

How to Fix the 5 Most Common Sales Team Defects

I wrote about this a few years ago in a series of blogs but I wanted to do an update that sums up the common causes of problems with sales teams — and their fixes— in a single article. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list.

Here are five of the most common defects in sales teams:

1. Your salespeople aren’t asking enough open-ended questions.
2. Your salespeople wait for leads to come to them.
3. Your new salesperson didn’t turn out to be the person you thought you were hiring.
4. Your salespeople go after the wrong deals.
5. Your salespeople don’t close.

Problem #1: […]

Sales Managers: Stop Fixin’ to Get Ready…Overcome Change Paralysis

Editor’s note: Today’s post is from Karen Brown, a Sales Growth Specialist with Braveheart Sales Performance. Karen will be a regular contributor to the Sales Management Blog. She brings her unique insights from nearly 30 years of business management and sales leadership experience, which she applies to help sales teams achieve their goals and increase their profits.

Change is hard. That is a fact. Some would say it’s a statement of the obvious.

Talking about change is not hard. Creating a vision of change is a very engaging exercise that can consume what would otherwise be time filled with productive activities. It’s easy […]