Author: Steve Ainslie

This week, a woman from Massachusetts won the $787M Powerball jackpot. The odds of one of us winning the next big powerball jackpot are 1 in 292,000,000. We have better odds of being struck by lightning, killed by a shark or injured by a toilet. Luckily, the odds are much better for finding and hiring…

  Last October, I stepped out of bed and felt my laminate floor squish beneath my feet. Being a longtime homeowner, I figured this was worth investigating. I knelt down, pushed on a plank and saw water ooze up from the seams. This was not a good sign.

My wife and I have moved 11 times. This included relocating from Pittsburgh to Florida & back twice, from Florida to Raleigh & back once, and 5 more times to different cities. The first time we moved from Pittsburgh to Florida, we needed an entire 18 wheel tractor trailer to transport our belongings – and it…

Many of us have received our quota and thought, “Where the $#@&! did this number come from?” Today, you will learn the truth. I’ll shed some light on how quotas get created, how they are assigned, and what you can do about it. You may be surprised.

As a sales professional, I have been paid for sales results my entire career. Specifically, this included a salary + commission. As a recipient of commissions, as the administrator of commission plans and as the creator of commission plans, I have learned that the best plans follow two rules: Keep it SIMPLE. Be Generous when Rewarding…

Let’s talk money. Today, we’re going to discuss real-world pay rates for Inside Sales Reps. Although I have decades of experience hiring sales reps, I won’t be sharing anecdotes about the “good old days” when we made peanuts compared to today’s Millennials, worked longer hours and then walked home uphill through 2 feet of snow….

About 2 years ago, I saw a video of a guy doing handstand pushups. Despite having never done a handstand in my entire life, I thought, “I’ll bet I can do that. I’m in good shape. I workout every day. ”   I couldn’t do a single handstand push up. But what I lack in skill and technique,…

I learned how important weekly 1-on-1s could be early in my career from one of my first mentors. He dedicated 1 hour every Friday afternoon to meet with me. During these meetings we discussed sales opportunities, challenges and areas where I needed his help. I learned so much from him in these 1-on-1s that I…

If you are the Top Sales Rep, a Team Lead, a Manager, a Director, or a VP, you should always be grooming someone to replace you. Many leaders neglect to do this. When they do, they are dooming themselves and their teams to complacency and mediocrity. There are many good reasons for training your replacement:…

I was not born a “natural salesman”.  Instead, I followed a meandering path that eventually led me to a career in Sales. This is my story. Childhood I spent my early childhood years in Tamaqua, a declining coal mining town in eastern Pennsylvania. Multiple generations of my close knit relatives lived within a few blocks…