Transitioning from a top salesperson to an effective sales leader is more than just a promotion—it's a significant step up that demands new skills and perspectives. And it’s risky. Elevating top sales performers into sales leadership roles doesn’t naturally make them effective sales coaches. They may not possess the skills or desire to transition into leadership roles, potentially leading to misalignment and dissatisfaction.

Raising others up is a hallmark of a great leader. Beyond simply being a kind thing to do, developing talent is paramount in achieving notable scale as a global organization. This article will outline nine principles that I think about as a sales leader. Feel free to lean on this list or develop one that aligns with your core organizational values.

Some of my long-term problems had such simple solutions. If only I had thought of the obvious solutions first. For example: For decades, I could not drive for much longer than two to two and a half hours before my eyes would get so heavy that I risked falling asleep at the wheel. Day or night, year after year, all of our trips were based on how far I might have to drive. And then I discovered the solution. Sunglasses.

Until recently, coaching was considered primarily a one-on-one practice. But no matter how effective employees are on their own, they can only contribute to the real power of the collective if their managers provide them with coaching as a group. In this practice, which the authors call team coaching, a leader’s role is to support the team as an organic unit, providing guidance, setting routines and practices, and creating constant opportunities for group learning. In this article, the authors describe three of the tools and techniques of team coaching that they’ve found to be the most important for fostering accelerated learning and successful outcomes.

Should you invest in coaching for your sales team or hire an external sales development rep (SDR) service? When it comes time to scale your sales team, there are two main options: invest in your current team or outsource to a sales development company. In this blog post, we’ll break down the pros and cons of each and how to choose the best option for your business.

Artificial intelligence has entered the sales arena. And it couldn’t have come at a better time.

The shift to remote and now hybrid workforces dramatically affected how sales managers train and coach their reps. Already facing time constraints, managers have reduced visibility into seller activity and struggle to personalize coaching.

Any salesperson will tell you that what they do is part science and part art — part hard skills (the actual knowledge of the product and the market) and part soft skills (the interpersonal aspect of sales).

Today’s sales training paradigms take a divide-and-conquer approach to developing the hybrid of soft/hard skills that drive direct sales interactions

Microsoft’s chief executive officer, Satya Nadella, often speaks of how his career — and his company — have been shaped by empathy. Nadella views empathy as a quality to be consciously cultivated, practiced and applied — “not just as something nice to have but (it) is core to (the) innovation agenda in the company,” according to a Quartz India article. In addition, he believes empathy can be a differentiator when working with clients.

The pandemic has ratcheted up the level of uncertainty for almost every aspect of business including staffing levels, budgets, buyer engagement, supply chain management and more. Many companies are also operating in a hybrid situation, with employees working both remotely and in the office.

As a leader, developing and coaching others is a necessary skill in my arsenal. Supporting professional growth in others, to me, feels like finding hidden treasure. I can know you have potential, but to help you, I need to discover what exactly it is and what the best pathway for you develop that potential.

Many sales organizations have become overly reliant on their top sales performers to achieve their goals. While it is convenient to say that we “hit our number” at the end of the quarter, the fact that a few top performers carried the team presents numerous challenges.

Effective coaching sometimes requires us to shift our focus to igniting a coachee’s intrinsic motivation to change, as I mentioned in a previous blog post. This is not always easy to do, and some say it borders on the impossible. The good news is, there is an incredibly powerful tool one can use that has been proven by years of rigorous scientific study.