Over the last two decades, technology developers have utilized the agile methodology to work more effectively. As sales teams are stretched thin and face change initiatives and strategy shifts, using the sprints made popular by agile can help them focus on priorities that will drive results. At the heart of this is a cadence of structured, weekly meetings between the manager and the salesperson.

By the time we hit the age of 18, we have years of buying decisions behind us and generally feel like we’re too smart to be “sold” anything. Instead, we’re looking to be inspired to buy. Inspiring is the new selling. If you’re in sales or business development, one of the easiest ways to inspire customers is to show enthusiasm for your product. Arguably, there is nothing more contagious than enthusiasm, at least nothing that is still good for you.

Back in November 2017, Collin Sexton and his college basketball team at Alabama were forced to play 3-on-5 for more than 10 minutes against the University of Minnesota. Due to injuries, ejections, and disqualifications, Alabama could only put three players on the court. The crazy part, behind 40 points from Sexton, Alabama almost won the game, ultimately losing 89-84.

Back in 1957, two engineers invented a textured wallpaper they were sure would become a big hit. Instead, it flopped. After some modest success repurposing it as an insulation for greenhouses, their failures became blessings in disguise, forever altering the history of packing and shipping worldwide, while de-stressing millions.

It’s an open secret that Americans work more days of the year than many other workers around the world. When we do go on vacation, we often fail to maximize the benefits by either cutting our vacations short or trying to do too much while on vacation.

Uncomfortable conversations are inevitable — and that’s why learning to navigate them is necessary for building healthy relationships and a successful career. Maybe you need to offer a friend or colleague some constructive criticism.

Learning and development (L&D) is critical for the newest generation of workers, Gen Z, to get a good value proposition from their workplace. While the want of L&D from Gen Z may be familiar to every other generation, Gen Z comes from a very specific socioeconomic and cultural situation that shapes their desired employee experience.

Sales teams have typically not been early adopters of technology, but generative AI may be an exception to that. Sales work typically requires administrative work, routine interactions with clients, and management attention to tasks such as forecasting. AI can help do these tasks more quickly, which is why Microsoft and Salesforce have already rolled out sales-focused versions of this powerful tool.

Something top performers – i.e. reps who hit 150% of quota – do twice as often as their peers? Research. Meaningful, deep research into their prospects to find out about their business, their interests, and what’s driving them, both intrinsically and extrinsically.

Sales is a business about people and getting the right talent is vital—companies must reconsider their talent strategies and the sales roles they need to continue to drive growth.

Learning and development (L&D) leaders face a plethora of challenges when planning, designing and developing sales enablement initiatives. Products and services are evolving faster than ever. Technology like artificial intelligence (AI), sales analytics software, customer relationship management platforms and sales collaboration and workflow tools are more entrenched across the sales cycle.

Managers today must balance their day-to-day work with multiple “ands,” such as delivering on quarterly objectives and thinking strategically. Given these numerous demands, managers tend to deprioritize their own career development. It doesn’t have to be that way. The more managers take control of their development, the better able they’ll be to avoid the common career mistakes that will get in the way of their growth. And the more their team members see the positive impact of investing in their career development, the more likely they are to do the same.

Too often, organizations view leadership in the context of hierarchy and, as a result, provide leadership training solely to formal managers. However, in today’s dynamic business environment, all employees would benefit from leadership training because, as Suzie Bishop, vice president of product development at The Center for Leadership Studies (CLS), explains, “Everyone is a leader. Everyone is influencing and being influenced.”

Albert Einstein said, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

Not everyone sees things this way. Some are presented with tough problems or hard choices and throw up their hands in frustration. But viewing a challenge as an obstacle, rather than an opportunity, does not prevent us from having the problem – it only affects our ability to solve it.

Time is a valuable commodity in the world of business, especially for entrepreneurs. While business can change in an instant, there's one constant, solid thing, and that is time. The better you can learn to work with time, the better off your business will be in the long run. Here are four time management skills to help you maximize every minute of your workday.

Many large, multinational companies fail to reach and profit from middle-market customers. Yet the opportunity is enormous: In the U.S. alone, middle-market companies purchase more than $6 trillion a year in goods and services. Sellers with a big middle-market customer base can grow along with their clientele. The fundamental problem is that many multinationals don’t have a full-fledged strategy for selling to midsize companies, as they usually do for sales to enterprise and small business clients.

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.

Sales leaders often default to a binary view when stratifying or tiering their customers, leading to the creation of two broad account categories — key accounts and “non-key” accounts. Many times, the “non-key” accounts are further stratified into sub-tiers focusing on different engagement strategies or resourcing models.

We’re in one of the most frustrating economies in recent memory. It’s not a full-on recession yet because, despite layoffs in tech, unemployment is generally low. But inflation is high, interest rates are high, and people aren't buying like they used to. And it's causing some serious sales slumps.

Do you want to make a positive difference in our world? It would be a dream come true to counter the anger and division that often surrounds us. As parents, there’s a way we can do it: by teaching empathy to kids. Teaching empathy to kids is as essential as teaching them to have good hygiene or nutrition.