For the third year, Training magazine and Wilson Learning Worldwide have teamed up to conduct the Annual Leadership Survey focused on creating effective leaders and preparing the next generation of leaders.

50% OF WORKERS SAY anxiety negatively affects their performance. 75% SAY most stressful part of job is immediate supervisor. 60% OF ORGANIZATIONS plan to address anxiety & well-being in the next three years

When you set out to target new business, you probably have an ICP in mind - your ideal customer profile. When you set out to recruit a new sales professional for your department, you should also have an ICP. In this case, ICP stands for ideal candidate profile. The individual you envision possesses nonstop energy and resilience, outstanding listening skills and can close deals faster than you can blink. Go ahead and blink. Then, pinch yourself. Because you are dreaming. These types of candidates don’t just sail into your organization. When you’re recruiting, you must look for candidates who are highly coachable. Using the right guidance with the right tools, over time, you’ll be able to develop your new rep into the polished professional you envision. Coachability is one of the top traits that sales managers consider when they’re hiring. In our Voice of the Sales Manager survey, respondents rated the most desired characteristics in their reps as follows: 1. Problem solver 69% 2. Confident 66% 3. Positive attitude / Optimistic 64% 4. Takes initiative 62% 5. Highly coachable 60% Click below to download this free White Paper from SalesFuel.

Did you know that only 1 in 4 North Americans views salespeople as credible in what they say and do? Almost every sales organization attempts to qualify prospects, but they should be giving equal consideration to how buyers qualify (or disqualify) them. It's much more than just price and product.

Sales manager leadership has the single biggest impact on salesperson performance, as long as it is the right type of leadership. Sitting down with your salespeople every month to review sales results and revenue is like only looking out the rearview mirror when driving. Effective sales leadership is not just looking at where your salespeople have been but where they are going.  

Sitting down with your salespeople and sales managers every month to review sales results and revenue is like driving by only looking out the rearview mirror. It gives you a good view of where they have been, not where they are going. The key to effective sales leadership is identifying the "leading indicators" of sales performance, finding ways to track them, and focusing your energy on reviewing and coaching to them. Explore how to identify leading sales indicators and how to use them to coach effectively.

Changes in the buying process are creating fundamental changes in the sales process. In fact, a sales process is not what salespeople need; today they need a way to facilitate the buying process. From the outset, buyers are in charge of the speed and direction of the process. They gather information about available solutions, screen potential providers, and select those providers they want to consider. Decision teams are the new norm, especially for strategically important buying decisions. Then the decision is handed off to Procurement departments who manage the actual purchase.

Facing economic challenges and a potential global recession, the traditional sales approach has been disrupted by the long tail of the pandemic-induced shift to virtual interactions. The widespread acceptance of ‘modern sales" has diminished face-to-face contact, lowering barriers for competitors. This poses a threat to strategic key accounts, making them more vulnerable to competition.  

Today’s digitally educated buyers require more value from their interactions with sales. Are your reps ready? Not many are. In fact, studies show that nearly 9 out of 10 sales meetings fail to meet the expectations of executive buyers.

Managing remote workers has always been challenging, particularly with sales teams where everything is measured on productivity and results. With more employees working from home than ever, sales managers must learn to manage a distributed workforce from a distance. For those organizations new to the world of a remote workforce, managing from a distance has presented unforeseen challenges.  So how do we know, then, if our sales team is cut-out for remote work? How do you gauge how well your team will adapt? We don’t have all of the answers today, but we can take a look at what successes and challenges remote sales teams have experienced, what new challenges organizations are seeing and how they are addressing them, and how sales managers can support, engage, motivate, and assess their newly remote workforce. We can use this information to help our salespeople adjust and thrive in a remote environment. 

Now more than ever, retaining your key customers is a strategic imperative. The role of the sales manager is to manage the sales process and lead the people. Many sales managers are highly effective at managing the sales process. Yet, sales managers need to ensure their top sales performers are fully engaged. This is something most sales managers understand, but unfortunately fall short of exhibiting the kind of leadership that contributes to an engaged salesforce. To assist them, in this webinar we will discuss steps sales managers can take to lead their salespeople to full engagement and higher performance.

Now more than ever, retaining your key customers is a strategic imperative. The role of the sales manager is to manage the sales process and lead the people. Many sales managers are highly effective at managing the sales process. Yet, sales managers need to ensure their top sales performers are fully engaged. This is something most sales managers understand but unfortunately fall short of exhibiting the kind of leadership that contributes to an engaged salesforce. To assist them, in this webinar, we will discuss steps sales managers can take to lead their salespeople to full engagement and higher performance.   

Emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic, many (if not all) companies are hyperfocused on boosting sales. A Google search for "sales enablement" yields millions of results—and a variety of conflicting definitions. Clearly, sales enablement can mean different things to different people. To some, it’s tools, tactics, and training. To others, it’s all about strategy, data, and analytics.  To us, it includes all those things—but it always starts with the story. Like any good book, your sales story should be a page-turner—keeping prospects hooked by engaging, inspiring, and making powerful emotional connections with them. But too often, the stories sales teams tell are fragmented, overly focused on product specs and features, or misaligned with marketing. The right story can make all the difference. And because research suggests that 50% of leads are qualified but not ready to buy, telling that story in the right ways at the right stages of the sales funnel is essential for converting new prospects into loyal customers. But an effective sales story involves more than delivering certain keywords to drive awareness, consideration, and decision as prospects move through the funnel. It should be a holistic, consistent thread that runs through all your communications to prospects—and one that’s laser-focused on the value you offer and the problems you can solve for them. Here are three critical steps to ensure that your sales team is telling a clear and compelling story about what you offer and why people will want to engage with your brand.

There is no status quo in sales, only constant evolution. The vortex and speed of change facing the sales leader forces them to rely on experience and judgment when data is not available, or worse, not trusted. The next level of transparency will provide the sales leader with data-driven facts to complement their judgment.

As sales organizations endeavor to escape the constricted economy of the 2009 recession, one of their most significant barriers is stagnant progess regarding bringing their sales cycle under control. Aberdeen research conducted in March, 2010 for the benchmark study of 441 corporate sales teams,Automating Lead-To-Win: Shrinking the Sales Cycle and Focusing Closers on Sealing More Deals, included 37 companies currently deploying CPQ technology, and analysis shows that these organizations are realizing concrete performance advantages over other survey respondents.

In today’s COVID-19 economy, EVERY sales position counts! Sales managers are being asked to generate more with less, so you simply cannot afford to make a hiring mistake. The good news is there has never been a deeper pool of talented salespeople to choose from in the past 10 years. The bad news is there have never been more toxic salespeople on the market. Is your hiring process geared for the unique challenges of hiring the right salespeople?  

PowerPoint is the basis for much of the training material you use, and yet it’s text-heavy, dull, and boring. See how you can revolutionize your presentations and other training material using visuals, diagrams, and animated sequences, with some helpful how-to guides, and a collection of awesome PowerPoint tricks, plus a free PowerPoint toolkit to kick start your efforts for everyone that attends.

Just as B2B sales strategies must adapt to increasingly savvy buyers, sales training must change too. This brief discusses how newer training content and methods can result in a better, smarter sales force.

You are about to embark on a journey that is going to help you to book, sell, and retain like never before.  This book reveals: What has changed in our B2B industry/profession, how to cope with the change, and what skills should one acquire to thrive? What should you change/improve to book, close, and retain more than ever? What resources are valuable to keep on your road to success? "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." ― Alvin Toffler Click below to download this eBook.

A ten-year study of more than 100 companies showed that the number one cause of business failure is bad strategy. But, the reality is that only 3 out of every 10 managers are strategic. And when you consider that being able to set strategic direction is ten times more important to the perception of a leader’s ability than any other behavior, it’s critical that you master strategic thinking and planning.   In this webinar, you will learn a simple framework to transform strategy from a once-a-year dog-and-pony show that gets buried in a plan that never gets used to a laser-focused strategic mindset that you’ll use on a regular basis to grow your business.

Every strong, confident, and effective business leader should actively work to develop and hone their own authentic presentation style. Whether you are gearing up to give a formal presentation to hundreds of people or a preparing for a critical sit-down with two people, this program will push the boundaries of your capabilities. Fabulous presenter? We turn up your potential. Nervous beginner? We'll get you comfortable and capable with a myriad of speaking situations. Every leader can learn to be a better, stronger, and more effective at persuading their audience. 

Every sales organization has its top performers—the standout sellers who beat their quotas month after month, quarter after quarter, year after year.  

Branding ourselves as thought leaders and subject matter experts is foundational to driving new business opportunities from LinkedIn.   

How are today’s leading companies becoming more strategic to their most important Customers and what types of strategic account management (SAM) solutions are they deploying to expand key customer relationships? How are they gaining competitive advantage through the implementation of SAM best practices and accelerating growth of their most significant accounts?