Have you ever heard about Katie Francis, who shattered the 30-year-old world record by selling 21,477 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies in 2014?

On weekdays, Katie worked seven hours a day selling cookies. On weekends, she put in 12 hours a day. What started as a goal of selling 18,100 boxes, quickly raised to 20,000, and then to 21,000. Katie’s a goal-setter — and reaching a goal just motivates her to set a higher goal. She sold a record of 100,100 boxes of girl scout cookies in her seven years as a girl scout.

To be successful in sales, Katie quickly learned you can't take "no" personally. This young lady has a solid ego that rejects rejection along with an agile mind that readily learns and adapts.

Your role as a leader is to drive your people toward your ambitious culture. How do you do that? You must connect with people!

When COVID-19 closed gyms, 58% of trainers lost some of all of their income, and 23% were furlough or laid off (PR Newswire). How did one gym manage to gain more members now than pre-COIVD?

Episode 4 of the Improving Sales Performance series with Tony Hartl, founder of Crunch Fitness Austin and Planet Tan, provides listeners with a few secrets of how he’s getting new members and keeping existing ones amid the pandemic. He also discloses how he keeps his team focused and energized.

"If you don't know your numbers, you don't know your business." — Marcus Lemonis

"It's a numbers game, but I don't know which numbers" — Average Salesperson

Okay — I made-up the last quote, but it's still true. Too many times, I meet with sales managers and salespeople who firmly believe that sales is a "numbers game", but they have no idea what numbers they need to know or even what numbers they should be tracking.

Most sales leaders focus on KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) and while they are important, they do not help produce sales improvements. KPI's are like your scorecard after a round of golf, fun to see how you played, but they can't help you play better for the round you just finished. 

Rather than focus on KPIs, it’s time to concentrate on Leading Indicators so that we can effect change during the game that will help you and your team win. Think of leading indicators as data that allows you to make "in-game" adjustments, so that your team can keep scoring.

Think of sales performance as a three-legged stool. When all three legs are strong, there's nothing sturdier. But if one of the legs isn’t holding up its weight, the stool can no longer do its job.

Just as you need all three legs on that stool, so too must a sales organization have three solid legs to carry the weight of the expectations placed on it. As we get closer to 2021, ensure your team is strong in all three areas and set your team up for improved sales performance in the new year.

How do you define culture at your company?  How does culture tie directly to business and sales performance? And, what’s a fun brigade?

Episode 3 of the Improving Sales Performance series with Jay Bailey, founder and CEO of Reatro Ventures, was engaging, enlightening, and motivating. Host Matt Sunshine asks the right questions that tells you how to make company culture work, and Bailey provides three free and easy tips on what you can do right now to improve your company culture.

Creating a culture of engagement is more important than ever as we work in a virtual world.

Showing that you care and are invested in the growth of your people matters. And it’s important to remember that the relationships you develop with your people will directly impact productivity and profit. One fact found in the 2020 Talent Magazine states, “Organizations with a strong onboarding process improve new hire retention by 82% and productivity by over 70%.”

When should your relationship with people start? Before they walk in the door for their first day on the job.

However, if you’ve transitioned to a remote workforce and never conducted virtual onboarding, you may find yourself challenged on how to develop these relationships and help new hires get started off on the right foot.

Many large-scale surveys routinely find time management skills are among the most desired workforce skills, but also among the rarest skills to find.

It comes as no surprise that one of the biggest challenges sales leaders face is time management. And while there are many articles and time management tools readily available, there’s also the old-fashioned sales calendar.

In case you missed Episode 2 of the Improving Sales Performance series, here’s a breakdown of the conversation that host, Matt Sunshine and guest, Trey Morris had on what a sales calendar is and how it can help improve sales performance.

“Why interview if I can’t hire?” This is a frequently asked question this year — and understandably so. Recruiting top sales talent takes time and energy, and it feels pointless if you’re a company experiencing a hiring freeze. Let’s pause there for a minute.

While not under a hiring freeze, college football teams are limited to the number of players that they can have on the roster. However, that doesn’t stop recruiters from scouting more players than their roster can accommodate in search of top recruits. They’re actively recruiting the best talent to build a winning team for future seasons to ensure the best replacement for this season’s graduating players. Plus, they know that not every player to whom they offer a position will accept.

In the business world, the same rules apply. Building a winning legacy depends on having top talent on your staff and top talent ready to join in a moment’s notice. Because we know turnover is inevitable. It isn’t a matter of if it will happen; it’s a matter of when.

With dozens of episodes coming to our brand-new Improving Sales Performance series, sales professionals will soon have a plethora of insights and tips at their disposal.

The Improving Sales Performance series is hosted by Managing Partner Matt Sunshine who speaks with guests that are thought leaders, experts, and industry gurus, to share their insight, tips, and knowledge on various topics that help companies improve sales performance.  

Episode 1 recently debuted on our newly-refreshed YouTube channel with guest, Dani Buckley, talking to Matt about Sales Enablement.

Can you identify with the following situation — and can you learn from this story?

A highly talented salesperson has a lot of natural ability, and when engaged, they're one of the company’s top performers. However, when not that engaged, they're occupied with other things outside of work and seems to lack the desire and drive to succeed in their job. 

We talk a lot at The Center for Sales Strategy about putting the right people in the right jobs and we believe that when you do that, they naturally soar with their strengths. Throw a fish in the water and it swims. Put Taylor Swift on stage and she belts it out. Hire someone who is born to sell, and they sell.

Except when they don’t.