First Comes Vacation – Then Comes Sales Slump. NOT!!!

First Comes Vacation – Then Comes Sales Slump. NOT!!!

Memorial Day is right around the corner. While the seriousness of this holiday recognizing the men and women who serve in the United States armed forces, especially those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, should not be taken lightly, the weekend has also come to unofficially mark the start of summer.

Readying for retreat

Depending on what part of the country you live in, Memorial Day also signals that the school year is either over or will wrap up in a few weeks and vacation season will get into full swing. For those of us in sales, vacations lead to prospects vanishing […]

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Sales and The Need to Purge

Sales and The Need to Purge

When was the last time you did some purging in your professional life, or personal life for that matter? There’s a reason I wonder. Recently, I helped both my mother and mother-in-law move. Each had accumulated over the years both great personal treasures and a lot of junk. Faced with helping them get rid of what they no longer needed (or perhaps ever needed), I reflected deeply both about the value of things, and eliminating things. And while I carried boxes, packed treasures and discarded junk, I realized that the process was completely applicable to the world of sales and […]

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Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks

Teaching Old Dogs New Tricks

It has been said that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. As this axiom relates to salespeople, it is sometimes true and sometimes untrue. The outcome can be determined by which category the salesperson falls into. In other words, in which kind of dog we are dealing with.

Dog Training and People Training

Here at Braveheart, we are in the human performance business as it specifically relates to sales effectiveness. And the businesses of people training and dog training are really quite similar.

Okay, before I go on, let me apologize if by comparing salespeople to dogs I offend anyone, but […]

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Fix the 5 Reasons Sales Hiring is So Hard to Get Right

Fix the 5 Reasons Sales Hiring is So Hard to Get Right

We work with many companies, both small and large, who suffer from the same issues when it comes to hiring. They all have difficulty attracting, selecting and onboarding the right salespeople.

Repeatedly, we hear the frustration of executives who have wasted countless hours and thousands of dollars hiring salespeople who don’t work out. Compounding the problem is that when the market is tight for good sales talent, hiring managers feel pushed to just fill positions, not understanding that hiring poorly likely will cost the company three to five times the hire’s annual compensation.

Sales hiring is the most difficult to […]

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Low Closing Rates? Here’s What You Can Do About It

Low Closing Rates? Here’s What You Can Do About It

It’s another of the most common complaints we hear from business owners and sales leaders: Our salespeople can’t close. And they’re right. Most salespeople, unfortunately, are not great at closing.

The closing facts

This isn’t just an opinion, it’s backed-up by some impressive data. Using the Objective Management Group’s vast database of over 1,000,000 salespeople, I pulled information on 359,000 to determine how many had the traits of a proficient closer (see sidebar). On average, these salespeople only have 31% of the necessary characteristics. 31%! Having so few of these traits, it’s no wonder we hear complaints about salespeople closing.

Closing isn’t intimidation

A […]

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Telling Ain’t Selling…Nor Is It Managing

Telling Ain’t Selling…Nor Is It Managing

Telling is NOT selling goes without saying. Anyone worth the commissions they collect knows this. But telling is not sales leadership or coaching either. It simply won’t help an individual salesperson get any better. People rarely learn by being told, “do this”, or “do that.”

Telling for Failure

Too frequently it’s what I see however.  Managers telling salespeople what to do and how to do it. As a matter of fact, I frequently witness this situation when I get the chance to sit in on the sales “training” sessions of prospective clients.

Typically, the manager will start off having the salespeople break up […]

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Capitalize on the Trends Redefining Selling

Capitalize on the Trends Redefining Selling

I had the privilege recently of speaking at the 2017 Barnes Buchanan Security Conference on the topic: Capitalize on Trends Redefining Selling in the Security Industry. As with many industries, competition and customers’ buying habits continue to influence the security industry marketplace. But, no matter what industry you’re selling in, here are some lessons to learn from the situation and my presentation.

Sly competition from outside companies

The Security Industry is facing many new “wily” competitors in the form of cable companies and internet providers who are now offering security services in addition to entertainment and broadband access. These companies don’t necessarily […]

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What I Heard about Sales Compensation Plans
at SOUC 2017

I recently had the privilege of moderating a panel on sales compensation plans at the SedonaOffice Users Conference. If you were at the conference but missed this panel (or weren’t there and wish you had been), fear not, I have compiled the key points here. For those of you not affiliated with the security industry, keep reading – the principles we discussed at the conference apply to most any business.

First of all, the contributors: I was joined by some wonderful business leaders in the security industry:

Joslyn Alderson from Vancouver Fire & Radius Security
Fred Johnson from Peak Alarm
Bob McVeigh from […]

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Constructing a Sales Compensation Plan That Works

Constructing a Sales Compensation Plan That Works

Maybe it because a new year has begun, but I’ve had numerous questions lately about sales compensation plans and how to construct them. It certainly seems to be a hot topic. I even facilitated a panel discussion on the subject at the SedonaOffice Users Conference this week.

What I hear being asked by business and sales leaders is, “How do I construct a compensation plan that will cause my salespeople to sell gobs of stuff, generating a whole bunch of profit for the company without us having to do anything else? Oh, and without us paying them too much for […]

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Motivation Mistakes Most Managers Make

Motivation Mistakes Most Managers Make

So, it’s a new year and once again we get to start with a fresh slate. Time to hit it hard and generate some new business. As a manager, you probably wrapped up last year with an assessment of your sales team’s effectiveness, likely calculating and paying out commissions for the team’s effort. Invariably, there were some stars, some duds and some so-so performers in your group.

Money Isn’t Always Motivating

As you plan for 2017 and where you will spend your effort, I’d like to suggest you spend a little energy tuning into your individual salespeople’s motivational tendencies. You will have […]

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