Cheril Clarke’s Post

10 years ago, I didn’t know anything about sales team management. Today, I am a trusted business coach. Here are 10 unforgettable lessons I’ve learned about building a world-class sales team: 1. Craft Your Next Level Business Vision 2. Foster a Culture of Accountability 3. Invest in Ongoing Training 4. Set Clear Goals and Expectations 5. Embrace Technology and Tools 6. Encourage Open Communication 7. Recognize and Reward Success 8. Analyze Data for Continuous Improvement 9. Build Strong Relationships 10. Lead by Example For more insights, visit https://MitchRusso.com. Work with Your Mentor, Scale Your Profits and Finally Grow.

HOW TO GET MORE VISIBILITY AT WORK 🤩 1. Establish yourself as a Subject Matter Expert (SME). This gives you a ton of visibility and credibility. You transform into a person everyone needs to know. 2. Setup skip level meetings with your boss’ manager. Make sure you have questions to ask and insights to share. You should promote your work in this meeting. It’s impactful for your boss’ leadership to know who you are and the results you deliver. 3. Ask to work on projects that involve cross functional teams. The best place to gain visibility is outside of your own teams. As a bonus you’ll build relationship across your company which could help you get your work done faster. 4. Focus on outcomes in your status updates. Make sure your updates have data to back them up. 5. Have a talk track that you incorporate into each presentation or meeting you lead. Consistently talking about your mission and team’s accomplishments builds your brand. FINAL THOUGHTS 🧠 Increasing your visibility is the key to setting yourself up for opportunities within your company. More visibility means everyone knows your good work when promotion time comes around. It also means if exciting opportunities come up you may be top of mind.

👏🌟 Celebrating Our Business Development Leader: Josh Dalgleish, Business Development Manager at Quest Communications 🌟👏 Happy Monday, everyone! Today, we are excited to recognize the outstanding contributions of Josh Dalgleish, our exceptional Business Development Manager at Quest Communications. Josh’s drive and strategic insight have been pivotal in expanding our market presence and fostering new opportunities. Here’s why we’re proud to have Josh on our team: 1️⃣ Strategic Vision: Josh’s ability to identify and capitalize on growth opportunities has been instrumental in our success. His strategic planning and market analysis ensure that we stay ahead of industry trends and seize new business prospects. 2️⃣ Relationship Building: Josh excels at building and nurturing strong relationships with clients, partners, and stakeholders. His exceptional communication skills and genuine care for our clients help us forge long-lasting partnerships. 3️⃣ Innovative Thinking: Josh’s innovative approach to business development brings fresh ideas and creative solutions to the table. His forward-thinking mindset drives us to explore new markets and develop unique value propositions. 4️⃣ Goal-Oriented: Josh’s focus on achieving targets and driving results is unwavering. His determination and tenacity ensure that we consistently meet and exceed our business development goals. 5️⃣ Cross-Functional Collaboration: Josh works seamlessly across departments to align business development initiatives with our overall company objectives. His collaborative approach ensures that our strategies are cohesive and effective. 6️⃣ Customer-Centric Approach: Josh prioritizes understanding and meeting the needs of our clients. His customer-centric mindset ensures that we deliver tailored solutions that exceed client expectations and drive mutual success. 7️⃣ Leadership and Mentorship: Josh is not only a leader but also a mentor to his team. His guidance and support help develop the skills and capabilities of our Sales team members, fostering a culture of growth and development. 8️⃣ Adaptability: Josh’s ability to adapt to changing market conditions and navigate challenges with resilience has been crucial to our success. His flexibility and problem-solving skills ensure we remain agile and responsive. At Quest Communications, we are incredibly fortunate to have Josh Dalgleish leading our business development efforts. Thank you, Josh, for your exceptional leadership, dedication, and commitment to driving our growth! 🌟👏 #TeamAppreciation #BusinessDevelopment #QuestCommunications #MondayMotivation #InspiringLeader

You’re making a mistake… Or are you? There are hundreds of decisions one makes as a CEO. Often, they are decisions you have never made before. So how do you know if you’re making the right choice? - When to hire your first salesperson. - When to hire a sales manager. - Whether you should rely on outbound versus inbound lead generation. Or a mixture of both. - How to launch your solution in a new country. To mention just a few. All these decisions and many more have profound consequences on the future profitability of your business. And each one has a myriad of smaller decisions that goes with it. Sadly making the wrong decision can have expensive consequences. Even worse, it can sometimes take months or even years to realize you have made a mistake. So, how can you, as CEO, know the answer to all the challenges that come up while building your company? You can’t. The way to get around this fact is to recognize that you need the input of others. People who have experience making decisions in their field of expertise. The best companies have a board of directors, or something similar, staffed by experienced leaders with different perspectives and experience. And an environment that encourages discussion and debate. But how can you achieve the same when you lack the diversity of experience in your company and for whatever reason you can’t add another member to your management team? You find and use an external consultant, advisor or a fractional leader to be your guide. One of the things I tell my clients:  “It helps, when making important decisions, to have at least one person in the room who has been there and done it before” I promise you. It’s good advice. Photo courtesy of Richard TK Hawke - https://lnkd.in/ewPzBZFw

In April, I set one "key activity," and I beat my target # of reps for the month by 2—that's no coincidence. Do you track certain activities? Management guru Peter Drucker once said "what gets measured gets managed." I try to only measure what matters so that I don't waste precious time/energy managing things that won't help my team succeed. Deciding on my key metric was the hardest part. In theory, yes we all know we shouldn't waste time on irrelevant activities. But how do you figure out which ones are irrelevant? For me, that took real reflection. The target I set was more important than the result. Of course it's cool that I beat my target. But If I had missed it by 2 reps, I would've been fine, too. Setting a challenging goal gave me motivation to keep moving. At some point, you just have to get to work. In my opinion, figuring out what to do (and how many times you need to do it) is hardest because you're in your head—hopefully setting parameters so that you can get out of your head. In the end, the execution part is simple: Did you get the activity done or not?

Leadership can be lonely 🤷🏼♀️ When you’re making the big decisions, supporting the team, and driving results, it’s easy to feel like there’s no one who truly understands—let alone someone to support you. That’s where I come in. I offer a unique partnership for high-level professionals—a space where you can: 💎 Strategise sales approaches that close the gap between goals and results. 💎 Navigate tough decisions with clarity and calm. 💎 Talk openly without judgement, gaining the perspective you need to move forward. My clients don’t just achieve more—they feel lighter, stronger, and more aligned with their values. It’s never about working harder; it’s about working smarter—personally and professionally. It’s about uncovering what YOU truly want to be, do, and have, and taking bold steps accordingly. It’s about deep healing 💕💕💕—and trying on a new identity 🧑🏼🎤 in a safe, supportive space. If you’re ready for high-level, high-touch emotional and professional support, let’s start a conversation. I’m here for you.

The most important deal in my career was one I didn’t close. It was a dream opportunity- budget approved, timeline aligned, decision-makers on board. Everything seemed perfect. But something felt off. During our third meeting, I noticed a disconnect. The CEO’s vision for implementation didn’t align with his team’s reality. They weren’t ready for the transformation our solution demanded. Instead of pushing forward, I did something unexpected. I told them the truth. “Mr. CEO, I don’t think you’re ready for this solution yet. Here’s why...” The silence was deafening, but it opened the door to a real conversation. Here’s what we mapped out 👇 Their current state-   • Where they were struggling  • What needed to change  • The internal barriers they faced Six months later, they came back prepared. The deal closed twice as fast, with double the scope. More importantly, that CEO now refers to me as a trusted advisor and not just a vendor. The takeaway?  Walking away isn’t a failure. It’s trust in action. And trust lasts longer than any contract. When was the last time you chose trust over a quick win? #sales #coach #coaching #salestraining #training #salestips #communication #motivation

We're halfway through the quarter and stretching to hit the number... Have you tried mind control? Today I sharpened the saw in my Harvard Leadership Excellence program with the exceptional Steven D. Cohen, Ph.D. and my talented classmates. It was great to refine and apply critical skills to rally teams and drive change. While the core concepts seem like common sense, it's valuable to engage with new people, practice techniques, and reflect on your performance. A few things stood out to me, all of which apply to sales process improvement and growth acceleration: 1\ Making a personal connection opens the door to trust. There's no perfect recipe for chemistry but follow the golden rule as a first step. 2\ Citing an authority, even if alien, is incredibly powerful. We used Ebbinghaus's Forgetting Curve and it resonated incredibly well with our entire audience. 3\ Depending on your audience size, getting them to articulate their pain and quantify it drives receptivity to a solution. 4\ Keep your pitch custom and tight. Even if you're a power user, focus on what's important to your audience. 5\ Agreeing on a mutual action plan drives commitment. This can be as simple as asking for the next meeting. Even better if you assign a simple piece of homework. 6\ Communicating a credible form of exclusivity adds value to your offering. We used a limited-time offer, but you can use onboarding schedules and other real constraints effectively, too. This isn't an exhaustive list by any stretch. I'm curious, whether you're in sales or just selling your ideas, what's worked for you? --- Want more content like this? Have a different perspective? Like or comment below.

90% of senior people in marketing, sales AND customer success get this wrong... Here's some advice I've given to multiple people that want to make the step up from expert individual contributor to management/leadership. To make your next step, you're going to have to break the pattern that has gotten you to where you are now. Your next step will not be achieved through a course, or your next set of hard skills. Put simply, you will have to do something that you haven't done before (and that can be scary). If you want to move from IC to leadership (and you truly want the job, not just the title), then you have to start showcasing leadership. How do you do that: - communicate proactively - report on what you're doing and how it contributes to the business - celebrate milestones, especially if they're others' achievements - show how the organization could improve - continue to consistently hit your own KPIs (lead by example) - demonstrate coördination skills: take up a new project that involves delegation, not execution, for you, to show that you can do it. - ... This requires: - confidence. Get exercising, improve your self-talk, turn on that playlist for your commute that helps you get there. - self-discipline. Hold yourself accountable to your goals Once you get started, you'll find other ways to show you can be a manager or even a leader. Even if you don't get that position at your current company or team, you can now confidently say that you have actually done the work - setting yourself up perfectly for your next step. Most growth and career progress does not come from acquiring hard skills. The truth is you'll learn those on the job. With the right mentality and soft skills + working in your "zone of genius," you can get almost anywhere.

At Microsoft, I work with amazing colleagues, including a huge seller network with amazing stories. Stacey Herod and I started an internal Monday Motivations channel to showcase these stories and inspire others when they might be experiencing a "Case of the Mondays". This week we shared a story from a $1B in revenue Microsoft seller Carson V. Heady, who is one of Microsoft's top social sellers and networkers. He shares a story of how he used his network to break through a pattern of "No's" to finally get to a "Yes" when selling. Give Carson a follow on LinkedIn to tap into more great advice on expanding your network--or if you have any questions about how Microsoft can help you do your best work.