It can be lonely at the top

Uspire’s Sales Growth Expert blog series comes from Amanda Downs, our Director of Commercial Leadership. She led sales teams for 19 years in industry and spent 17 subsequent years working as a sales consultant and coach. She designs and delivers our Commercial Academies for businesses looking to energise their sales teams.

It can be lonely, yet very visible, at the top of a sales team.

Heading up a sales team can be a lonely place and the pressure can be high, especially when times get tough. The sales leader is expected to be an instinctive and capable team leader as well as commercially astute, often owning a target themselves to deliver alongside management.

I first developed this G.R.O.W.T.H Framework as a checklist of questions to give guidance to coaching clients to make sure that they are juggling all the balls needed to take hold of the commercial agenda and deliver results through sales teams.

The Sales Growth Expert blog series is intended to unpack the G.R.O.W.T.H. framework. It contains easy-access checklists, ‘how to’ guides with tips and templates for the what, how and why of leading your sales team to success.? READ MORE

High performing leaders display Emotional Intelligence - do you?

Emotional intelligence is very apparent in the high-performing leaders I have worked with. They display the awesome attitudes of positive regard and genuineness.

There’s an enormous amount of research which suggests that being emotionally intelligent (EQ) is vital to how well you perform at work. According to?they tested the EQ of more than a million people and found that emotionally intelligent people are more successful in their jobs, and are rewarded with higher salaries.?

But if you’re not genuine or don’t hold people in a positive regard, then you can’t be said to be emotionally intelligent.?

Here, I’m focusing on the fourth stage of our?Sales GROWTH Framework – ‘W is for Ways of Working’. READ MORE

How are you inspiring & motivating your hybrid sales team

Here at Uspire, one of our principles of success is that everybody in your company is responsible for sales and business success; it’s not just people with ‘sales’ in their title.

Customers are more precious than ever, and under exceptional circumstances we must understand what support our people need to able to show up strongly for our customers.

I’ve been honoured to have coached several senior leaders, from sales through to finance, supply chain and IT. In every conversation, the challenge has been around how to redress the over-focus on task and the increased feeling of a work/life overload.

The leadership priority is singular. We must make sure that our people are clear, enabled & happy before focusing on the must-do tasks and outcomes.

How do we ensure that we are showing up for our teams and all of our stakeholders in the best possible way? READ MORE