Dave Mattson

Every one-on-one meeting with someone who reports to you is unique. Each will have its own priorities and its own dynamic, based on the personalities, experiences, and professional roles of the participants. That said, there are some important topics for sales leaders to cover during each weekly one-on-one meeting with any salesperson.

Sales leaders often become confused by the differences between coaching and managing.

Hiring is one of the most important things we can do as a leader… and yet for many of the people, we work with, it remains something of a blind spot.

Here, then, are three tips that can help you become more successful as a sales leader in creating a predictable operational rhythm – a cadence – if you find yourself responsible for the performance of a remote sales team.

We learned a lot from each other at this year’s event. Here are my three big takeaways from the 2020 Sandler Annual Sales & Leadership Summit.

In today’s world, artificial intelligence (AI) is getting more powerful and more prominent in the sales process. What does that mean for professional salespeople? There used to be an occupation called “switchboard operator” – now there isn’t. Fifty years from now, will there no longer be an occupation called “professional salesperson”?

Setting clear expectations is an important part of any sales leader’s working day. Unfortunately, it’s something that doesn’t always happen as effectively or as consistently as we might like. Here are five simple steps you can take to get better at this critical part of the job.

If you’re a sales leader, you are tasked with striking a delicate balance. Your job is not to sell for the members of your team – selling is what you hire, train, and retain good salespeople to do, after all. Yet your job is to help shape the business development strategies that make the most sense for your business, for the salespeople who report to you, and of course for your customers.

As a sales leader, you're measured by your team’s performance. Ultimately, you're judged based on their ability to generate revenues sufficient to meet or exceed your corporate goals. So no matter how good you may have once been as a seller, it’s important to understand that selling is not your job now … and you can't expect to generate enough revenue to meet your team’s quotas simply by acting as a player-coach.

There are many articles this time of year about how to improve individual productivity, thereby accelerating company growth over the course of the year. I’ve written my fair share of these articles and, of course, they have their place.