Personalized learning is revolutionizing sales training. By making training more responsive to the needs of individual sales reps, you increase engagement and skill acquisition, leading to more effective training outcomes, crucial for staying competitive in today’s fast-paced sales environments. Personalized training can not only speed up skill acquisition but also increase proficiency levels, directly impacting sales performance and organizational success.

If there's one thing John Imah has learned from his decade-long career helping tech giants like Samsung, Twitch, Meta, and Snap, with business development and marketing, it's how to tell--or rather, sell--a story. "Whether it's an anecdote that humanizes the technology or a statistic that captures the market opportunity," says the serial entrepreneur, "the goal [of sales] is to leave the room with the audience not just understanding but believing in the vision.

While it is the sales team’s job to bring in business, simply cranking up the heat to get the numbers you want can produce an environment where stress backfires. Too much stress in any professional situation will mask talent and lead to poor decision-making. Instead of dialing up the pressure, the author recommends leaders engage with sellers in three areas: 1) Focus on creating an exceptional sales experience. 2) Focus on the sales process (not the outcome). 3) Focus on coaching to improve performance.

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.

When salespeople lose a deal, most prefer to move on rather than linger over the specifics of the loss. Similarly, when they win a deal, most are quick to celebrate. But very few take the time to assess why they won the business. In the authors’ experience leading and coaching sales teams, they see evidence that a brief, well-pointed sales retrospective, where you unpack the reasons behind a win or a loss, can significantly improve a team’s future win rate.

Few things can be more critical to your company's growth than your sales process. But when you step back to evaluate your team's methods, you may wonder whether your process is more of a hindrance than a help. After all, as important as traits like persistence and having good people skills can be in sales, they aren't going to be enough to create a winning process on their own.

A trip to the supermarket this week left me shocked—and a bit worried—at the price of groceries. It isn’t just food, though. The cost of energy, clothing, and even my Netflix subscription has been inching up. At the same time, my household budget has remained the same. It hasn’t dropped, which is good, but my dollars definitely don’t go as far as they used to.

After their initial 90 days, your new sales reps likely feel ready to interact with buyers and lead sales calls. But ongoing training beyond this initial period is critical for their capacity to learn and improve. According to the Ebinghaus Learning Curve, tasks will require less time and resources the more they are performed. An employee takes time to learn to perform a certain task, and as they repeat it they learn to complete it quickly and more efficiently.

Traditions die hard. How else do you explain the outdated sales tactics still in use by sales professionals? Traditions are great for Thanksgiving and July 4th. But the trouble with traditions as sales professionals is that they prevent us from learning and implementing the required new skills. Consciously or unconsciously, sales professionals defer to outdated tactics that hinder performance.

Compared with other business functions, sales has a tendency to be less adaptable. At many companies, sales process remain the same for long periods of time. Now, as digitization changes the way many customers buy, sales teams need to evolve continuously. Four practices can help with this shift: Anticipate where customers are going, redeploy resources to match customer behavior, shift emphasis from closing sales to helping customers realize value, and embracing agile decision-making.

I'm a baseball guy and a die hard Boston Red Sox fan but I can't bear to watch them right now. They are playing the worst baseball since I was 10 years old so that's going back 55 years! It's not hard to understand why they are so bad because the data tells the story. Their stats show that as of May 9, 2022 their bullpen has 9 blown saves.

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.

My articles begin with analogies so we'll start by asking, has baseball changed?

Games take longer, there is role specialization, starting pitchers rarely complete games, hitters are stronger, pitchers routinely throw in the mid 90's and there is a trend towards either hitting a home run or striking out. But it's still baseball. It is still played the same way. The changes are superficial.

It seems after four decades of talk about the “consultative” or “solution” sales approach, companies would be adept at selling this way by now. Unfortunately, that’s not the case: Many sales professionals struggle to move beyond pitching their products or services to providing solutions that are connected to customer business outcomes.

Your sales team is the backbone of your business. I can imagine that you’d like to increase their sales revenue consistently month by month. With sales coaching you can tangibly improve your sales team’s output with focused goals you’d like to achieve. At Predictable Revenue, we believe it’s one of the most valuable investments you can make in your business.

From time to time, I help clients recruit for key roles. Unlike recruiters, I don't work on a contingency because I take responsibility for the entire recruiting process from soup to nuts and then the client makes the decisions on who to hire. They pay a fee for services. I specify the requirements, write the job postings, attract and source candidates, take the initial application, get them through Objective Management Group's (OMG) accurate and predictive candidate assessments, review resumes, conduct the first interview and then recommend candidates who are perfect fits for the roles.

With the last 18 months changing the sales landscape in ways no-one could have predicted, it’s time to pause and think about the future. A successful sales organisation needs a defined vision, a skilled team, and an obsession with the customer.

From kids to adults, there is something exciting about fear. For many, it’s the unknown. For others, it’s the loss of control. Either way, the exhilaration of fear increases our heart rates, stimulates our senses, and tingles the tiny hairs on our necks and arms. No doubt, this accounts for the popularity of ghost stories, the proliferation of true-crime podcasts, and the endless sequels and remakes of classic horror films. It’s also why the anticipation of Halloween starts in late August.

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.

One thing is certain: To every business on the planet, cash is the equivalent of oxygen. Without cash, your company will suffocate and go out of business. As with oxygen, if you don’t have enough cash, your business will limp around in a zombie-like state, struggling to take advantage of opportunities to fuel growth.