I spoke to five different sales organizations in January this year. Three of these sales organizations were engaged in a sales transformation. I want to describe the difference between one of those organizations and the two others.

Leaders…

I started this week at Gerhard’s Sales 2.0 Conference in Philadelphia. G puts on a heck of a good show, and I always learn a lot. I was there to speak on Big Data, but I spoke on Little Data.

Gerhard pushed all of us to share our best ideas about…

If you want to reach your big goal as a leader, here is the recipe. It’s simple, but it isn’t easy.

Start with hiring: Field the very best team you can. There isn’t anything that is going to help you more than starting with good people who care…

1. Give your team credit for the victories. Your team did the work. They did the heavy lifting. Take none of the credit, even when it was your idea and even when you worked harder than anyone. The victory belongs to your team.
2. Take the blame…

Every sales organization has a spiritual sales leader.

There is a sort of religion that develops within the sales organization, and the spiritual leader establishes and maintains that religion. The rest of the salesforce looks to the spiritual…

You were a great salesperson. You were truly special. Selling came easy to you.

You were born with the ability to create rapport. You like people and they like you. People have always trusted you, and you’ve always taken on more responsibility…

Value is the killer app in sales. Without it, you are relegated to competing on price. Here’s why your sales force is unprepared to create value and what to do about it.

No Business Acumen: Your sales force doesn’t have the business acumen, the…

The military strategist Clausewitz described the fog of war as friction. For Clausewitz, war was different in practice than on paper. You can have a strategy, a plan, and well-rehearsed tactics, but as soon as you come into contact with the enemy,…