<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=585972928235617&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">

The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Stephanie Stoll

Stephanie Stoll

Stephanie works with subject matter experts and our Client Experience team to design and deliver content and services to our clients. Her background in sales and training combined with her formal education in Adult Learning drive her to create and deliver impactful user experiences.

Recent Posts by Stephanie Stoll:

Growth Mindset: Why Sales Managers Should Prioritize Business Development

Why Sales Managers Should Prioritize Business Development

As a sales manager, you are faced with competing priorities and objectives that you would like to emphasize with your team.

Successful sales managers are aware that business development is a key ingredient to account and organizational growth and should prioritize it with their account executives. There are some key factors on why you should make business development front and center, and then there is the how. Let’s take a look at both.

Topics: business development growth mindset

3 Words You Should Never Say in Sales

3 Words You Should Never Say in Sales

In the fast-paced world of sales, where the name of the game is, well, selling, which involves sealing the deal, it seriously makes me cringe when I catch salespeople dropping their in-house lingo in front of clients.

Let's talk about three power-packed words that could seriously put a wrench in your plans when you're in front of potential clients. So, do yourself a favor and ditch these words when you're chatting up a client or a promising lead.

Topics: sales strategy

How to Develop a Leadership Mindset to Control Success

How to Develop a Leadership Mindset to Control Success

Leaders today are facing an ever-increasing number of complex scenarios that demand their attention. In the fast-paced world of business, the conveyor belt of challenges never stops moving, and no two situations are ever the same. 

But for effective leaders, this is just another day at the office. They possess the ability to quickly assess the situation and give themselves the right instructions for success. They are skilled at thinking on their feet and making split-second decisions that can make all the difference. These instructions that they give themselves are the Mindset, and combined with their Talents, or natural abilities, they have become superheroes of the business world. 

As a leader, when you grasp and harness your Top Talents, coupled with the appropriate Mindset - which can change through continuous learning and growth - you are empowered to steer the situation towards success with ease.

Topics: leadership growth mindset

7 Ways to Improve Your Leadership Skills

7 Ways to Improve Your Leadership Skills

Strong leaders are an important piece of any organization, and those in leadership positions possess certain talents and skills that helped them get to where they are today.

But anyone in that role will tell you, they are never done improving and are constantly seeking ways to improve their skills. Here are seven ways to do just that!

Topics: leadership development

Leading with Empathy: Why Compassionate Leadership Matters

Why Compassionate Leadership Matters

We spend a great deal of our lives at work, and one of the things that can make or break that experience is whether we have a good leader. Not just someone who can bring in the numbers but someone who can lead people.

To be an effective and respectful leader, one must lead with empathy and compassion.

Topics: leadership leadership development

How to Create a Sales Training Program to Nurture Superstars

How to Create a Sales Training Program to Nurture Superstars

Salespeople who have been around long enough have seen sales training in multiple forms. They are exposed to it when they begin their career and usually, anytime they switch companies or industries.

While these training programs are always important, you cannot simply set it and forget it or try to make your offerings one size fits all. For your people (especially your best people) to grow, you need to be sure that your sales training is nurturing your Superstars.

While development is important across the board, sales superstars' training is important to maximize their potential, retain top talent, and help them adapt to changes in the market.

Topics: sales training

Motivating Sales Strategies for the Under 30 Crowd

Motivating Sales Strategies for the Under 30 Crowd

There is a lot of talk about the multi-generational workforce, and as history would have it, each generation will lament about “young people these days.”

They don’t want to work!
They lack discipline!
The attitudes!
The workplace demands!

Each generation rolls in with its own unique defining qualities, yearning to be different than those before them. Couple that with younger generations classified as digital natives who entered the workforce during a global pandemic, and you may be shaking your head on how best to coach them.

Topics: sales talent sales coaching

Email Tone: It Can Be Louder Than Words

Email Tone  It Can Be Louder Than Words

The remote and hybrid workforce offers opportunities and challenges that we may not have considered when working in a common location.

We take for granted the proximity to our coworkers and the ease with which we communicate and convey our emotions and intentions. Communication that we had in person tends to shift to digital and allows us to stay connected no matter where we are co-located.

However, we still need to be aware of the tone we are using, which in writing can be more complicated than spoken words (because our brain fills in the gaps when we lack information).

Topics: email sales process COVID19 Resources

SALES PERFORMANCE: Why Sales Training Fails

SALES PERFORMANCE Why Sales Training Fails

The world runs at a rapid pace these days.

Twitter tells you in 280 characters, TikTok shows you in 10 minutes or less, and we want all the episodes of our favorite shows released all at one time!

We’re impatient by nature, and we want the kind of solution that turns everything around now, including training our salesforce. While some of these quick hits may work in the short run, most are not sustainable, and they leave you needing more, especially in the world of employee development.

Topics: hiring salespeople sales performance sales training

Top Ways to Get Authentic Feedback from Employees

Top Ways to Get Authentic Feedback from Employees

Continuous improvement is dependent on feedback, and in most situations, we feel confident in the feedback we are giving and receiving.

However, sometimes people will tell you what they think you want to hear, and the feedback is not very useful or effective. In order to garner authentic feedback from your employees, and return the favor, the stage needs to be set for open two-way communication.

Topics: leadership feedback