Professional Development

It’s a special kind of sideways that a relationship between salesperson and sales manager goes. The blue skies and birdsongs that were there at the start quickly turn to darkness and decay as we watch our funnel and, potentially, one of our sales territories shrivel.

One of David Sandler’s rules is “people buy emotionally and justify their decisions intellectually,” which means that if our salespeople are tense, nervous or hold another negative emotion when they’re interacting with their prospects, they could end a sale before it begins by triggering tension in their prospect.

The idea of leaders being like parents, and their direct reports being like children, came up several times in recent conversation with leaders we work with. All of us agreed with that being complete nonsense if a leader wants to create a self-sufficient team.

Onboarding sales talent has never been more important, given the tightness of the current labor market. Yet the most effective, proven best practices for shortening the runway to success for new hires remain largely unknown and unimplemented.

The Sandler Summit is a powerful two-day hybrid event where successful business professionals across all industries learn, collaborate, and network.

As we head toward the end of the calendar year our focus shifts to goal setting for the following year and meeting people that we don’t see very often whether those meetings are at networking events (virtual or in-person) or at family gatherings.

Creating a consistent, repeatable, scalable sales function means we need all of our salespeople to interact consistently with prospects and clients.

Mike Montague interviews Sharina Perry, CEO and Inventor of Utopia Plastix, on How to Succeed at Supply Chain Management.

Mike Montague interviews Sophia Stone on How to Succeed at Experiential Learning.

A big part of the sales leader’s job is to determine the measurable behaviors that will lead to success for a given salesperson, and to evaluate the numbers that connect to those behaviors.

To support our salespeople in keeping a clean funnel that is full of real opportunities instead of reminders for activities, we coach them to create “clear futures” with their prospects. In practice this becomes a mantra, “send a meeting invite for everything.”

Picture a salesperson speaking to their contact at one of their major accounts. They’ve built a strong relationship with this client, but today their contact is telling them that they are moving on to a new role at a new company.

Spring is here. It’s brighter later. It’s getting warmer. It’s a time for growing things. While planning our Summer harvest, let’s consider 10 Laws for Planting Seeds of Personal and Professional Growth.

Mike Montague interviews Antarctic Mike on How to Succeed at Meeting New People.

Mike Montague interviews Dave Mattson on How to Succeed at Scaling Sales Success.

At some point when we are learning a new skill, we will hit a (metaphorical) wall. Our performance will dip, to use Seth Godin’s term, and we’ll become frustrated with what we perceive as a lack of performance. My Muay Thai coach recently referred to it, to me, as “your ego getting in the way,” which is another way of saying I was standing on my own toe.

Just as it doesn’t matter what we say, it matters what our prospect hears, how we listen to our prospect while determine whether we succeed in getting paid on the information we gather instead of going into knowing mode and presuming a sale when none may exist.

Our prospects are smart. They are also (for now) human so sometimes they forget to check a box in their selection process or they fall victim to a heuristic. This is a great opportunity for us to break rapport or elevate ourselves closer to “trusted adviser” status by asking a presumptive question.

Mike Montague interviews Randy Seidl on How to Succeed at Being Part of a Sales Community.

In a training session several years ago, I wanted to demonstrate the power of language to our clients so I role played with one of our kindest, gentlest clients.

Michelle Prince is the best-selling author of her first book, “Winning In Life Now” and is a highly sought after Zig Ziglar Motivational Speaker.

Mike Montague interviews Wade Rowan, Sandler trainer from Chattanooga, on How to Succeed at Identifying Your Personal Advantage.

You probably know someone who has set goals for next year or will do between now and when the calendar turns over. History tells us that most of those goals will turn into mirages before lunchtime on January 3.

In elementary school we were continually reminded of the three Rs – reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic. Let’s update those for leaders seeking success to reporting, rhythm and relevant.

This year, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the book, Dave will revisit each of the original 49 Sandler Rules and give updated takes on their relevance to salespeople and sales leaders.

Mike Montague interviews Keith Kong on How to Succeed at Doing the Impossible.

To achieve our corporate goals, we need to get the best people on our team then get the best out of them. With many demands on our time it can be challenging to figure out where best to invest our time with each one of our direct reports.

This year, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the book, Dave will revisit each of the original 49 Sandler Rules and give updated takes on their relevance to salespeople and sales leaders.

Mike Montague interviews Antonio Garrido on How to Succeed at Ride-Along Coaching. Get a FREE chapter of Antonio’s book here.

This year, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the book, Dave will revisit each of the original 49 Sandler Rules and give updated takes on their relevance to salespeople and sales leaders.

A leader’s most valuable asset is their time. The biggest stroke a leader can give to one of their direct repots is investing time with them. Both go sideways when we attempt to “boil the ocean” in a coaching session.

This year, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the book, Dave will revisit each of the original 49 Sandler Rules and give updated takes on their relevance to salespeople and sales leaders.

Mike Montague interviews Sharlene Douthit on How to Succeed at Giving Good Feedback.

This year, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the book, Dave will revisit each of the original 49 Sandler Rules and give updated takes on their relevance to salespeople and sales leaders.

We’re heading into holiday season. Whether we’re celebrating Diwali, Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza, Thanksgiving or the myriad other holidays celebrated around the world between now and January 1 we will be consuming a lot of calories in the next little while (also a great double entendre as we will soon see).

This year, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the book, Dave will revisit each of the original 49 Sandler Rules and give updated takes on their relevance to salespeople and sales leaders.

At some point in a quarter, or at least a year, the proactive prospecting activities that have worked to fill our funnel stop working. No matter the type, prospect or talk tracks the activities that were working last week aren’t this week and might not for weeks to come.

Mike Montague interviews best-selling author, Nir Eyal, on How to Succeed at Being Indistractable.

This year, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the book, Dave will revisit each of the original 49 Sandler Rules and give updated takes on their relevance to salespeople and sales leaders.

Humans are either open or close minded to any suggestion. Once the mind is closed its nigh impossible to open it back up again until that person wants to re-open their mind.

Mike Montague interviews Oksana Esberard, author of Next Level You and mental health advocate, on How to Succeed and Stay Mentally Healthy.

No one really wants to talk to a salesperson. I have never said to either of my children “I hope you become a salesperson.” I have said “entrepreneur,” which is code for salesperson, but they’ll figure that out later.

In part 1, we covered two major crimes salespeople make on prospecting calls that significantly reduce their chances of having a conversation with their prospect much less booking an appointment. In part 2 we’ll cover several misdemeanors that tend to build on each other and can create as much damage to having a successful call as the crimes covered in part 1.

This year, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the book, Dave will revisit each of the original 49 Sandler Rules and give updated takes on their relevance to salespeople and sales leaders.

Everyone loves a good quiz and the Sandler Research Center has a tricky question for any business leader responsible for customer success or net revenue retention.

Salespeople commit a lot of crimes on prospecting calls, which put them in a disadvantageous position to even having a conversation with their prospect much less booking an appointment.

When we’re attempting to have a conversation with someone, professionally or personally, who doesn’t appear to be paying attention we want to call them out. That’s not a great way to maintain rapport with a prospect or client.

This year, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the book, Dave will revisit each of the original 49 Sandler Rules and give updated takes on their relevance to salespeople and sales leaders.

Mike Montague interviews Brian Jackson on How to Succeed at Active Fundraising.

In today’s current market conditions, leaders need to accept that the success of their teams and their companies will rely heavily on striking a collaborative, coordinated balance between creative strategic thinking and effective implementation.

Mike Montague Interviews Laura Janusik on How to Succeed at Listening intelligence.

When our salespeople are proactively prospecting their activities fall somewhere in the “effective/comfortable” matrix.

This year, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the book, Dave will revisit each of the original 49 Sandler Rules and give updated takes on their relevance to salespeople and sales leaders.

Mike Montague interviews Dr. Benjamin Hardy on How to Succeed at Understanding Your Personality.

Like having the occasional slice of cake doesn’t appear to be doing any us any harm occasionally skipping our daily and weekly prospecting or account management activities doesn’t appear to be doing any harm towards creating full funnel freedom. That’s because we don’t have a visual reminder of the cost of our task avoidance.

Mike Montague interviews Clint Babcock on his new book and How to Succeed at Negotiating from the Inside Out.

This year, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the book, Dave will revisit each of the original 49 Sandler Rules and give updated takes on their relevance to salespeople and sales leaders.

Mike Montague interviews Pete Oliver on How to Succeed at Vision-Based Execution.

David Mattson, President and CEO of Sandler Training and 6-time Author, talks about his Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek best-selling book, The Sandler Rules: 49 Timeless Selling Principles and How to Apply Them.

Like most clichés, “it’s easier to sell to someone who’s already buying from you,” contains a grain of truth. Yet, account management also know, as “farming,” is typically a passive activity.

“The Critical Elements of Proactive Client Retention” is the most recent Sandler Research Center survey project, which closed to survey participants on May 31. We are now performing data analysis and will soon publish our complete findings. In advance of that report, I’ve followed, with great interest, the results from a single question asked among the 25 questions of the survey and want to share the findings.

Our prospects (un)intentionally say or do things to put pressure on us and push us into their system for buying, which turns us into a commodity (whether we’re literally a commodity or not).

This year, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the book, Dave will revisit each of the original 49 Sandler Rules and give updated takes on their relevance to salespeople and sales leaders.

Mike Montague interviews George McGehrin on How to Succeed at Finding a New Job. George is the president of the McGehrin Group, an executive headhunter and recruiting firm. 

David Sandler said, “it typically takes three or more questions to get to the truth,” which was the basis for his “rule of three plus.”

This year, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the book, Dave will revisit each of the original 49 Sandler Rules and give updated takes on their relevance to salespeople and sales leaders.

Mike Montague interviews Jason Caywood, Sandler trainer from Salt Lake City, on How to Succeed at Understanding IR Theory.

David Mattson, President and CEO of Sandler Training and 6-time Author, talks about his Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek best-selling book, The Sandler Rules: 49 Timeless Selling Principles and How to Apply Them.

Prospects who play “close to the vest” can be incredibly frustrating. No matter how we frame our questions they respond with “sure,” “I don’t know,” or “tell me more and I’ll tell you if I like it.”

Mike Montague interviews Clint Babcock on How to Succeed at Three Hidden Traits of Successful Salespeople.

Mike Montague interviews Sandra Crozier-McKee on How to Succeed at Emotional Intelligence.

During crisis it’s tempting for us to agree to meet with anyone who passes the “fog a mirror” test, especially if it’s an inbound lead.

As David Sandler said, “it’s okay to want the business, but it’s not okay to need the business.” When our prospect sense that we are needy or desperate they are firmly in control of the sales process and will get us to say or do things that aren’t in our best interest (like do free consulting or discount for no reason).

Mike Montague interviews Terri Trespicio on How to Succeed at Finding Your Voice and Your Audience.

Most salespeople are having fewer prospect interactions even if they’ve increased their overall proactive prospecting efforts. While they are earning compound interest, to quote David Sandler’s rule, they are also having more opportunities to go offside when they do have a real business conversation with a prospect.

There's a lot of talk about "times of unprecedented change," which is true. Unfortunately for leaders people don't change, they transition.

At some point during our week, we will face doing an activity that we’d rather avoid. Could be making a prospecting call, doing a performance review, having a conversation with a difficult client or role playing.

Our brain is an energy pig. It uses mental tricks, called “heuristics” (aka “biases”) to conserve energy. When we are in a rapidly changing environment these heuristics can create powerful stories (e.g. “don’t call your clients because they’ll want to cancel”) that stop us from doing the proactive activities that brought us success in the past.

To maintain control of our sales process there is great power in accepting what our prospect says. There is also great power in ignoring certain things our prospect says.

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”?

By accepting what our prospect says we pull them closer to us and lower their walls so we can, as professional salespeople, gather the information we need to determine if this prospect is qualified to be our client.

Brian Sullivan interviews Oksana Esberard about Mindfulness in Selling.

One of the main goals of an L&D strategy is to improve employees’ performance. Your training sessions must result in a motivated and resourceful staff, one able to close more sales. But how do you create a strategy that actually improves employee’s performance?

Professional salespeople approach prospects and clients from a position of Equal Business Stature; however, if our sales funnel looks slim or we are emotionally attached to a particular client we can fall into an “oh shit” spiral when our client approaches us from a less than positive position.

Professional salespeople use a selling system to work a repeatable sale process and are accountable to checking all of the boxes in their process to qualify their prospect before doing a proposal or a presentation.

Getting ghosted by a prospect happens. It happens less often if we are focused on qualifying instead of closing and on our prospect instead of on how awesome we are.

Mike Montague interviews his co-instructor for the online goal-setting workshop, Amy Woodall, on How to Succeed at Setting Goals.

Mike Montague interviews Tony Altham, Executive Director at BNI in the UK, on How to Succeed at Business Networking.

Tom’s best customer, Meg, called and asked for a favor: “Can you talk to my new assistant Karen about getting up to speed with your software? She’s got a couple of questions I don’t have time to answer.”

This year, on Fridays, Dave talks about the attitude, behavior, and techniques of successful sales managers as he shares his thoughts on the 49 Sandler Rules for Sales Leaders.

There are only three resources we need to be successful in sales. They aren’t good brochures, better prices, the “gift of gab” or any of the other myths and lies made up about and by salespeople.

Animals are wired to move toward pleasure and away from pain. Where we can go sideways when qualifying is not uncovering if the pain our prospect feels or gain they seek to realize is enough for them to take action.

Thanks for sitting down with me, Salesperson.

You’re welcome, Manager. The meeting invite said, “coaching on decision timeline.” What did you mean?

Glad you asked, Salesperson. Over the past three weeks I made a note on the Henderson opportunity, the Smidgen opportunity and the Olafsen opportunity you were moving to a proposal without understanding each prospect’s deadline for implementation, which is a crucial part of our qualification processv. In my experience one time is a coincidence, twice is a pattern and three times is a habit. Habits are easy to break when they’re just forming so I thought to call this meeting to support you in your development. Are you comfortable with that?”

Mike Montague interviews Scott Perry on How to Succeed at Being Creative on Purpose. In this episode learn: What does being creative on purpose mean? Are YOU creative? Four principles to be creative on purpose.

Winners make choices and take action to implement those choices. We’ve been socialized in North America to believe that “action” equals a massive expulsion of energy, which can be paralyzing when making a choice then choosing what action take.

What to do when an employee comes to you with a "solution" that isn't feasible?

Maybe you've never had that experience or the experience of attempting to use logical, rational counterpoints to help your employee realize that their solution won't work in its current form and the conflict that arises from that attempt.

“Thanks for inviting me in today, Prospect. On the phone we set aside 30 minutes for our visit today. Do you still have 30 minutes?”

“Yes, Salesperson. I’ve only got 30 minutes. Look, we’re currently using Your Competitor. Do you have a price sheet I could see that I could refer to if I ever wanted to buy from you?”

This year, on Fridays, Dave talks about the attitude, behavior, and techniques of successful sales managers as he shares his thoughts on the 49 Sandler Rules for Sales Leaders.

Listen Time: 11 Minutes

Even if your team has a funnel full of real opportunities and they’re focused on their three weekly dials they will still end up with loose ends at the edges of their funnel that can feed their Hopium addiction.

This happens because (for now) we’re still selling to humans. Your salespeople may follow your sales process and selling system to the letter and still their prospects will ghost them.

The aggressive, sustainable growth so many company leaders seek, but few can actually point to, lies in moving yourself and your organization into a growth-driven sales culture. The following three steps are essential preliminaries to that shift.

Read Time: 6 Minutes

Pizza’s pretty much on the “transactional” end of the sales spectrum, but a pizza order taker becomes a pizza sales professional by asking questions.

A pizza order taker might respond to “I’d like to get a couple of pizzas for delivery” with “sure, we’ve got Daily Special A and lots of people like our House Special. I need your credit card then I’ll confirm your address.” A rote transaction that’s really all about the order taker checking boxes instead of understanding their prospect.

Here are five simple ways we can improve the quality of our communication with the people who are currently buying from us and expand and deepen those relationships over time.

Read Time: 8 Minutes

The hardest four inches to move in our life is from our brain to our mouth. This is especially true for salespeople when they engage with a prospect if they aren’t role playing regularly.

Without consistent, regular practice (role play) salespeople will end up getting one of the three Fs of bad sales conversations.

In creating full funnel freedom for your organization you defined your ideal prospect profiles. What that exercise doesn’t account for is the ideal sale for your organization.

Your ideal sale (not your average sale) is the deal size and sales cycle that is ideal for your salespeople to close to achieve their target and your company target for the year.

As a sales trainer, I get a lot of pushback about the word “pain.” Many of my clients reason that there are many other motives to explain why people buy. There have been multiple instances where they were offended by the very word “pain” and its negative connotation and then asked if we can call it something else instead. 

Read Time: 4 Minutes 

This year, on Fridays, Dave talks about the attitude, behavior, and techniques of successful sales managers as he shares his thoughts on the 49 Sandler Rules for Sales Leaders.

Listen Time: 10 Minutes

Similar to how “natural” athletes will succeed, and occasionally excel, in their sport for a while “natural” salespeople will succeed… for a while. Then they have a choice. Continue relying on their “natural” sales skills and succeeding by default or succeed by design by taking those natural skills and making them intentional by practicing, preparing and debriefing.

Tim Priebe, Founder of T&S Online Marketing, talks about how to integrate Sandler into your marketing and shows you the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful at marketing the Sandler way. Get the best practices for marketing collected from around the world.

Listen Time: 30 Minutes

Learn how to build a better day. Whether it is yourself or your sales team, Jim Ayraud will help you learn the best practices for sales accountability and building new behavior habits.

Listen Time: 23 Minutes

“Success equals freedom” is a phrase that was thrown around a lot by my managers early in my sales career. One day a colleague said to our Sales Manager in a group meeting, “that’s demotivating for me. If I’m not hitting my targets, I feel like I’m in jail.”

People have many fears. Obviously, there are natural fears which have helped us to survive as a species but let’s leave them to scientists. This time, I would like to review the work-related one: the fear of change.

Read Time: 6 Minutes

Chris Duffey, Author and Strategic Development Manager at Adobe, talks about Artificial Intelligence and the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful in a world with AI. Get the best practices collected from around the world.

Listen Time: 24 Minutes

Hamish Knox, Sandler trainer from Calgary and two-time author, shares and audio blog about how to share your vision for the future of your team through questions. He talks about the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful in sales management. 

Listen Time: 5 Minutes

Salespeople seeking to appear “confident” in front of their prospects typically fall back on spouting features-and-benefits or defending their product or policies.

Greg Skloot is President and COO at Crystal, an online app that can tell you anyone's DISC personality before you meet them. Greg and his team at Crystal are a new strategic partner of Sandler Training, and he will tell you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to tailor your sales pitch to your prospect's personality.

Listen Time: 24 Minutes

Typically, sales funnels opt for opacity over clarity and salespeople forge ahead with gut feelings instead of focus. And it works. For a little while. Then panic sets in, whether prompted by a time of year or the funnel turning into a pencil.

This is a special bonus episode, a look back at this year’s Sandler Summit and one of our opening keynotes by Andy McCredie. He is a Sandler trainer from the UK and did a killer hour-long talk on closing the sale. The full talk is available in Sandler Online. Here are some quick tips on How to Succeed at Closing more Sales.

Listen Time: 11 Minutes

This year, on Fridays, Dave talks about the attitude, behavior, and techniques of successful sales managers as he shares his thoughts on the 49 Sandler Rules for Sales Leaders.

Listen Time: 12 Minutes

Most salespeople who need to prospect for a living will tell you that it’s a very proactive, immediate results-driven exercise that can be uncomfortable at times. Hard to disagree with that. This is a topic that we get involved with far too often as it’s a common point of frustration for many business owners and sales leaders regarding their selling culture.

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Hamish Knox, Sandler trainer and two-time author, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful at selling across the executive level. Get the best practices collected from around the world for using your executives to sell to the prospect's.

<Listen Time: 28 Minutes

Brian Sullivan, VP of Sandler Enterprise Selling, speaks with Steve Moritz, thirty year veteran of the technology industry and CEO of Moritz Consulting Group about  Consulting Services: Putting the client first in sales and delivery.

Listen Time: 40 Minutes

Jane, a new sales hire, was settling into her workspace on Friday morning, all ready to celebrate the first quarter in which she’d been able to exceed her revenue target … when she got a voicemail message that made her stomach churn.

Rick McDermott, Sandler trainer, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful in sales. Get the best practices collected from around the world.

Listen Time: 19 Minutes

Geof Bowie, Sandler trainer, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful at achieving a flow state in sales. Get the best practices collected from around the world.

Listen Time: 21 Minutes

This year, on Fridays, Dave talks about the attitude, behavior, and techniques of successful sales managers as he shares his thoughts on the 49 Sandler Rules for Sales Leaders.

Listen Time: 12 Minutes

Diane, a recent sales hire, got an email from her manager, Luis, suggesting that he accompany her on an initial sales call with a prospect – and then debrief with her on what he’d observed. Diane replied that she thought that was a great idea.

This special bonus episode takes you back about 25 years to a training session with our founder, David H. Sander. He talks about why a selling system is so important to your career, even if you don't pick his...

Listen Time: 9 Minutes

Eliza, a new sales hire, had posted an abysmally low closing ratio in her first 60 days on the job. She was spending most of her time with prospects who ended up picking her brain for advice and information … and then disappearing. Frank, her manager, asked her during a coaching session why she thought that was happening.

Joel Kaczmarek, Sandler trainer, shows you how to succeed at gratitude loop with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful in sales. Get the best practices collected from around the world for being more grateful and happy with your success.

Listen Time: 28 Minutes

SMART Goal Setting with Mike Crandall: Mike Crandall, Sandler Trainer from OK, and Mike Montague, VP of Online Learning discuss SMART goal setting strategies.

Watch Time: 56 Minutes

Learn how the insights and our real-time messaging works on the Sales Accountability platform.

Watch Time: 3 Minutes

Welcome to the How to Succeed podcast, the show that helps you get to the top and stay there... This is How to Succeed at setting yourself up for a breakthrough.

Listen Time: 12 Minute

This year, on Fridays, Dave talks about the attitude, behavior, and techniques of successful sales managers as he shares his thoughts on the 49 Sandler Rules for Sales Leaders.

Listen Time: 8 Minutes

This bonus episode is brought to you by the Sandler Annual Sales and Leadership Summit in Orlando, FL March 20th-22nd. To join our trainers from around the world and about a thousand of your high-performing colleagues, go to here for more information. 

Listen Time: 13 Minutes

Ryan, a salesperson in his mid-fifties, had hit a performance plateau. His commissions had been flat for the past six months, and he had narrowly missed quota in each of those months. He scheduled a meeting with his manager, Jeannine, to see if, working together, they could identify any steps that would turn this pattern around.

Jim Ayraud, Sandler trainer and co-creator of www.SalesAccountability.com, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful at maximizing your time invested. Get the best practices collected from around the world.

Listen Time: 29 Minutes

During one of their coaching sessions, Jason asked his manager Ellen if she could think of one area he could work on over the next 30 days that would result in a dramatic and rapid improvement of his closing numbers. He was surprised at how quickly she answered.

This bonus episode is brought to you by the Sandler Annual Sales and Leadership Summit in Orlando, FL March 20th-22nd. To join our trainers from around the world and about a thousand of your high-performing colleagues, go here for more information. Tickets are limited.

Listen Time: 18 Minutes

Brent Chapman, CIO of RoundPoint Mortgage and speaker and upcoming author, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful in building a winning company culture. Get the best practices collected from around the world.

Listen Time: 29 Minutes

Gerry Weinberg, a Sandler trainer from Detriot, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful in connecting with your clients through advanced bonding and rapport tactics. Get the best practices collected from around the world.

Listen Time: 28 Minutes

Dave Mattson, President and CEO at Sandler, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful in sales. Get the best practices collected from around the world.

Hap Klopp, Founder and former CEO of The North Face and author of multiple books, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful in the the face of digital disruption. Get the best practices collected from around the world.

Listen Time: 30 Minutes

Bill Bartlett, Sandler trainer and author, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful in branding your personal presence. Get the best practices collected from around the world.

Listen Time: 20 Minutes

The end of the year is upon us! And contrary to popular belief, this is not necessarily a “dead” time in terms of business development and relationship-building for salespeople. Here are four simple strategies you can use right away to ramp up your prospecting performance during the holiday season.

Read Time: 4 Minutes

Kevin Leung, Sandler client and Salesperson of the Years, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful in sales. Get the best practices collected from around the world.

Listen Time: 20 Minutes

Brian, an inside sales rep, spent too much of his time chasing deals that ended up going nowhere. He knew it; his sales manager Francine knew it. Late one Friday afternoon, Francine asked him to give some thought to the matter, and to come up with some ideas about why this was a problem for him.

Dan Stalp, Sandler trainer from Kansas City, joins us to talk about the attitude, behaviors, and techniques to help get out of your own way and stop beating yourself up. This is a tough subject, but sometimes, the biggest obstacle to success is ourselves. Learn how to succeed by not bullying yourself.

Lori Logue, Manager of Customer Success at Evernote, talks about how Evernote business can help you share notes with Salesforce and collaborate across the sales and delivery teams. Learn the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques of successful notetaking in business.

Most managers we talk to would quickly agree with Drucker’s observation, and with the related proposition that their team’s capacity to learn, grow, and adapt is one of the organization’s most important assets. Yet very few of these managers have taken the time to discuss and develop a personalized learning and development plan for the team members who report to them.

Tina Phillips joins the podcast for the first time to talk about improving your listening skills in sales and in your personal life. Learn the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques of great listeners, and learn how to incorporate them into your conversations. 

Learn how to bring up the subject of money and break through the baggage around it. Whether there is tension in you or the prospect, bringing up the budget can raise some uncomfortable feelings. Lauren Valentine will help you learn how to think and talk about money in an adult manner to help you succeed in sales.

Learn how to improve your attitude, behavior, and technique to improve your personal performance. Anneli Thomspon from England talks about how to maximize your personal efforts in whatever you are trying to accomplish this year.

Inside salespeople who find themselves behind quota may assign their performance problems to any number of factors beyond their control: the economy, the competition, the weather. But the reality is that the single most common reason for this problem lies in something they do control: their choice to use, or not to use, a cookbook.

Today’s sales professionals find themselves facing unprecedented, and often uncomfortable, change. More and more salespeople have larger territories than they used to have, and are responsible for selling a wider range of products and services than they’ve ever sold. They've got a lot to do, and they usually have less time in which to do it than they had last year.

Customer relationships are the lifeblood of any sellers’ career. The ability to attract clients, build rapport, and start sales conversations ultimately determines the level of success that a salesperson will enjoy. You can be an extreme specialist who knows all the tricks of the trade, but without supplementing your knowledge with interpersonal communication skills, you’ll fail to connect with your clients or prospects on a deeper level. Building rapport is essential to turn yourself from a transactional seller into a trusted partner. Below I’ve outlined four ways to strengthen your bond with clients.

In this special audio blog, Mike Montague, our VP of Online Learning and Development, talks about how we structured five different types of online learning into Sandler Online. You will learn how each type is different and how they can help you get to the next level.

In my career, I’ve been both a mentor and a mentee. I know how important both sides of this relationship are, and what elements are necessary to be successful from both perspectives. Earlier in my career, I went through many mentors and felt that some were more beneficial to my growth than others. Below I have outlined five questions you should ask to ensure you begin a successful relationship with a mentor.

Today’s sales professionals find themselves facing unprecedented, and often uncomfortable, change. More and more salespeople have larger territories than they used to have,  and are responsible for selling a wider range of products and services than they’ve ever sold. They've got a lot to do, and they usually have less time in which to do it than they had last year.

The How to Succeed Podcast is a public and free podcast from Sandler Training, the worldwide leader in sales, management, and customer service training for individuals all the way up to Fortune 500 companies with over 250 locations around the globe.

Day in and day out, sellers are inundated with sales tips, new technologies, and industry updates. It’s easy to get caught up in the newest trends and forget about the basics. Today, I’ve outlined five simple tasks that salespeople can perform to improve their daily efficiency and make them more effective.

Rule #10: Treat the job interview as a sales call, which means it's your job to disqualify.

At this point, if you have yet to begin thinking about offering a summer internship, you’re probably behind. That’s okay though, we’re here to help. Below are 5 great ways to maximize the value of a summer internship for both you and those you hire. 

Role play is one of the best methods for developing your people, but salespeople loath role play and managers shy away from it, because it often becomes an exercise that leaves participants frustrated. Putting role play through the lens of David Sandler’s Success Triangle – attitude, behavior, and technique – both managers and salespeople could role play more effectively and increase both their role performance, outlook, and technique.