The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Given the sudden health and economic crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the phrase, “Never waste a good crisis,” has surfaced quite a few times. Noted public figures ranging from Machiavelli and Winston Churchill to Barack Obama have all invoked the phrase in times of trouble.

It’s often viewed as an opportunist looking to advance an agenda during an unfortunate circumstance. The reality is the phrase is more accurately a challenge to commit to doing things differently and better as a result of what we experience. And that’s the challenge we have for you.

“People don’t leave jobs; they leave managers.”

“I quit.” It’s what a record-breaking 4,478,000 workers told their employers in August 2019. The reasons for quitting varied from compensation to lack of engagement, but one in two employees left their job to get away from their manager.

At one point in our life, we’ve all worked under a superior that could make or break our day. When it comes to sales leadership, there’s a big different between being a boss and a leader. Which one are you?

If someone has the “gift of gab” they're often told that they should go into sales. Which often, just gives salespeople a bad name. Think about it. None of us like the salesperson who just keeps talking. The one that knows everything and is willing to tell us every detail. Are you talking about something the other person expressed interest in?

Editor's Note: This post was originally published in 2016 and has been updated.

At least once a week, I get asked by a sales leader if there is a business book I would recommend they read that will help them improve their game. That is a tough question to answer, because there are so many very good books out there, and depending where you are in your career (or your current business situation, or what you have already read), the right book for you could be one of several. So instead of picking just one book, I thought I would provide a list of five books that would make for great reading this summer.

Tomorrow is the 4th of July, or Independence Day. It's a day that we as Americans reflect on our freedom, our heritage, and our history. In honor of this, we asked a few of the CSS team to chime in for this post. We asked, "If you could pick one historic American leader that would make a great sales leader today because of their strengths and talents, who would it be?" Here's what they said. 

This post was originally published on SalesHacker.com.

The weekly sales meeting — you know the one. The whole crew gets together for what amounts to an hour-long discussion around menial housekeeping items or which sales rep got a little closer to nailing a sale.

Certainly it’s important information in its own right. But, it’s not worthy of eating up an hour that could be better used securing leads. The substance of the old-school sales meeting, in essence, belongs in a weekly email.

I read a recent study that shared many interesting things about music and how much it does for humans. Some things noted in the study are that music:

• Enhances intelligence, learning and IQ
• Improves memory performance
• Improves concentration and attention
• Helps work productivity
• Helps fight fatigue
• Improves mood

Whether you're motivating yourself or your sales team, I think anyone in sales would like a little bit of all of those. So with that said, I've collected a list of songs from our team and compiled a list of motivational songs to help you boost your sales productivity! 

As a person, you probably have an inborn knowledge of what your strengths are personally, as well as professionally. You might be a great cook, a strong tennis player, or great at board games. You know that you create strong relationships with clients, are great at the close, or really creative in helping your clients.

I work with a lot of B2B sales organizations.
Some perform well.  Some perform not-so-well.

Why have a manager who cannot move their people to performance?

That would be useless, right?

But the reality in today’s business is there are too many managers who fit this description. Why is that? Why would a manager, despite his or her best effort, be unable to activate their people? There are two primary reasons, and they have an interactive relationship with each other:

1. The Manager Doesn’t Have a Lever (a Powerful Relationship)

Lots of managers have a friendly, or at least cordial, relationship with their people. But not what we call a robust relationship. A robust relationship is one that’s useful to the manager wishing to improve the salesperson’s performance, and, therefore, the organization’s performance. It’s a relationship that gives the manager the power to accomplish this essential aspect of his or her job.