Understanding oneself and the target audience is crucial for leadership and sales success. Kristie emphasizes the importance of self-awareness in reaching the next level in one’s career and life. This applies to both leadership and sales. Just as selling to the wrong persona can harm one’s ability to succeed, not understanding one’s own strengths, weaknesses, and goals can hinder success as a leader or salesperson. Kristie discusses the importance of personal development and taking ownership of one’s growth and reminds us that improving as a sales person/leader as well as in personal life cannot be left to chance or fall solely on the shoulders of one’s leaders. #ownyourownshit
Keeping deals flowing through the pipeline is critical for Sales Reps to hit quota and for companies to realize revenue goals. However, preventing deals from stalling out and prospects from disappearing isn’t easy.
Too often, the prospect takes over control of the sales process and all communication ends up being on their terms, making it easier for them to procrastinate or opt-out of the deal completely.
For sales representatives to effectively land deals, they need to know how to hold prospects accountable. Establishing urgency and being persistent is key, but it’s also important for representatives to know when to walk away from a deal that’s going nowhere.
Mark McInnes and I had a great conversation about how to hold your prospects accountable to increase your chances of hitting quota. We had some real talk about #owningyourownshit when it come to not abdicating the sale cycle to your prospect.
It was a pleasure to join Ronnell Richards on the Shut the Hell Up and Sell Podcast. Ronnell is the author of his book by the same title, and he advocates selling with simplicity and the “Say less, sell more” motto. We discussed everything from influencers, mentors, and experiences that formed so much of the sales philosophy by which I operate today to the importance of sales reps knowing themselves and their strengths well enough to pick the sales swim lane that suits them best.
Read more: Shut the Hell Up and Sell Podcast - with Ronnell Richards
I had a great time speaking with Darryl Praill on the INSIDE Inside Sales Podcast.
Everyone wants to be a rockstar, right? You probably know a few, the sales rep who is always at the top of the leader board at your company, every month. The colleague who’s always invited to speak at sales conferences. The friend who’s always celebrating another big deal. You watch them, envy them, eavesdrop on their demos, and flat out ask how they do it; they just shrug and say, “I don’t know. Just lucky I guess.”
It’s not luck and you know it. Rockstar Sales Reps really are different than the rest.
The good news is that THEY may not know what makes them different, but after 20 years of training and coaching sales professionals, I do. I’m going to share these often overlooked, but totally learnable, qualities of Rockstar Sales Reps with you in this fast-paced session!
Join me as we peer into the world of the Rich and Famous Sales Reps to learn what they’re doing that you’re not…….yet.
We’ve had a lot of turbulence in the last three years. The pandemic, the Great Resignation, and most recently the war in Ukraine. All this turmoil has increased the price of just about every consumer good and I’m now seeing an impact on business spending because of talk about a looming recession. The result for your sales team and the reps you manage is that companies are or will be delaying purchases or reducing spending in general until they better understand the economic impact of all these events on the next few months or years. This will make it harder to hit quota and get to OTE (on target earnings). So, the time to act is NOW.
What a pleasure it was to join Joseph Frost on The Fractional C-Suite Retreat to discuss philosophies of serving as a fractional leader and my approach to filling that role for my clients. Joseph and I talk about the importance of creating a culture of accountability in order to be a producing, successful company as well as the most imperative characteristics C-Suite leaders should embody.
Read more: Exclusively for The Fractional C-Suite Retreat Podcast Listeners!
Once you’ve figured out your sales superpower then you can leverage it to close more deals, land larger deals, and steal business from your arch enemy.
This panel covered great points about recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining the right salespeople to maximize your business opportunities.
Read more: The Earning Curve: How to Hire the Right Sales Team
On 8/31, I led a panel discussing why defining sales roles in your hiring process can mean the difference between success and failure of your sales team and company.
I had the pleasure of joining Christopher Smith on the Sales Lead Dog to discuss productivity and the reasons why sales reps. struggle to be productive each day. Christopher and I discussed the importance of setting expectations, creating an accountability culture, and being able to manage your reps through your CRM reports and dashboards.
Read more: Sales Lead Dog Podcast: Taking Off The Rose Colored Glasses
I had a great time talking about Customer Success with Jeromey Donavan of SalesLoft and the importance of having a giving mentality.
Read more: SalesLoft Podcast: The Giving Mentality of Customer Success with Kristie Jones
I had the pleasure of joining Collin Mitchell on the Sales Hustle podcast to discuss why not having a sales accountability culture is a big contributing factor in sales reps continuously missing quota. We also had a chance to discuss what separates the top 10%ers from the other 90% of sales reps.
I had a great time chatting with Nancy Calabrese on the Conversational Selling podcast about the need for sales leaders to set expectations and hold sales reps accountable for those expectations.
Read more: Conversational Selling Podcast: Establishing More Accountability and Clearer Expectations
Having an accountability structure in place for your sales teams is a critical element for success. During this insightful Earning Curve panel discussion, you’ll discover why it is important to manage your top performers to the same standard as your other sales team members – and how you should also manage them differently. Plus, you’ll learn how to set high, yet achievable, standards that your sales team can use as benchmarks for advancement.
Don't miss the latest 4-Part Webinar Series from Kristie Jones on BrightTALK for FREE!
Read more: Accountability is a Sales Strategy: 4-Part Webinar Series
I sat down with John Golden of Pipeliner to discuss the importance of sales leaders building an Accountability Culture within their sales team and how having an accountability culture could be the difference between making and missing your revenue targets.
Read more: SalesPoP! Podcast: Creating a Sales Accountability Culture
On this episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast Jeb Blount and Kristie Jones discuss the trials and tribulations of building and sustaining a sales accountability culture.
Read more: Sales Gravy Podcast: How to Create a Sales Accountability Culture
Persistence is one of the best things a salesperson can do to achieve successful prospecting, according to Kristie Jones. Lead generation and prospecting are a long game and there are skills that a salesperson needs to develop to be successful in these areas. What are they? How can you improve your prospecting and lead generation skills? Kristie shares her tips + tactics in this episode of Sales Reinvented. Check it out!
Read more: Sales Reinvented Podcast: Consistency + Persistence = Successful Prospecting
We had a lively panel discussion on Dec. 1st around the topic of how to hire and retain top sales talent. Everything from interviewing and compensation to “A” player privilege to retaining top talent.
Read more: The Earning Curve: How to Hire the Right Sales Team Dec 1
You understand your ICP, have a sales strategy, and have hired, what you think, are “A” player sales reps... But you’re still missing your revenue targets each quarter. Chances are you don’t have enough deals in the pipeline funnel to hit the target.
Read more: Filling Your Funnel: The Key to Hitting Your Revenue Targets Consistently
These are awkward times. You and your sales reps are still working from home. You’re being asked to think about equality and how that might change your leadership style. You and your team are under a lot of pressure to hit the revised (or not) revenue targets you’ve been given AND the end of the quarter is just days away.
Read more: Leadership Skills You Need Now: Holding Reps Accountable
I joined Janice B Gordon on her Scale your Sales Podcast to discuss everything from the biggest challenges startup founders face to how to properly precall plan.
Read more: It is Disrespectful to Ask Buyers a Question That is on the Internet
I recently talked with John Moore, The Collaborator, on Coffee, Collaboration, and Sales Enablement about the need for companies to be “Rebound Ready”.
Here are the key takeaways from my chat with John:
I enjoyed chatting with Tony about everything from the difference between hunters and farmers to how to hold your sales reps accountable.
I had a great time chatting with Natalie Luneva on #SaaSBoss about how important hiring your very 1st sales reps is.
I had a great conversion with Rob Jeppson Rob on his podcast to talk about how companies who use creativity and innovation to change during this challenging time will be the ones who win their way to not just survival, but high-growth success. Companies must be ready to adapt quickly and be prepared to reevaluate everything. When we embrace change, we have to understand that failure is to be expected as we implement new products, new pricing models, and new partners. Click below to listen now!
Founders, Owners, and Executives – The actions you take today will impact how and how quickly you’ll rebound from the current economic challenge. Those decisions can be the difference between thriving and just surviving in the post-COVID world.
These are uncomfortable and uncertain times.
Overnight we went from a country with the Dow over 29,000, an unemployment rate under 3% and most companies seeing very healthy YoY growth rates. Now we are facing a very different reality.
Read more: Webinar: In Uncertain Times, Companies Need a Startup Mentality