Leadership

In this episode, Brenden Kumarasamy will discuss how to succeed at public speaking, sharing tips on everything from body language to delivery. We will share the common misconceptions and challenges around public speaking.

The world has changed in countless ways since early 2020, and that means sales coaching has to adapt. How do you maintain a strong coaching regimen with salespeople who are spending some or all of their working day out of the office?

The Sandler Summit is a powerful two-day hybrid event where successful business professionals across all industries learn, collaborate, and network.

2022 will be a pivotal year for sales leaders. Here are four best practices we are currently sharing with our clients as they transition into 2022.

“Leading from the Front in Challenging Times” is the latest survey from the Sandler Research Center (SRC). It compiles and analyses data from a global collection of hundreds of sales leaders and managers.

The global sales space has been completely transformed over the last year with a virtual selling environment prevailing for almost all sales organizations. Sandler’s research reveals that 71.4% of participating sales managers and sales leadership report that their sales process has changed as a result of transitioning to remote commercial trading. Unfortunately, 63.2% don’t have a plan.

Mike Montague interviews Cassie Kramer on How to Succeed at Keeping Your Financial House in Order.

A Q&A with HubSpot and Suzie Andrews, Sandler Training

Short on time? No problem. Here is our 120-second overview of three critical areas where we are seeing the most productive sales leaders set their teams up for success in 2021.

In today’s current market conditions, leaders need to accept that the success of their teams and their companies will rely heavily on striking a collaborative, coordinated balance between creative strategic thinking and effective implementation.

2020 was the year. Your company was going to experience exponential growth. The plans had been meticulously prepared and presented, blessed by the board, applauded by all business unit leaders around the table.

Hiring is one of the most important things we can do as a leader… and yet for many of the people, we work with, it remains something of a blind spot.

The companies that emerge stronger from a crisis all share one common strength –their sales and leadership teams are willing and able to move beyond their existing comfort zones, look to where new opportunities lie, set new priorities, and create new action plans.

David Mattson, President and CEO of Sandler Training and 6-time Author, talks about his Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek best-selling book, The Sandler Rules: 49 Timeless Selling Principles and How to Apply Them.

Mike Montague interviews Andrew Gregson on How to Succeed at Pricing Your Products and Services. 

Setting clear expectations is an important part of any sales leader’s working day. Unfortunately, it’s something that doesn’t always happen as effectively or as consistently as we might like. Here are five simple steps you can take to get better at this critical part of the job.

If you’re a sales leader, you are tasked with striking a delicate balance. Your job is not to sell for the members of your team – selling is what you hire, train, and retain good salespeople to do, after all. Yet your job is to help shape the business development strategies that make the most sense for your business, for the salespeople who report to you, and of course for your customers.

Leadership is more than learning the characteristics and habits of effective leaders. Truly effective leaders ensure the organization has clear direction and an infrastructure which will enhance the probability of the organization successfully achieving their vision.

Many of you reading this article right now have a team (or teams) of people that report to you in some form or another. As you think about those people, your time spent leading them, managing them, coaching them, developing them, working with them, and yes… all of the other things you have to do as part of your roles or responsibilities, it doesn’t leave much time to add on a thorough accountability process to that list… or does it?

“If you don’t know where you are going, any road can take you there.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland 

Some businesses and leaders act like trail leaders. They research their maps and information about an area they plan to explore. They plan their travels well when hiking a path through the wilderness.

It’s the start of a new year, with new goals, new challenges, and new opportunities. Each sales team is unique … but every team leader in every industry is, we believe, likely to be interested in the answer to a critical question about the year 2020: What can we do to improve closing ratios and margins this year? Here are three proven strategies to consider from the Sandler leadership playbook.

It’s no secret the war for sales talent is at an all-time high. By now, every sales manager has a story of an employee who abruptly departed for another opportunity.

Holding salespeople accountable: This is one of the major challenges of managing a sales team – regardless of whether it’s a traditional team where people show up for work at a central physical location, or a team working remotely, or a team at a call center. What, exactly, is the best way to do this? And how do you do it without falling into the trap of micromanaging people?

I remember taking a parenting class when my boys were young. The big takeaways from the class were the requirement to tell your child what the consequences of their behavior would be and to be clear on what you expected from them. I recall my boys’ mother and me saying to each other on numerous occasions, “We can’t get mad at them if we weren’t clear with our expectations.” Sometimes, the principle sounded like this: “Don’t punish them if you didn’t tell them they would be punished.”

What kind of salesperson should you always be on the lookout for? What specific traits does the ideal sales hire always possess, no matter what industry you’re in, and no matter what your market looks like?

This year, on Fridays, Dave talks about the attitude, behavior, and techniques of successful sales managers as he shares his thoughts on the 49 Sandler Rules for Sales Leaders.

Listen Time: 8 Minutes

One of the things I talk about often with sales leaders who are eager to maximize their team’s performance is the principle of reinforcement. All too often, we think of training for salespeople as a one-and-done initiative, as something we can check off a list once the "training" event is over and consider finished. Actually, the training we have invested in is next to worthless if it is not reinforced over time, incorporated as a personal priority, and made an ongoing topic for discussion within a personalized sales coaching plan. Reinforcement is thus one of the neglected secrets of effective sales leadership.

This year, on Fridays, Dave talks about the attitude, behavior, and techniques of successful sales managers as he shares his thoughts on the 49 Sandler Rules for Sales Leaders.

Listen Time: 12 Minutes

This year, on Fridays, Dave talks about the attitude, behavior, and techniques of successful sales managers as he shares his thoughts on the 49 Sandler Rules for Sales Leaders.

Listen Time: 14 Minutes

As sales leaders, we need to accept that we will ultimately be judged on our ability to hire and retain people who are both willing and able to do the job of selling. If either of those elements is missing in a sales hire that happens on our watch, we’re not doing our job.

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Many managers are surprised to hear us suggest that it’s important to meet one-on-one with every salesperson on staff at least every other week. Some even say it’s impossible! But it’s not. If you keep the meetings brief  ... if you think of these interactions as check-ins rather than as opportunities to “fix” people …

Read Time: 4 Minutes

It's common for people to mistake sales management for sales coaching. In fact, these are two very different roles. The table highlights some of the most notable differences.

Read Time: 5 Minutes

This year, on Fridays, Dave talks about the attitude, behavior, and techniques of successful sales managers as he shares his thoughts on the 49 Sandler Rules for Sales Leaders.

Listen Time: 12 Minutes

In addition to following the basic principles of not presenting too early and ensuring that the presentation is delivered as one component of an effective professional sales process, there are four steps sales professionals can follow to ensure more effective presentations.

Read Time: 5 Minutes

If you are a Sandler client, and you’ve never attended a Summit, let me share four powerful reasons to consider joining us in Florida March 20-22.

Read Time: 5 Minutes

David Mattson, President and CEO of Sandler Training and 6-Time Best-Selling Author, talks about his fifth book, Sandler Rules for Sales Leaders. The book is on sale here, as well as, the companion video course. 

Listen Time: 11 Minutes 

David Mattson, President and CEO of Sandler Training and 6-Time Best-Selling Author, talks about his fifth book, Sandler Rules for Sales Leaders. The book is on sale, as well as, the companion video course. 

Listen Time: 12 Minutes

There is much research proving that proper sales coaching can lift your sales 20% or more. Not only does coaching increase revenues, it also builds a culture of self-sufficiency, growth, and retention.

All too often, what holds salespeople back in terms of reaching their potential is not a missing sales skill or an improperly applied technique. More often than managers like to imagine, the problem is a failure of leadership.

If I asked a group of sales leaders, what motivates their salespeople, money is going to come up more often than not. And yes, money is important as it does pay the bills. And for some, money can be used as a scorecard. But are true high performers only motivated by money?

Read Time: 3 Minutes

Stephen J. Cloobeck is a self-made business leader with over 30 years of experience across every aspect of hospitality design, development, and deployment. As the original founder and former CEO and chairman of Diamond Resorts International - a business that grew to become one of the largest vacation ownership companies worldwide - Cloobeck made a name for himself as the industry's most adamant advocate for radical customer service, which he calls embracing the Meaning of Yes.

Ken Seawell, Sandler trainer from Detroit, joins us to talk about the attitude, behaviors, and techniques and what binds them together. Learn the best practices of successful salespeople and entrepreneurs from around the world.

Chris Lewis is the CEO and Founder of LEWIS, one of the world's largest private communication companies. He joins us to talk about his new book and the attitude, behaviors, and techniques of top performing leaders in the new century. Learn how to succeed at leadership in the 21st century.

January is coming. As a leader, this may mean the implementation of strategically necessary change initiatives that affect the sales team in 2019, such as the restructuring of territories or the revision of the team comp plan.

With Q4 upon us, it makes sense to start thinking carefully about what has worked – and what could be improved – in your prospecting plan this year. Here are three ideas to consider that have helped salespeople we’ve worked with to create better “cookbooks” (daily and weekly action plans) for effective prospecting. You may want to consider adopting all three of them as this year closes … and as the next year approaches.

Mike Crandall joins us to talk about the attitude, behaviors and techniques of transitioning the ownership of your business to the next generation of leaders. This is always a tough subject, but the future is coming and how you plan now will determine how bright that future will be. Learn how to succeed at transitioning your business to the next generation.

David Mattson, President and CEO of Sandler, shares his thoughts about delegating and how to pass the baton in a way that gets results. Learn the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques of top leaders and how the delegate tasks. 

People will work much, much harder for their own reasons than they will ever work for your reasons. You, as a manager, have an obligation to find out exactly what those reasons are. And the very best way to do that is by leading with kindness.

Chris joins us to talk about how to hold your team accountable and how to demand excellence from yourself and others. What does it mean to set a high bar, and how to do you pull it off without upsetting your team

Learn how to apply the DISC personality framework to uncovering prospect's buying motivations or PAIN, in Sandler terms. Hamish Knox, Sandler trainer and author, returns to the podcast to talk with Dave Mattson about combining these two classic Sandler frameworks and selling strategies.

If you want a better team, become a better manager. Dave Mattson, President and CEO of Sandler Training interview John Rosso, Sandler author and David H. Sandler award-winner, about effective sales leadership. What are the roles of a good leader?

To answer the common question, “Why should I invest more time in coaching my sales team?” we must first define what we mean by “coaching.”

Learn how to empower your employees to take ownership and learn how to solve problems on their own. Mike Jones talks about how to know which things to take off your plate and put them onto someone else's. You can't be great at everything, but you can build a team that is.

Dave Mattson, President and CEO of Sandler Training, talks to Tom Niesen about selling the Sandler way and the four different hats that sales leaders have to wear. Learn why each is crucial to your team's success.

In today’s world, many managers don’t get to develop people the way they would like. It’s harder and harder to spend quality time with all the team members so managers must make sure each interaction delivers value for everyone. This means creating structure and clarity around all interactions with the team–or, as David Sandler put it, eliminating mutual mystification.

Communication is key in any relationship. Whether that relationship is with your spouse, your peers, your children, or your employees, it always comes back to a transfer of information, honesty, and respect.

Dianna Booher is the author of 47 books, including Communicate Like A Leader, and founder of Booher Research. The How to Succeed Podcast is a public and free podcast from Sandler Training, the worldwide leader in sales, management, and customer service training for individuals all the way up to Fortune 500 companies with over 250 locations around the globe.

The How to Succeed Podcast is a public and free podcast from Sandler Training, the worldwide leader in sales, management, and customer service training for individuals all the way up to Fortune 500 companies with over 250 locations around the globe.

With the start of basketball season this month, it’s the perfect time to focus on building a great team. The phrase “dream team” gets thrown around a lot, but it’s most commonly referenced when discussing the incredible collection of talent that was assembled by USA Basketball for the 1992 Olympics. 

Rule number 21. Empower your people to succeed without you. Coaching creates wisdom. Now think about that for a second. Coaching is one of the four hats of leadership and you're going to spend anywhere from 20 to 30 percent of your time as a coach.

Rule number 20. Mentor to a success profile. Create a success profile that people can grow into. Mentoring is where you're going to spend five to 10% of your time. It's a key aspect of leadership, but we don't do it often enough, so you need a process for it. 

Rule #19: Train Your Team. Make sure they get the skills necessary to do the job. Listen leaders, training is one of the four hats of leadership. You're going to spend anywhere from 20 to 30% of your time in your training function. Now, do I train less or more if I have experienced people? Of course, that's why you have a 20 to 30% swing. The more experienced people that you have, maybe the less that you have to train in some of the basic stuff.

As you progress through your career, there comes a time when you need to stop moving horizontally,  and begin to climb the ladder. When you realize where you are most valuable, and you decide to take the next step, that typically comes with the added responsibility of leadership.

You know as a leader, you're going to have many different roles throughout the day when you interact with your team and your coworkers. We call them the four hats of leadership. Those four hats are supervision, training, mentoring, and coaching. All four of them are equally as important. Supervision, goal setting, setting expectations, having daily conversations, sales funnel management. 

Rule #16: Follow the four Goldie Locks steps. Use middle ground management as your strategy. We have two different types of managers if we go to extremes. We've got those who are detail oriented, and they're looking over your shoulders, and they're micro-managers. Micro-managers create an environment where people are afraid to act on their own, where they're afraid to take that next step. That's not a good place to live. 

Joel Burstein, a Sandler trainer from Pittsburg, talks about his best practices for leading by example. Whether you are a first time manager or an experienced executive you are leading by example, whether you are intending to or not. Joel shares his attitudes, behaviors, and techniques for leading a team by setting a good example.

Did you know that the average tenure of a Sales VP is only between 24-32 months? They barely have time to unpack their bags and get settled before they are looking for another position. In the meantime, the company has not only lost its Sales VP but probably its best sales person as well. Why is this? And is there something that can be done to change this dynamic?

Rule #13. Be a comfort zone buster. There's no room at Complacency Inn. What does that mean? Well, have you ever run into a situation where somebody on your team was killing it? I mean doing everything that they had to do, above and beyond, things that they felt uncomfortable doing and things that they felt comfortable doing.  

Rule 12: Manage individuals; lead a team. There's no substitute for personal attention. Listen, every human wants to be paid attention to. Everyone wants this one-on-one connection. They want eye contact, they want one-on-one time, they want you to pay attention. This is true at home. Kids want your attention. They want you to ask questions. They want you to understand the deal. 

As a leader, there’s a constant pressure to ensure your leadership approach stays up-to-date. Every year, the culture of the office deviates slightly from the year prior and the way that individuals want to learn and be led,  shifts. Sometimes these changes are drastic, and other times they are slight. No matter the degree of change, it’s imperative that you are cognizant of the shift and are prepared to be a great resource to everyone who looks to you for guidance and mentorship.

Rule #5: Eliminate miscommunication. What was said? What was heard? Check before you respond. You know, every person has three recorders that were taping since they were born. We have a Parent, an Adult and a Child. Three roles that we still have today if you think about it. But these tape recorders were starting and stopping at different times. And it affects how you interact with your team and how your team interacts with their sales force, even today.

Rule #4: Become a servant leader. Put the needs of your team first. In today's world, often times we've got to make sure that with all the things going on we're ultimately judged based on is our team producing? You're the leader. Senior Execs aren't looking around saying; "Hey, person number one, person number three." No. They look at you and say; "Is your team producing?"

I'm often asked by managers, "How do I motivate my people?" While I always appreciate the question, it's the wrong question to ask. The reason being is that if we must motivate our people as managers, we're working too hard. The reality is that the best people don't need motivation. Inspiration yes, but not motivation.

Holding your people accountable is simple. In working with sales leaders around the world, accountability isn’t easy because those leaders possess one of three self-limiting beliefs that cripple their accountability program.

Do you have a written Leadership Philosophy that is well known by all the people in your company? It’s good for everybody when the top person knows exactly what to expect of him/herself. Creating your own personal Leader’s Compass is an easy task that will reap enormous benefits.

This year's theme is Vision Driven Success. It is two days packed with non-stop training on sales, management or enterprise-level selling. Each trainer will bring real-world tactics, strategies, and ground-level tools that you can immediately implement in your business. 

The DISC model is based on your behavior. It clarifies how you prefer to do things based on two factors. Are you more extroverted or introverted? And, are you more people or task oriented? Based on those preferences, you end up with four possible behavioral styles.

As a leader, one of your most important roles within an organization is providing guidance to other members of the company. It is common for leaders to encounter situations in which they have to provide an employee with constructive criticism. Providing this type of guidance can be a challenge, however, as it is important to find a way to communicate your intentions without causing people to feel defensive or sparking resentment.

When workplace productivity flounders, it is easy to give in and let the sluggish behavior drag out, leading to flat or declining results from the staff. If you notice a lazy attitude taking hold in your office, a quick response can save your office and refresh the staff's energy. Stop sluggish behavior from occurring with these tips for increasing workplace productivity