By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership
Bill Belichick made a Super Bowl decision that will be analyzed and criticized for quite a while. It was high stakes leadership for everyone to see. But was it good leadership or bad leadership? Should a leaders set aside rules or cultural norms if it means potentially losing the biggest game in sports?
Continue reading
By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership
I’ve never known a company to accept 60% production efficiency, or 75% data accuracy. In the realm of BIG numbers (think Amazon or UPS), a company can’t afford to accept even 99% as a benchmark for success! Amazon, for example, ships approximately 1.6 million packages per day, which would mean – at 99% accuracy – 16,000 mistakes PER DAY. So, here’s what I want to know: Why do companies routinely accept 1-out-of-4 as the standard for the percentage of effective salespeople?
Continue reading
By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership
The vast majority of sales training is incredibly ineffective. Not because much of what is claimed to be “sales” training is actually just “product” training. Not at all. Instead, just looking at actual sales training – that is, training designed to improve selling skills – the evidence is clear. It is enormously ineffective. That’s not only my opinion based on 25 years of observation, it is consistent with extensive research on the effectiveness of salespeople.
Continue reading
By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership
The truth is that practice is incredibly important to performance. In fact, I would ask you to name one skill of any consequence that does NOT require practice to excel at that skill. Anything? Of course not. You cannot perfect any skill unless, and until, you practice. Which means that your employees are practicing to improve their skills, or YOU (the manager) are guilty of the ultimate performance killer – no practice.
Continue reading