CEO Sales Guide
Helpful resource for Presidents, CEOs, and Business Owners to understand the people, systems and strategies that impact sales and business growth
Sales Hiring
sales-hiring
The Executive Leadership Playbook: How C-Suite Leaders Drive Sales Growth
Most companies treat sales as a separate department—something that happens "over there" while the rest of the organization focuses on their core ...
A Sales Manager’s Blueprint for Coaching and Accountability
In today's sales environment, leaders face unprecedented challenges—hybrid teams working across time zones, constantly shifting markets, and fierce ...
Sales Hiring as a Growth Strategy
Hiring great salespeople has never been more critical—or more challenging. The stakes are high. A single bad hire can cost your company more than ...
The 90-Day Sales Manager Playbook: How to Start Strong and Succeed
As a new sales manager, your first 90 days will either set you up for success—or create challenges that you will need to fix down the road. Whether ...
Creating a Client Scorecard
We have been working with a lot of our middle market clients lately on implementing or refining scorecards for sales or sales leadership roles. The ...
Your Sales Team Isn't the Problem. Your Manager Is.
Quick Answer The biggest driver of sales underperformance is not your team, your market, or your ...
The A-Player Repellent: How Weak Sales Management Silently Kills Your Candidate Pool
Quick Answer: B-level managers attract B and C-level talent. A-players detect weak leadership during ...
Are AI Interviews Making Sales Hiring Better (or Just Faster)?
Quick Answer: AI interviews deliver speed and consistency, but consistency doesn't equal capability ...
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Sales Onboarding: The 30/60/90 Day Ramp Plan (2026 Guide)
It's Friday afternoon. Your new sales hire starts Monday. HR has their laptop ready. IT set up their ...
The 6-Minute Phone Screen: The Fastest Way to Catch the Wrong Sales Hire Early
The most expensive part of your sales hiring process is the time your team spends interviewing people ...
How to Run Sales Interviews That Actually Reveal Capability
Here's what most sales interviews actually measure: how well someone interviews.
How to Define a Sales Role in 2026: The Job Scorecard
Most sales hiring failures start at the beginning, with unclear role definitions.
Beyond the AI Resume: How to Verify Sales Grit in a More Automated Hiring World
You're reviewing a resume that looks perfect. Clean formatting. Strong metrics. All the right keywords. ...
The True Cost of a Bad Sales Hire in 2026 (and How to Stop Repeating It)
You've done this before. You've invested months recruiting, weeks interviewing, and six figures ...
Why Sales Hires Fail: A 2026 Diagnostic Guide for Middle-Market CEOs
Why do sales hires keep failing, even when leaders do everything “right”?
How to Build an Effective Onboarding Program That Drives Results
Hiring the right salesperson is just the beginning. Without a solid onboarding process, even top talent ...
Final Interview Questions That Reveal the Best Candidate
Hiring the right salesperson isn’t just about assessing skills—it’s about finding someone who aligns ...
Optimize Your Sales Hiring with the 6-Minute Phone Screen
Hiring the right salesperson is about finding someone who can thrive in your sales environment. That’s ...
How to Use Sales Assessments to Predict Success Before You Hire
What if you could predict a candidate’s success in your sales role before you even hire them? This is ...
Find the Perfect Sales Hire with the Fit Factor Interview
Hiring the right salesperson isn’t just about experience or technical skills—it’s about fit. The ...
How to Find the Right Candidates for Your Growth Strategy
Your ability to find and attract top-tier salespeople directly impacts your bottom line. Period.
Sales Hiring as a Growth Strategy
Hiring great salespeople has never been more critical—or more challenging. The stakes are high. A single ...
Avoid Job Posting Clichés
Intelligent Conversations is not a salesperson recruiting company. We teach companies a different way to ...
Is the MVP of Your Sales Team like Giannis Antetokounmpo?
Who is the MVP of your sales team? Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where our office is headquartered, happens to ...
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Self Limiting Beliefs in Sales and How to Coach Through Them
One of the common stumbling blocks we see holding salespeople back is self-limiting beliefs that prevent ...
Creating a Healthy Coaching Environment in Sales
One of the barriers sales leaders encounter when trying to establish a consistent coaching rhythm with ...
Wanted – Humble Sales People
One of the challenges when you're hiring salespeople (or coaching them) is the dichotomy between being ...
Leveraging Sales Enablement Practices that Drive Performance
How much focus do your sales managers put on conversation speed and tonality when they coach their ...
How to Retain High Performing Sales People
Over the years you may have noticed a difficulty in keeping your highest performing sales people on your ...
Building Your Virtual Bench
As we head into the fourth quarter you should have a pretty clear line of sight on how things are ...
Building a Culture of Sales Accountability
When we talk with CEOs about sales accountability at their companies, we usually hear stories about ...
What Should CEOs Worry About When Hiring a New Sales Manager?
In last week’s post we talked about growing your company to the point where it makes sense to hire a ...
Top 5 Mistakes New Sales Managers Make
Is it time to provide some “adult supervision” for your sales people? Has your revenue grown to the ...
Why Sales Managers Suck at Hiring Sales People
Are your sales managers using sales recruiting as a growth strategy for your company? Are they ...
Why Hiring Only for Skill Leads to High Turnover
When we talk with hiring managers, the number one thing they tell us they are looking for is finding ...
Is Your Hiring Process Stuck in 2014?
Two years ago there were more candidates available than positions available. It was fun! Hiring managers ...
What UNC Coach Dean Smith Taught Us About Sales Metrics
Legendary University of North Carolina basketball coach Dean Smith died on Saturday. Sales managers ...
Keeping Your Sales Team Focused through Goals-Based Coaching
As a follow up to our recent post “Is Your Sales Forecast Giving You a False Sense of Security” I think ...
Wisconsin CEOs: Lessons Your Sales Team Should Learn from the Packer’s Stunning Defeat
I’m still shocked. The collapse I witnessed during the NFC Championship Game on Sunday is going to ...
What Can CEOs and Sales Leaders Learn from Barry Alvarez?
Many of you may not be following the recent developments on the University of Wisconsin football program ...
Coaching Rhythm and Texting While Driving
My last post talked about the challenges of teaching my middle daughter, who recently got her learners ...
Is Your Sales Organization Ready For Topgrading?
If your leadership team understands that the Company’s most valuable asset is its people then the answer ...
Qualities Of An Over-Achieving Sales Team
With so many business issues and challenges beyond your control, Presidents, CEOs, and business owners ...
5 Steps to Hiring Your Best Salesperson
Making the decision to hire a new sales person can be the hardest part of the process. Once you get over ...
High Performing Sales People - How to Identify And Keep Them
High performing sales people are customer centric and have the ability to execute and produce positive ...
5 Difficult Questions You Need to Ask About Your Sales Team
If you had the opportunity to really study your sales organization - to take a very diagnostic look at ...
What is the Most Important Step in the Sales Hiring Process?
The most important step in the sales hiring process is not writing the perfect ad so you attract the ...
Do You Have the Right Sales People?
Getting the right sales people on your team and getting them to focus on the right activities can have a ...
Free Sales Seminar - The Ultimate Sales Call
There are only a few seats remaining for our upcoming free seminar, "The Ultimate Sales Call, Five ...
Harvard Study Explains Why Sales People Talk Too Much
An article in today's Wall Street Journal caught my eye, "Science Reveals Why We Brag So Much." It talks ...
Sales Leap Every Year!
What would your revenue look like if your sales team had one extra day to sell every year? This year we ...
Focus on Sales Process, Not Outcomes
I recently finished reading Moneyball by Michael Lewis (I still look forward to watching the movie). ...
The 10 Keys to an Effective Sales Hiring Process
Our friend and mentor Dave Kurlan - a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and ...
Building An Over-Achieving Sales Team - Relentless Prospecting
As a general rule I tell our sales force development clients that a new sales person should spend at ...
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