The Unpopular Road to Top Sales Performance

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.

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The Leadership Value of Clarity

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

One of the most powerful things you can do to start down the path towards effective leadership is to create clarity for your team. Why? Because people will never run their best race (or do their best work) if they don’t know where the finish line is. Teams will never perform at optimum level without mission clarity, role clarity, and measurable objectives. Here is how one very effective leader created that clarity for his new team members.

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The (Senseless) Debate Surrounding Cold-Calling, Social Selling, and Email

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

For the past few months, social channels have been lit up like Times Square, engaged in a mind-numbing debate about the “best” tools to use in creating sales opportunities. In a nutshell, the debate is this: “Which method works best in producing sales opportunities—cold-calling, email, or social selling?” The problem with these kinds of debates is that it contains no scientific rigor whatsoever, but every voice seems willing to tell the world they are ABSOLUTELY right. Well, right at that given moment anyway, since a few experts seemed to have changed their opinions recently.

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Another Loss, Another Pity Party

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

When salespeople win a sale – when they close a deal – it’s because they are good at what they do. Just ask them! They will tell you how hard they worked; how smooth they were. The will give you every detail of how they set the hook and reeled in the Big One. But if you listen to salespeople talk about a loss, you will hear something else entirely. Instead of talking about their mistakes or missteps, you’ll hear a litany of reasons that explain why they lost the sale.

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