Blog - Braveheart Sales Performance

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 […]

Will Your Salesperson Build Relationships Or Close Business?

There is a misconception that salespeople are all one breed; that they are all gregarious, outgoing, extroverted individuals. Not true. The truth of the matter is that you have most likely been sold to by this one sort of person – because that is how most companies hire salespeople. They hire the people who like people and build great relationships. But building relationships does not necessarily mean closed business. I can’t tell you how many companies I know who have really nice, friendly, service-oriented salespeople . . . except that they aren’t really salespeople. They are service people.

But service people […]

No Excuse for Allowing Your Sales Team to Make Excuses

Do you ever get frustrated by the reasons why your salespeople can’t or don’t meet their goals? Do you feel like you are nagging them to sell more despite all the reasons why they tell you they can’t?

Here’s some helpful advice:

Quit allowing your salespeople to make any excuses.

Granted, it’s not a revolutionary idea . . . but you have to give yourself permission to actually do it. If you fail to do so, your salespeople won’t grow, change or improve. They will just stay the same. And, consequently, you will be frustrated and sales will suffer. Before you know it, […]

How to Use the Math of Success to Boost Your Team’s Sales Results

A friend and colleague pointed out to me that I frequently refer to the Math of Success in sales when I write, but I don’t have one article dedicated to the topic. Well here you go, an entire article dedicated to the magical Math of Success. You can download a worksheet template to use with your sales team and put this into practice immediately. This is the Sales Manager’s remedy for having to nag salespeople to do more, get more appointments, send more proposals, and close more business.

You have probably heard the phrase “sales is a numbers game.” Well that […]

How Your Sales Team Can Identify Their 4 Buyers on LinkedIn

Editor’s Note: We haven’t often used guest posts on our blog, but this is one I thought our readers would find particularly helpful. This post comes courtesy of Celina Guerrero of SocialtoSales.com. It is a modified version of a post that was originally published on the SocialtoSales Blog. This version is designed specifically to help sales managers guide their sales teams towards more effective social selling methods. Let us know in the comments if you find it helpful!

How Your Sales Team Can Identify Their 4 Buyers on LinkedIn

Gallup recently published an article entitled, B2B Companies: Do You Know Who Your […]

4 Easy Steps to Help Your Salespeople Become Independent Thinkers

I just re-read a very good article by Janice Mars of SalesLatitude and thought it was worth sharing.

The point of the article is that sales managers are inundated with salespeople and their questions and frequently get in a rut. They accept the role of reacting to salespeople and their questions all day long. They become the bottleneck, as Janice states. It is a dysfunctional dynamic.

I submit that there is a more dangerous problem that erupts. The sales manager’s favorite salespeople are the ones that don’t need much interaction ─ because they make it easy on the sales manager.

Beware, sales managers! […]

Top 5 Mistakes Made by CEOs Managing Sales (and How to Fix Them)

I had a meeting yesterday with the CEO of a small business that currently has six people on their sales team. He is stuck in an awkward place because they are now big enough that they need to have a sales team, but they still don’t think they are quite big enough yet to have a dedicated sales manager. This is a tough spot that tons of business owners find themselves in. He needs to build sales to propel the business to the next level (so he can justify hiring a rock star sales manager). But until then, it means […]