One Third Of CEO’s Are Worthless In Sales

Those aren’t my words but rather the findings from a Selling Power survey.  From the article: A recent Selling Power online survey found that 29 percent of sales leaders judged their CEO useless when it comes to creating a sale. Almost one third and I think I have worked for all of them!  The savvy sales CEO is a rare bird indeed.  Of course there is more to the article than just this survey.  The author focuses on the customer experience as seen through your salesperson representing your company in the market.  This representation is critical in making a successful sales hire – you have to envision the salesperson selling… Read More

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Cultural Qualifying

I ran into an old coworker, whom I consider a good friend, at a coffee shop this Friday morning.  He is the VP of Sales with 75 or so direct reports.  His company is international with a majority of their revenue occurring in Asia. He was telling me about sales training he held for the entire sales team.  The focus was on negotiating and, more specifically, how to ask the right questions to qualify the opportunity.  The Asian sales reps balked at some of the questions based solely on their approach to qualifying.  Let’s just say they prefer to take a more passive, unquestioning approach which leads to prayer rug… Read More

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Get The Culture Right…

everything else falls into place. -Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com Now that is an interesting position, isn’t it?  The article is from Human Resource Executive online and features a brief look at Mr. Hsieh’s “unorthodox” HR strategy. “We do two [job] interviews — the first for skills and the second for cultural fit,” he said, adding that the company has opted to not hire many talented candidates and has fired employees because they didn’t fit the culture or weren’t passionate enough about customer service. Fifty percent of the company’s performance review focuses on culture fit, he said. To ensure employees are committed to Zappos’ core values, it offers new hires… Read More

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Leadership Made Simple

Remember the book, All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten? Perhaps not, unless you are a seasoned vet like I am, but the premise is still sound. Today I was reminded of the power of principle centered leadership. This morning I attended a meeting of the Manufacturers Alliance, a group of 300 or so manufacturers here in Minnesota who share best practices, lead training seminars and otherwise help their peers get better. The keynote speaker was Tom Tiller, CEO of Polaris Industries. Tom’s message was so crystal clear I need to share it. Polaris, he told us, has increased its value by 150 times in the last… Read More

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