Posts

Great article on leadership came out today.   http://brittainkalishgroup.com/2019/10/08/executiveleader/ I agree with the central theme of the article.  I might say it a bit differently.  There is a profound difference between a manager and leader.  A title provides you with both the opportunity and the obligation to lead.  It is a gift and privilege to lead and it can be tremendously satisfying when done well.  Many people with titles fail to live up to the trust that was placed in them to lead their teams.  Sadly, many of these people don't even understand the difference. There are so many amazing leaders that lead without the titles.  Every day, they answer questions, set the emotional tone, provide focus, help avoid distractions, and drive toward goals.  Identification of these leaders without titles is a key success strategy for newly appointed managers.
A new study just came out in Linked In that reveals that average CEOs spend less than 3% of their time talking to their customers.  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/average-ceo-spends-3-his-time-talking-customers-now-jan-van-der-spoel/ I wonder if many CEOs avoid customer interaction because they fear what their customers will actually say.  I have found that there is frequently a triangle with the CEO and his executive team on one point, the sales team on another point, and the customer on the final point.   Whenever you ask key questions like:   - How much better are we than our competition?   - How big of a problem is X?   - What would customers be willing to pay for Y?   - What is our reputation with our best customers?   - What is our reputation with our other customers? I find that in healthy organizations, the answers from these three groups are close to the same.  The bigger the discrepancy between the Executive Team, the sales team, and the Customer, the

The Real Secret of Sales Leadership

The real secret of Sales Leadership is that the secret isn't a secret at all.  Over the last decade, I have been through more than a dozen sales training programs and leadership training programs.  All of them have strengths.  However, they all equip the trainees to solve a set of challenges that may not directly apply to your business. What I have learned over the last decade is that great Sales leadership requires you to really understand the challenges your salespeople are facing, the competitive situation, the place your company fills in the marketplace, and the reputation of your brand.  Only then, can you use a set of flexible tools to craft your sales strategy. In this Blog, I will attempt to provide the questions you need to ask yourself as a manager and easy to implement toosl that you can use to propel your team forward. Thanks, Carter