Blog - Braveheart Sales Performance

5 Things Leaders Should Consider as We Emerge from the COVID-19 Crisis

While the pace and timing of when the economy will begin to operate again is open to debate among leaders and people alike, it will open again. As a sales leader, here are 5 things you should think about as the nation emerges from the COVID-19 crisis.

For more insight into what the post crisis world might look like, read Lessons from the Last Economic Crisis for COVID-19. You can also get a copy of our Sales Action Planning Playbook by clicking here.

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The Pros and Cons of Making Remote Work Permanent

Working remotely has suddenly become the new normal, and I suspect many leaders have discovered that this remote work thing can actually work, even once the current crisis is resolved. It could permanently transform the workplace allowing for more flexible working arrangements and work from home options.

But as great and forward-thinking as these changes may seem, they won’t work for everyone. For example, not every salesperson is well-suited to work remotely. The Objective Management Group already has data on it. It indicates only 41% of salespeople are suited to work remotely. Uh-oh!

Remote Work Benefits

As a manager, you might think this […]

Leaders: Don’t Wait to Communicate!

It’s something I cannot stress enough: The importance of communicating with your team now during this crisis. If you don’t have all the answers, don’t worry about it – just don’t hide.

Vulnerability is okay. Absence is not. If you want to lead, be real and communicate. If you want to hide then you are not leading, you aren’t even managing.

Don’t Get Stuck in the Sand

If you are in a leadership position, then by definition you have people you are leading and those individuals are following you. If you aren’t engaging with them then how can they follow? If your head […]

Take Away the Risk of Failure

The Objective Management Group Annual Partners Conference took place this past weekend. It was a memorable event, one, because it was held as a virtual conference for the first time, but more so because of the Kobe Bryant video interview OMG CEO, Dave Kurlan (@KurlanAssoc), presented.

Kobe’s Legacy in a Quote

The interview was powerful for all the reasons you might imagine. My main takeaway, however, explains why his legacy will loom large for a long time. It was Kobe’s statement, “If you aren’t nervous about the risk of failure, you’ll be able to focus on what you need to do.”

Simply put, […]

Crisis Time Equals Leadership Opportunity

Now is the time when leaders’ legacies are formed!

I just participated in a wonderful video conference hosted by Patrick Lencione’s company, The Table Group. Patrick has written or co-written eleven books focused on teamwork, organizational health, and managing people, including “Five Dysfunctions of a Team.” I highly recommend these books and The Table Group’s teachings.

I heard some very powerful concepts on the video conference worth sharing. Since Braveheart Sales Performance focuses very precisely on sales teams and revenue growth, here are ones that can be applied to the sales side of an organization by managers. These concepts are […]

Too Dependent on the Sales Manager to Close Business? Time to Sharpen the Saw

As I work from my home office, I hear the buzzing of saws cutting down tree limbs on behalf of the electric utility. I guess it is considered essential…but that is another topic. The noise does make me think about sharpening the saw. And, especially what a great time it is to help salespeople improve their skills to become independently successful.

Don’t Repeat History

Taking a lesson from the last recession, there are many salespeople out there who are successful in strong economic times but suffer in downturns. Frequently they lack the selling competencies that will support their sales efforts, but more […]

Lessons from the Last Economic Crisis for COVID-19

Braveheart Sales Performance turns eleven years old on March 25. So, if you do the math you will realize that we started the company in 2009. Smack dab in the economic aftermath of the Great Recession. Sure, it was risky. But it seemed less risky at the time than placing my future in the hands of executives of large companies. And, I knew there was a need for our services. Boy was I right. More than I ever expected.

During the recession, it became painfully obvious that many salespeople were not skilled sellers at all. They were merely product pushers and […]

No Selling Skills Required

Here’s a statistic you may have seen. I can’t remember where I read it myself. It said the mere act of following a repeatable sales process helps salespeople close 15% more business.

I wish I knew where the information came from, but since I couldn’t verify it directly from the source, I went searching for data myself that might support the use of a sales process.

But before I share what I found, let me precisely explain what I mean by a sales process.

A Sales Process Defined

For me, a sales process is a repeatable, logical series of steps that includes milestones. It […]

More Coaching, Even Poor Coaching, is Better than None

I cannot impress enough the importance of sales manager coaching and doing it a bunch. I have stats to back me up. Check out this data curated by Objective Management Group on about 5,500 managers and their teams.

Ineffective coaching still yields significant improvement.

You can see, even if the manager isn’t effective at coaching their team, just spending 50% of their time doing it will increase seller effectiveness. And this increase is greater than what effective coaches can produce with their ability alone (without coaching at least 50% of the time). Crazy, huh?

So exactly what do I mean by coaching?

Think of […]

Depend on Recurring Revenue? Here’s How to Contain Creation Costs

This article is written with field sales teams in mind. However, if you run an inside sales team exclusively, don’t despair, you may still find a nugget or two of helpful information as well.

Containing costs is important in every business. But for businesses where the costs of creating new customers are measured by lenders to determine the health of that business, they are especially important to manage.

In the electronic security industry, as well as SaaS, telecom and other recurring revenue businesses, customer creation costs are a key component which determines the company’s ability to borrow for expansion.

Conference Panel Insights

While attending […]