You absolutely need to know if the right sales people are in the right sales roles. That’s obvious, isn’t it?

Well, among the hundreds of sales organizations we’ve helped, almost none of them make “getting the right people on the bus” a priority. That needs to change.

Advantage uses validated sales force assessments (from our Thought Leader partners, HR Chally) to reveal people’s fit for current and future sales roles. Once you know who fits where, you’re halfway to managing talent better and improving overall sales results. Read how this made the difference for a global building industry leader beset with turnover challenges. Then profile your own people -– before your sales bus takes off in the wrong direction.

View the success story »

A territory manager told us the other day, “We can’t train our sales people this year because it costs too much and nothing happens.” Huh? A couple of minutes later, he was ready to present his Sales EVP with a strategy for optimizing sales performance.

All we did was explain that learning does NOT “cost too much” when the right thing happens afterwards. When your sales people – with coaching and support from managers — are able to execute strategy better and achieve optimal sales results and business impact. Our Advantage Way^SM system and its Impact Map technology make sure that every learning experience does just that.

Don’t let sales learning cost too much. Optimize with Advantage Way.

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Join us April 17, 2012, in Chicago for a complimentary breakfast briefing

Research consistently confirms that exceptional coaches increase employee engagement, improve productivity and accelerate the achievement of business results. High-performing companies make coaching a priority for their leaders, managers, and supervisors.

Coaching for Execution, an exciting new one-day program from Advantage thought leader partner BTS, provides the power of a pragmatic, easy-to-use coaching model and four supporting principles. The new Coaching for Execution program will help you create leaders and managers who not only communicate, but also inspire, and who get employees’ attention and help them to focus on key initiatives.

We will have a breakfast briefing at BTS Chicago Headquarters on Tuesday, April 17, 2012, from 9am to 11:30am with a continental breakfast served at 8:30am. Space is limited, so please register soon. Plan now to attend!

More information and registration »

If you’re asking people to change course in 2012, take an honest look inside your organization. Everybody needs help aligning around the new strategy. Managers need processes for executing what you require. Employees need a reason to buy into change. Is your organization ready to adapt? Probably not.

We call this challenge “leading people from nodding heads to true buy-in.” Advantage has the solution. When one of the planet’s leading healthcare companies partnered with Advantage to create buy-in for a change of course, its CEO was guided by the mantra, “Winners must be able to rapidly adapt — or die trying.” That company transformed and won a new market position.

Help your people adapt and win. Read the success story »

Everybody knows that successful selling depends on trust. But what do customers need from you in order to trust you?

In this thought-provoking video, our Thought Leader partners HR Chally explain that customer trust has 3 components: candor, competence, and concern. Most salespeople have the first two down pat, “but concern (being more interested in the customer than in yourself) is the piece we don’t train for.”

The solution: put yourself in your customers’ shoes and always make sure they know you’re on their side.

Watch the video: (Please log in to view.)

Timothy R. Clark (President of our Thought Leader partners, TRCLARK) says that building bench strength is the mark of great leaders. Leaders usually enjoy the front end of delegation –- providing direction, training, vision, and encouragement. But they often shrink from the back end –  measurement and accountability. Clark says both ends are crucial because, “Delegation is never abdication. You never walk away.” 

When I first became a manager, I held a staff meeting, made some assignments, dispatched my direct reports and then sat back thinking about my grand vision. We met again the next week. Can you guess what happened? Nothing happened.

Learning to delegate is at the very core of leadership. At some point, we awaken to the unfortunate reality that you can’t simply express your wishes and expect them to be done. Unless you work exclusively with hungry, self-starting, perpetually motivated and universally competent people, you will come to know that delegation among mere mortals is a skill of the highest order. And yet it is the key to building your bench.

Read the article »

Negotiation experts Grande Lum and Anthony Wanis-St. John (from our Thought Leader partners, Accordence) say that the best way to succeed against hardball tactics is to simply change the game. To get the results you want, they suggest using negotiating behaviors such as:

• Call a timeout and request clarity
• Ask the other party for advice
• Enlist support from others
• Understand your own reaction
• Try to intuit the other party’s intentions
• Stay focused on your goal

Read the blog »

Fire up your 2012 learning strategy by listening to Kimberly-Clark’s Global Learning & Development Director, Tina Busch, describe how collaborating with other industry leaders in a business acumen and talent management simulation was a “phenomenal and unprecedented experience.” The innovative ecosystem business simulation was created by our Thought Leader partners, BTS.

Watch the video » (log in to view it below)

Malcolm Carlaw (President of our Thought Leader partners, Impact Learning Systems) warns that because social media and virtual communities have trained customers to want and expect more, all your customer touchpoints need to focus on improving customers’ business success. To achieve this, you must create a customer experience strategy that includes:

• clear corporate service values and a culture that reflects them
• the ability to measure how you deliver on your value promise at every customer touchpoint
• extending your customer reach across channels and “into the clouds”
• engaging customers in meaningful dialog about their experience with your company
• appointing a Chief Customer Experience Officer (CCEO) to coordinate delivery of your value promise across the enterprise

Read the article »

Need to tell your organization a story so that you can execute strategy better –- but nobody wants to listen? Maybe that’s because they can’t “see” what you’re talking about. In this blog, JJ Pastore (from our Thought Leader partners, Root Learning) explains the value of using storyboards to help people connect the dots.

I recently returned to Root after completing a sabbatical to work as a character animator on a Warner Brothers film. The studio I worked with (and the many others working on the film) had to understand the director’s vision so we could bring it to life. Surprisingly, most of us never communicated directly with the director. That’s right – thousands of people in part responsible for a $210 million project never ever met the project lead! That’s a scary thought, but one Hollywood wrestles with every day. So how do they make this communication possible and consistent? Storyboards!

Read the blog »

In the first of a 3-part series, BTS Executive VP Rommin Adl explains that having business acumen means more than just being able to read a financial statement. Yes, understanding what drives profitability and cash flow is crucial. But so is a savvy market orientation and an overall “helicopter” perspective of how the organization works as a whole.

Read the article »

On October 6th, ASTD announced the winners of its 9th Annual BEST Awards. These companies are the world’s best at “building enterprise-wide talent, supported by the organization’s leaders, fostering a thorough learning culture.”

Top winners this year: Shell Oil and Jiffy Lube. The 32 organizations honored “excelled in creating innovative, vibrant learning cultures that clearly aligned with strategic business goals.”

Read the article »

This year is quickly drawing to a close. Will your sales plan help the team power through the rest of 2011 and finish strong? Does it address upcoming competitive hazards so you’ll be well positioned for 2012? We didn’t think so.

Enter Nick Miller – founder of our Thought Leader, Clarity Advantage – whose Weekly Sales Thought offers timely advice about maintaining momentum through 2011, and nabbing a strong starting position for Jan 2012 and beyond. (Spoiler alert: cringe-inducing links to regatta mishaps)

Read the blog »

I admit it: I didn’t know what “crowdsourcing” meant. Since the other 5 people on last week’s sales and marketing conference call did, this was somewhat embarrassing. So unless you’re a leader who can already define the terms private cloud, crowdsourcing, SEO, unified communications (think Skype), and virtualization in 10 words or less … read this blog to avoid your own red-faced moments.

At last year’s Harvard Business School Leadership Symposium, experts opined on the egregious personal traits that will sink future leaders, including: 

• putting self interest first
• betraying trust
• acting and thinking as if you know
• not living up to the values you espouse
• being overly enamored with your vision
• exhibiting personal arrogance
• acting too fast, executing before thinking through the issue
• lacking authenticity and consistency
• not being self-reflective

It’s easy to recognize these traits in other leaders. How about in ourselves?

Watch the video »

Howard Stevens, Chairman and CEO of Advantage Thought Leader Chally Group Worldwide, says that sales superstars -– those reps who’ve figured out how to take really good care of customers -– are often “paid” once with access to greater company resources, and again with much greater compensation when they meet goals. The fix? Better sales and customer support processes, learning, and access to internal resources so that even average performers can score more points on the 80/20 playing field.

Everybody has heard of the 80/20 rule. This concept is based on the research of Wilfried Fritz Pareto, an Italian engineer, sociologist, and economist, who discovered that 80% of the land in 19th century Italy was owned by only 20% of the population … and it tended to stay that way over time.

The concept is often applied to sales. It assumes that 80% of your sales will come from 20% of your best salespeople. Based on their anecdotal experience, most sales execs would agree with you. The actual ratio (based on Chally’s analysis of 900+ B2B sales forces across different industries) reveals that 52% of sales come from the top performers. Still an impressive effort and they are compensated handsomely for it.

Most sales execs would love to get more of these superstars … but they don’t exist.

Read the blog »

In today’s highly networked, global world, has leadership changed? When Fast Company’s 30 Second MBA posed that question to a group of leaders, the answer was “yes” – and here’s why:

• You’re no longer the decider. Your new role is to be the facilitator and door-opener, working with a team of peer leaders.
• You need to “cut a whole in the fence” and let people run, be inspired, and surprise.
• Leaders must create more inclusive, nearly spherical networks with people above and below, and outside the organization.
• Being personally authentic, inclusive, and culturally competent are more important than ever.
• In this ubiquitous information world, customers know everything. So leaders must create more clarity and laser focus on the customer.

Watch the video »

Your front-line and middle managers are the key to successful strategy execution. So how are you developing these leaders? Join to learn how we drive business results through Coaching for Execution.

Tim Blakesly

Tim Blakesly, Managing Director at BTS, an Advantage Thought Leader partner, leads an insightful webinar (originally held December 16, 2011) on why the front-line and middle manager ranks are the key differentiator in successful strategy execution.

You’ll learn why today’s business environment requires agile thinking. And why the next phase of accelerated performance will come not through more process, but through people: leadership development that aligns and mobilizes individuals and teams so they work more quickly, nimbly, and efficiently – and are able to execute strategy more successfully than ever before.

View the replay »

If you’re not one of the 4,850,000 who have viewed the late Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford University commencement speech, now’s the time. This is a visionary leader with historic impact — and you probably grew up with him. Listen and learn.

Watch the video »

Research consistently confirms that exceptional coaches increase employee engagement, improve productivity and accelerate the achievement of business results. High-performing companies make coaching a priority for their leaders, managers, and supervisors. Effective coaching requires more than just communication skills, clarity, and timeliness.

Coaching for Execution unlocks the power of a pragmatic, easy-to-use coaching model and four supporting principles. We are excited to invite you and other HR and Learning Leaders to come experience Coaching for Execution for yourself.

The new Coaching for Execution program will help you create leaders and managers who not only communicate, but also inspire, and who get employees’ attention and help them to focus on key initiatives.

We will have a program showcase at Stanford University on Tuesday, December 13th, 2011, from 9am to 5pm. Continental breakfast will be served at 8:00.

More information and registration »