You Hired A Salesperson Who Has What it Takes to Succeed. Now What?

You Hired A Salesperson Who Has What it Takes to Succeed. Now What?

We work with many companies and help them dramatically improve their sales hiring effectiveness. Unfortunately, companies tend to ignore what happens after the interviewing, assessing and hiring are done. All too often, companies ignore the importance of having a systematic sales onboarding program in place.

The Sales Management Association recently released a research brief about salesperson onboarding. Two items that really jumped out at me from the brief are:

1. Those companies that have a very structured onboarding process and follow it consistently had the most positive results.

2. Consistently following a structured onboarding program shortened the time to productivity by 37%.

While these two […]

How to Get Your Sales Hiring Right

How to Get Your Sales Hiring Right

Sales hiring is not like any other type of hiring. For one thing, salespeople are the most difficult hires to get right.

Unfortunately, the cost of making a hiring mistake is high.

Statistics indicate that the cost of making a bad hire is between three and five times that individual’s annual compensation. That means if the base salary for a new sales rep is $36,000 per year and the company is superior at cutting ineffective salespeople free quickly (say, after three months) then the cost of one bad hire is $27,000 at a minimum. That is a very conservative estimate.

If they were making $75,000 […]

3 Top Sales Coaching Tips Stolen from Lacrosse

3 Top Sales Coaching Tips Stolen from Lacrosse

I was at a college lacrosse game this weekend between two top ten teams. On paper it should have been a close game; one team ranked second in the country and the other ranked 10th. It ended up being a blowout.

I learned some important things about the impact that a coach and her actions can have on the entire team. I believe they apply in the sales world as well as in the sports world.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s definition of a coach:

a person who teaches and trains an athlete or performer
a person who teaches and trains the members of a sports […]

Six Sales Management Tips for Six Years of Braveheart Sales

Six Sales Management Tips for Six Years of Braveheart Sales

This March marked our sixth anniversary in business. It is hard to believe and fills me with a sense of accomplishment and pride. But it also makes me think, “Wow, we still have so much to do to help middle market and small sales teams excel.” There is still lots of work to be done.

In recognition of our six years, I would like to share my favorite six tips I have learned along the way about sales management.

#6 Work through the math of success.

All salespeople need to understand what they need to do to produce enough opportunities to close the […]