Until It’s Perfect, Practice Isn’t Effective

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

Players (employees) have to perfect individual skills before they can excel within the “team” framework. Unfortunately, few companies provide that type of practice environment. In sales, for example, a salesperson needs to learn how to interview, ask questions, get referrals, respond to objections, present dozens of different solutions, tell compelling stories, present pricing, and so much more. But how many salespeople actually practice these things before they go LIVE in front of a customer??

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Doing Damage to Your Leadership Credibility

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

There are, in fact, some mistakes that are guaranteed to derail a manager’s effectiveness; mistakes that undermine a manager’s ability to lead his (or her) employees. And if your employees don’t trust your leadership, not only will performance suffer, but talented employees will start looking for the door. Let’s take a look at three fairly common mistakes that are sure to undermine your leadership credibility.

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Effective Leadership in 4 Classic Quotes

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

One of the common mistakes of leadership is the failure to adequately define expectations, at the corporate level or for individual departments or employees. By failing to set the bar, and to set it high, companies often wallow in mediocrity.

But don’t get fooled: simply creating a “high expectation” is worthless in a vacuum. The mission must be clear, the processes must be clearly defined, and good habits must be created through extensive training. If those things are in place, high achievement is far more likely.

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Social Cold Calling: The New Scourge of Selling

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

People misuse social media and create a bad impression of the tool. Eventually, its users (like the individual above) will take on the same negative perceptions common to a used-car salesman. But, used effectively, the real value of social is two things: 1) the ability to engage with a specific target audience, and 2) the ability to create credibility with that audience distributing world-class content.

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