Author: Steve Ainslie

When used wisely, meetings can be extremely effective for communication, collaboration and team building for any sales organization. When used unwisely, they can be a frustrating waste of time and resources. In this post, I’ll cover how to identify which meetings to eliminate, which ones to attend, and how to make the most of them when leading Inside Sales.

Death by PowerPoint was one of the funniest phrases I’d ever heard – until I started experiencing it after taking a sales management job in a large corporation. Up until then, I had worked for startups and small businesses where we didn’t spend time in meetings listening as presenters droned on reading their terrible slides. We were too busy…

Meaningful sales metrics will deliver an accurate assessment of how Sales is performing at any point in time and will identify what needs to be done to stay on track (or reverse course). They also provide a high-level perspective for the executive team, a mid-level perspective for the sales managers and a tactical perspective for the reps. Poorly…

Call coaching is essential to transforming an Inside Team into All Stars. For my teams, call coaching has generated stellar returns in lead development, opportunity management and bookings. It’s allowed me to be directly involved with what’s happening on the sales floor. It also builds strong bonds within my team and is yet another opportunity for upleveling my reps. 

Forecasting & pipeline management are so critical to effective Inside Sales that one of the first things I teach my Inside Sales team is Perfect Forecasting*. The key to teaching sales reps Perfect Forecasting is having a straightforward, well-defined process that is followed by everyone on the team. Before making changes to the way my team forecasts, I meet 1:1 with every…

  Here is a list of Interview questions that I use during the Focused Phone Screen and the Onsite Interview. I will review this list before the interview and select a few questions to ask. I also keep this list in front of me during the interview in case I forget to cover specific areas that require more investigation. 

What if everyone on your team was as good as your #1 Rep? Quotas would be crushed Your team would be packed with self-motivated All Stars Opportunity focus would be strategic vs. tactical Your team would be given the freedom to do what it does best and your job would be a blast. Building a…

Early in my sales career, I fantasized about traveling for business. I imagined flying around the world, meeting with important people and becoming the next Bill Gates.  I had no idea that over the next 2 decades, I’d travel all over the United States working trade shows, meeting clients, and attending QBRs & Sales Kickoffs. It didn’t…

As a manager I am always recruiting for sales reps. My experience is that for every ten employees I have, one is on verge of leaving.  This may be due to a promotion, a new job, a termination, a family issue, relocation, illness, or any number of other reasons. I like to have at least one or two…

Role playing is dreaded by many sales reps.  They may feel put on the spot in front of their peers. Sometimes it becomes a game of “stump the chump”.  Other times it’s a farce comprised of unrealistic scenarios fed to skeptical sales reps. Used the wrong way, role playing is ineffective. It doesn’t have to be like…