We are in the midst of a crisis. COVID-19 has significantly altered the way that things are done, on many different levels. One of the things that is a challenge to people now, and will continue to be challenging in the future, is how to effectively lead an organization, and yourself, out of this crisis and into a new reality. Kim Bohr, interviewed by John Golden, explores how to lead salespeople in a pandemic.

This expert sales interview explores:

• Accepting and adapting to change
• The importance of a leadership style
• Introducing compassion

Changing with change:

One of the most important things to acknowledge about the current situation is that what leaders were doing two months ago isn’t likely going to transfer to what is applicable or needed for today. Even looking at the metrics of what you were tracking as a measure of success isn’t necessarily going to be a relevant indicator of what success is in a world with COVID.

Leadership Style:

Understanding your leadership brand is very important. Leadership style is important, not just during this crisis, but also for the future. If you don’t have a well-developed leadership style, now is the time to make sure that you create a brand that is well articulated that you can stick to. This pandemic requires leaders to have a level of presence that is so much greater than it ever has been, and you want your presence to be well defined and consistent.

Exploring compassion:

One positive change that will hopefully come from this pandemic is a more compassionate workplace. For many leaders, it’s a very possible reality that the team members who are now working from home are not the same team members that you knew and interacted with every day at the office. As leaders, it’s important to consider that the people around you have evolved and changed as they’ve tackled the personal changes that have come about from COVID-19.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Everyone in the world is currently faced with a unique, completely unprecedented, and entirely unpredictable experience. COVID-19 has forced changes throughout the entire business world, making agility more important than ever. There are a lot of people in sales, leadership, management, and marketing that are going to have to pivot and adjust to the circumstances at hand, and ensure that they can approach these changes in the best way possible, without getting overwhelmed. That’s a key factor in agility. And while agility has taken on a whole new meaning in the short term, it also has long term implications. The ability to have an agile team and be agile as an individual is a top-five skill that organizations are hiring for today, and will continue to hire for in the future. Amy Franko explores how to be agile in business in this expert sales interview, hosted by John Golden.

This expert sales interview explores:

• What is agility?
• The benefits of strategic speed
• Diversity vs agility

The Dichotomy of Agility:

If you have a rigid mindset or way of doing things, it’s not going to support you in the future. Who knows what changes are ahead? When unexpected things happen, agility is the only thing that is going to get you through. A modern, master seller understands the dichotomy of agility.

A Hallmark of Agility:

Strategic speed is being able to keep momentum as you move towards long term goals, but also being able to meet short term milestones in the process. Most organizations know that they need strategic speed, but they don’t have it, which makes sense because agility doesn’t come naturally to everyone.

Agility and Diversity:

Many times when organizations or companies are hit with a situation in which agility is necessary, their first instinct is to diversify. There might be some things that you can do tho shift offerings, or figure out how to move things forward where you can, but diversification is a long term process.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

How do you manage your manager? Managing upwards is one of the most underrated, yet critical skills that you can have as a frontline salesperson. It can make your direct report happier and calmer, which will, in turn, make your job easier, more peaceful, and better overall. Especially during the current crisis, sales managers are more stressed-out than ever, and might be extra emotional right now. Being proactive can help you to manage that interaction, and interactions in the future. Dr. Janice Presser discusses how to manage your sales manager in this expert sales interview, hosted by John Golden.

This expert sales interview explores:

• Salesperson vs Sales Manager
• How to speak sales manager

The Difference Between a Salesperson and a Sales Manager:

Salespeople and their managers are very different. If you are a front line salesperson, chances are you love that job because you get to help people. You’re motivated by taking care of others, and when you can make someone happy, remove a problem, or satisfy their needs, it’s a great feeling! For those who enjoy being a manager, however, they are motivated differently.

Speaking Their Language:

Part of managing your manager is to understand their motivations and their goals, and understanding that not everyone sees the world in the same way. Once you get a clear view of your manager’s goals, you can align your goals with their goals so that everyone can be a lot happier. To get more specific, you can communicate to your manager that you understand their long term goal, and then let them know where you’re at on the path to that long term goal.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

When you hear the expression, “taking the high road,” what comes to mind? The first reactions that many people have to the saying involve taking a more elevated, or ethical approach to something. Leading from the high road definitely has an ethical component, but it’s much more than that. Learning to lead from the high road can help you communicate better with your team, create long term goals and see them through to fruition, and be a better leader overall. Especially in these uncertain, and sometimes dark times following COVID-19, leading in the most effective way possible is more important than ever. Ron Rael, interviewed by John Golden, explores how to lead from the high road.

This expert sales interview discusses:

• The importance of proactive thinking
• How a consensus fosters high road leading

Beyond Ethics:

Ethics is a key part of leading from the high road, but it goes beyond just making ethical decisions. It involves thinking about the greater good, and really taking the time to consider the impact of your decisions, not just for today, but for tomorrow. There are many decision-makers who might be ethical in how they lead their teams, but don’t think about how the decisions will change things six months from now, a year from now, even 10 years from now.

Getting a Consensus:

A high road leader tries, as best as they can, to operate under a conesnsus. There is no perfect consensus, of course, but if you do what you can to get everyone together and discuss the different options, you’re much more likely to get a positive response, even if there isn’t full agreement.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

When people watch movies, they usually don’t notice the extras; the no names whose face flashes on the screen briefly and gets little to no attention. They notice the main character, the star of the movie who presents themselves confidently and strongly and has earned the role of lead. You can be the star of your own life movie in your personal life, in your work, and at home. Vivienne Posch, interviewed by John Golden, explores how to be the star of your life movie.

This expert interview explores:

• How to be bigger than your environment
• How to create your way in life using self-confidence

Don’t Be An Extra:

We all grow up in a certain environment. Although there are a lot of different factors that influence our development as people, our environment of origin often determines, and at the very least as a significant influence, on where we go in life. If you come from a poor family, you’re programmed to live a certain way, that is likely different from the way that people who grew up in an entrepreneurial family were programmed. This is important because most people don’t take the time to really think about where they’re going in life, or the path ahead of them. They might get a job at a company, and simply fit in and just try to clock in and clock out to pay bills. They are extras in their own movie. Instead, be the star of your movie! Create a lifestyle around you, and what you want. Be very clear about your life’s purpose, and then live what you love to do. If you start to ask yourself what you really want out of life and your job and truly explore your motivations, you will realize that you can do anything you want. Most of us don’t grow up with parents that acknowledge the potential we all have, and we grow up in a box or a prison. You cannot escape from prison if you don’t know you’re in one. So learn to escape the prison of your thoughts in order to break out of the extra role and start being the star of your life.

Creating Your Own Role:

With the way that businesses and people are evolving, you have to be more flexible and agile, and be ready to grab opportunities whenever they come your way. Getting a job at a company and spending your entire career there isn’t the norm anymore, and it can be difficult for people to live with that uncertainty. But, there is a solution. Instead of looking for certainty outside of themselves, certainty can be found if you look inward. If you don’t have certainty within yourself, you will never find true certainty in life. You need to depend on yourself. If you depend on yourself, you can develop your personality and become the star of your own movie, and create your own role, no matter what things get thrown at you. If you have the self-confidence to tackle obstacles, you can embrace whatever comes your way.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Motivating salespeople is always important, but it’s even more important during this international pandemic brought on by COVID-19. There is still business out there, and salespeople can thrive, even, in this environment. Dave Kurlan explores how to motivate salespeople when something comes out of left field and knocks you off your feet in this expert sales interview hosted by John Golden.

This expert sales interview explores:

• The different kinds of business spaces
• The importance of continuing to do things
• How to think virtually to prepare for the present and the future

Know Your Kind of Business:

The first step when exploring how to sell and motivate salespeople in an international crisis is to be realistic about what is happening and what the reality is. There are some businesses where the unfortunate reality is that they won’t be doing business any time soon. For the foreseeable future, industries like restaurants, or travel and tourism, are not going to be operating.

Do Something!

There is nothing more important than just doing something. This is an anxious, depressing time for a lot of people, and it’s easy to sit around and live a lethargic life. But if you can get some momentum going, and start to feel productive, it will keep you motivated and keep you making progress.

Think virtually:

Many salespeople are hesitant to embrace technology, and even struggle to sell over video calls or phone calls when they’re used to in-person meetings. They can’t get into an environment with enough light, or center themselves in the screen, or present themselves professionally through virtual means.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Many people are unfamiliar with strategic planning, and how it can create tremendous growth within an organization. And even if you are familiar with the concept, there can still be a lot of confusion over how to do it, or create consistency with a strategic plan. Strategic planning is a process or a system, that can be taught and learned by your employees. If you follow the system and process and methodology, you can get some consistent execution. The goal is to create repetitive steps that are as simple as possible to get you executing your strategy as soon as possible. John Ferris explores how to grow your organization with strategic planning in this expert sales interview, hosted by John Golden.

This expert sales interview explores the 5 steps of creating a strategic plan:

• Step 1: Start with the “why”
• Step 2: Confront reality
• Step 3: Create a plan design
• Step 4: Address the death threats
• Step 5: Finding the rhythm of accountability

Step 1: Start with the “why”

When developing a strategic plan, the first step is to start with the “why.” The “why” is the reason and purpose of your organization. In the old days, mission statements used to be a prominent part of company culture, but it isn’t so prevalent these days. Take the time to find why you do what you do as an organization, and create a sentence or statement that describes your purpose. Let this be the guiding force of all that you do.

Step 2: Confronting reality

After you have your “why” statement, you have to figure out what your current state of affairs is. Have a good, honest discussion about what is working, and what is not working at the present moment. You can also do a speed of change assessment, where you explore how fast things are changing both inside and outside of the organization. The difference between the rate of change outside your organization and the rate of change inside your organization can help you set goals and determine how you want to progress and move forward. It’s important to not look too far forward, and focus on what is happening in the present moment.

Step 3: Create a plan design

When you’re looking at the next year or several years, look at the top three things you must assess. It’s a challenge for entrepreneurs and executives because they want to do everything. It’s easy to come up with 20 things to do, but it’s really hard to only do three things. If you do 20 things, you’ll execute 20% of the time, but if you do three things, you’ll execute almost 100% of the time. Once you have these three large things to grow your business, you can then break it down into smaller things, and pick three goals to execute on this year. And then break it down further, and create three goals that you want to complete in the next quarter, and so forth. This helps create a long term plan, but it’s broken down into smaller, more palatable goals.

Step 4: Addressing the death threats

Death threats are the things that go unsaid that get in the way of you executing on your strategy. This could be a cultural thing, or difficulties holding people accounting to the strategy. Sometimes with larger organizations, it could be a certain department or certain area that’s not on board with the larger goal. Step 4 is about calling those things out that could get in the way of you executing on your plan.

Step 5: The rhythm of accountability

If you want to have a strategy and you want to execute it, you have to have a regular cadence of pulling yourself out of the weeds, and the day to day problem solving, in order to focus on your strategy. Determine what the rhythm is, and how you’re going to pull yourself out of the day to day grind to focus on the business and not in the business.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Getting Ready For Recovery was a live event that was broadcast on YouTube on May 26th and featured 10 experts from 10 different fields, including: