Re-skilling sales teams through targeted training, mentorship, and practice is essential for overcoming modern sales challenges and achieving sustained success in the post-pandemic era.

Here are updated programs I am currently providing.

Managing remote teams globally requires different approaches. There's not a one size fits all approach, but with a few brief workshops with the team and some coaching, remote teams can smash their goals. This can usually be set up for success within 2-3 months of the right kind of help.

What is Team Coaching?Team coaching involves a collective approach aimed at enhancing the overall performance of a team. Unlike individual coaching, which concentrates on personal growth, team coaching focuses on the group as a cohesive unit.

Like it or not, many of us are responsible for selling and the best way to grow a book of business is to have a system to find, qualify, close and grow customers. From lawyers to consultants to entrepreneurs raising money, having a business development system will make things easier and that goes for any customer-facing roles.

The wine from Petersons started flowing and breakout groups listed out the biggest pros and cons of fractional sales roles (and any fractional role, in fact) and lessons learned for increasing the likelihood of having a successful part-time hire.

Getting sales teams to convert from being transactional to consultative continues to be one of the biggest challenges organizations face, especially with the ongoing pivot towards subscription, or platform-based, models. Organizations who fail to make this transition stand to lose big time. According to Saleforce’s annual State of Sales Report, 79% of business buyers agree, it’s easier than ever to take my business elsewhere. Yet at the same time, 78% of business buyers seek a trusted advisor that adds value to their business, not just a salesperson.

The business world has gone global, but leadership training programs have not. Many leadership resources overlook the challenge of applying their teachings globally. Traditional management models assume a universal approach, but anyone working across diverse regions knows that what succeeds in one place can fail somewhere else. Today, startups all the way to large enterprises interact with employees, partners and customers around the world and this is where a new approach to leadership training comes in.

Leadership courses that do not adequately address cross-cultural competence fall short in preparing individuals for international and global roles. And there are more of these roles today than ever before. This shortcoming results in significant challenges and missed opportunities in growing business overseas.

Has this ever happened? An employee comes to you with a problem, say a client is asking for something outside of the project scope, and you think, here we go again. Immediately you respond, "don't worry, I'll handle it." You do this because you have a ton of things to do and solving the problem yourself is the fastest way to fix the situation.

Today with higher employee turnover and seemingly constant change, the topic of preparing future leaders can seem daunting. But it can be easier to manage than many think. Here is the first critical areas where next generation leadership initiatives fail or even fail to start...

Lead gen is a mess. Always has been. Today it’s fractured, complicated and maddening but this kind of chaos also creates opportunities for those willing to think differently and experiment.

Everyone who interacts with customers needs sales skills, but it doesn’t mean they need sales training. Let’s talk about Hannah.

In the world of sales, training is often seen as the key to unlocking performance excellence. And while that's true to some extent, there's a missing piece of the puzzle that can elevate sales training initiatives from good to extraordinary. That missing piece is a clear team purpose.

Lead nurturing tends to get complicated fast and there are plenty of marketers who will tell you that you need to build a comprehensive buyer's journey that covers the intricate experience each prospect takes. But not every business is ready for complex lead nurturing. Here's what companies need to crawl before they walk.

Channel sales and marketing has more moving pieces and it's harder to get accurate data than marketing and selling directly. This means that the need for strong channel managers is critical. Below is an overview of how The Channel Institute trains channel marketers to help them deliver successful and repeatable partner marketing programs. We call this framework: P.A.C.K.A.G.E.S.

Business partners are not all created equally. MANY partner programs fail to take this into account with programs that assume all partners have similar skills sets, goals and marketing and sales teams. One of the foundational modules we cover in our channel training programs is called the Partner Growth Matrix. The chart is shown above, and the big idea here is that this framework helps channel managers understand the key traits and skills partners possess at each stage of their development.

The moment marketing hands a lead over to a sales team is the ultimate test of collaboration between these two historically warring tribes. When things go wrong, millions of dollars of sales pipelines fail to materialize. Getting it right is holy grail of sales and marketing team collaboration, but it requires facing difficult truths and re-inventing sales and marketing roles. Consider this statistic: On average, only around 27% of B2B leads are actually qualified, according to a recent report by MarketingSherpa.

A recent WSJ piece on the topic of Office Outsourcing has reignited the globalization debate. The headline pretty nails it: Next Wave of Remote Work Is About Outsourcing Jobs Overseas. Most of the conversations are about the politics of globalization, but for many of us, that (cargo) ship sailed a long time ago. The real story is what happens once a global team is in place? What are the challenges or hiring and managing international remote teams? If done wrong, hiring overseas with the goal of saving money can be one of the most expensive decisions a company can make.

Companies should consider revising their messaging to better promote their services to prospects. An easy way for marketers (and salespeople) to make this change is by reviewing the long-standing 4Ps of marketing by adding 3 more Ps into this marketing pool.

How does a company continue to run globally while consolidating locally?

SaaS companies are no longer growing a billion percent per quarter which means we're doomed! As analysts predict how many layoffs it will take to keep Wall Street bonuses flowing and stop these stocks from going the way of crypto, all "as a Service" companies should take a breath and focus on how they can retain their customers. To do this, we need to actually pay attention to Customer Success teams. So, let's talk about how to help customer-facing teams improve client retention.

This post looks at a company who replaced their sales and marketing team and focused on building a community of prospects, customers and partners. Is this the future of B2B Sales?

Developing effective global teams is hard work. Reduced travel makes this harder, especially when it comes to developing and maintaining strong working relationships. This case study looks at a team development framework and how it helps fix a dysfunctional global team. Who better to lead us through these challenging times then our old friend and team building expert, Mr. Axel. DOWNLOAD THE CHAPTER HERE

The business world continues to shift from a product-driven environment to a services-driven environment (SaaS, PaaS...anything "as a Service"(aaS)), but customer-facing reps have not changed how they engage with their customers, and this results in lower close rates and higher churn.

Teams who have a clear and compelling purpose perform better while experiencing lower employee turnover. Any sales leader should seriously consider their team's purpose when looking to improve performance. Energized sales teams spread positive energy to clients. Being excited about what one sells is contagious. Forget the company purpose, focus on the team. This, I believe with all my skeptical heart.

It’s much easier to sell stuff when markets are hot and companies have cash to spend. As the legendary Warren Buffett allegedly said, “only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.”Here are a few important ideas for making sure you are ready for when the tide goes out. And be warned, that water is cold 😉

Working remotely makes companies nervous. Many of us have been doing it for decades, but it is still new, and new approaches towards working suggest risk. Companies want the opposite; they want to find ways to de-risk.

When it comes to growing globally there is an old saying that a business should standardize wherever it can and localize wherever it must. Below is a simple, but important framework teams can use to help you get there. While this approach can be used across any line of business, I have focused on sales teams in this example. With remote work and digitalization of business accelerating, deciding what to standardize versus localize can make the difference between conquering markets and going home empty handed.

Teammates are working far, far away, characters frequently catch up via video (ok, hologram) calls, data security is nightmare, Chewbacca doesn’t wear pants and everyone wears masks. So here are 8 lessons Star Wars can teach us about working in a hybrid / remote world…(Star Wars geeks only, please)

Here is the first lesson for managing people across cultures: don’t be a seagull. Seagulls are those big awkward birds that fly in from out of nowhere, they squawk a lot, and then fly away leaving behind a giant mess. Anyone who has worked for an international organisation has likely encountered a seagull manager.

Kyle Hegarty, Managing Director at Leadership Nomad (a division of TSL), wrote the book, “The Accidental Business Nomad,” about succeeding in business across cultures. Listen as he talks to me from Singapore and explains problems he encountered and recommendations for avoiding those mistakes. He talks about how to understand the deeper levels of language and why a prostitute wouldn’t take the translation job he offered!

While bosses say they want their people back face-to-face, employees want more flexibility deciding where they work, and this is leading to more businesses taking a middle path commonly called hybrid work. But this approach can be harder than bringing people back to the office or having them work fully remote. Welcome to the complicated world of hybrid work.

This course—with global leadership expert Kyle Hagerty—provides the core foundations needed to create a customized overseas expansion plan. Each lesson is complete with real-world examples to highlight how you can make the most of your overseas growth.

An excellent #recommendedreading list from an even more amazing person Kathrin Bussmann, Ph.D.& her #globalbrand: https://lnkd.in/drQGErt#Verbaccino, #TheWorldlyMarketer, #DigitalFirst, #thinkglobal, #contentstrategy, #globalbusiness, #globalmarketing, #globalmindset, #CQ, #brandleadership

New competition plus tougher markets for startups means that VCs need to evolve or face extinction.

Ultimate Active Listening is designed to confirm that everyone is aligned and clear on what was discussed and the next steps. It is especially useful in remote teams where it is harder to informally check in on progress. It is also helpful in cross-cultural teams where there may be language difficulties. Use Ultimate Active Listening at the end of each call as away to drive clarity, prevent misunderstandings and confirm next steps. Here is how to do it.

Guest blog by Kyle Hegarty, Author of The Accidental Business Nomad: A Survival Guide for Working Across a Shrinking Planet. The most common mistake sales people make when selling into different parts of the world is that they sell the way they are used to in their home country. A company out of India who had a solid track record of sales success within India wrestled with this as they began to selling into the US.I was asked to look into what was going on. What I ended up doing was listening rather than looking because the problem was based on what the sales reps were saying and how they were saying it. Standard phrases in India would sometimes put foreign prospects off.

Recurring revenue with a bundle. Walla, it’s a rundle. What I was specifically wondering: does a rundle work the same way overseas? Is it repeatable globally?

Over the years I have put together a few tools to help business nomads as they go global. I call it The Global Survival Kit. To wrap up this book, I’d like to present some of the key ideas and tools I recommend packing into your Global Survival Kit. Many of the origins of these tools came from the people I’ve met and situations I’ve been through. And hopefully it won’t surprise you that it is constantly changing and adapting. Enjoy!

Due to Covid-19, Hegarty argues, globalization has just accelerated rapidly and these skills are needed now more than ever while Americans face entirely new challenges of doing business digitally at an unprecedented rate with cultures around the world.

Ever heard of a slapdragon? No, not the mythical beast - it's a particular breed of culturally ignorant, egotistical leader who sees local culture as an afterthought, if at all. Along with the infamous seagull, slapdragons are out there, mucking up business opportunities for global organizations. I learned about slapdragons and more from Kyle Hegarty in my latest podcast episode. Listen in for Kyle's hilarious and relatable take on global business as we discuss his fantastic new book, The Accidental Business Nomad and more.

Thank you Kyle Hegarty, author of The Accidental Business Nomad: A Survival Guide for Working Across a Shrinking Planet - who got us to better understand zigging and zagging as it relates to global team #leadership. Equal thanks to Gary Covert and Monique Daigneault, Executive Coach for completing our globinar discussion for executives yesterday... with plenty of insights, tips and timely case studies.

This virtual session looks at how call centers can adapt to international clients and end users. How do you train customer service reps to adapt to different communication styles?

Burnout is an invisible enemy. Here are some ideas to stay ahead of this growing threat.

Kyle sits down with Chris to discuss his new book as well as how companies are finding growth opportunities in new markets.

Has the COVID19 pandemic actually accelerated globalization? Catch my latest chat w/ @LeadershipNomad about his new book, "The Accidental Business Nomad: A Survival Guide for Working Across a Shrinking Planet." Listen here.

Whether you’re in the early stages of growing your team in APAC, or you’re ready to scale your efforts, successful global businesses have a deep understanding of the expectations of their international employees, and how to build a personalized, yet scalable employee experience that’s culturally relevant for their team members in their local region

This is a quick 7 minute radio interview where we discussed fun topics including why Americans can be confusing in overseas business settings.

Check out my recent episode on the Know Pain, Know Gain podcast with Jay Rooke. What is one thing you wish you knew before stepping into an overseas environment? Tune in as @JayRooke and @LeadershipNomad discuss this helpful stack of information to help you get through your new venture.

The Accidental Business Nomad goes on sale across North America tomorrow!

Enter for a chance to win 1 of 5 copies of The Accidental Business Nomad!

We are living and working in a shrinking world. Technology has allowed us to blur international lines and make connection and collaboration easier than ever. How we listen and understand our remote colleagues can hinder or propel us to our business success.

While overcoming language barriers, cultural nuances, different working styles, and logistics across a large geography can be overwhelming, the results are often just the opposite – reps struggle to prioritize their time, fail to learn key cultural nuances that could make them more effective, and miss targets they should be crushing. And because there’s no formal training about cross-cultural communications for sales teams, this topic is often overlooked by even experienced sales leaders.

Where will you be after this virus passes?Triathlons are my hobby. Training keeps me sane and I’ve got a tribe of fellow crazies who agree. We got together over the weekend to commiserate recent race cancellations and ended up drinking too much. It turned out in our altered states we agreed to sign up for a full Ironman distance race in June of 2021, fifteen months away.

This year Singapore began implementing major changes to their education curriculum by shifting the emphasis away from standardised tests towards building critical thinking skills. This is a smart move, but it will take years for the effects to benefit organisations who need these “future skills” today. Companies can’t wait that long.In today’s hyper-evolving workplace, employees no longer need to know textbook answers, they need to know how to ask the right questions.

My guest this episode is Kyle Hegarty, Singapore-based entrepreneur with an expertise in sales training and development. For years Kyle has worked with multinational and Asia-based sales teams and culled from this experience a treasure-trove of tales on what it takes to do business in this part of the world. His new book, soon to be released, is titled, The Accidental Business Nomad: A Survival Guide for Working Across A Shrinking Planet.

How to Work with Local Marketing Teams in APAC to Build a Global Brand

A simple idea global teams can learn from cross-border information sharing networks.

People might be shipping fewer items globally, but they are shipping more data and ideas than ever before. Trade, in other words, has gone digital and this is something that is harder to measure than how many containers pass through a port. Globalisation is not dying, it is shifting from products to services.

Kyle Hegarty joins the Business Blast Podcast to share some unconventional global leadership ideas that can help drive success when doing business in foreign markets. https://anchor.fm/businessblast/episodes/Kyle-Hegarty-Cross-Cultural-Teams-e2mger/a-a70qvd

This 3 minute mini-podcast take you behind the data of American communication styles and how to drive clarity when working with teams overseas.

This case study looks at how the Lufthansa Systems, in partnership with Leadership Nomad, created and delivered a world-wide intercultural communications program.

What can happen when one team member doesn't speak up? Here is a 3 minute story of how one global team lost out on one of the biggest opportunities of all time.

This 4 minute webinar looks at how one company saved a million dollar a year client by using culture data to fix a rather unusual misunderstanding. The story may sound strange but cross cultural miscommunication issues like this happen daily and cost companies fortunes. Here's how to avoid them!

Greg Getty loves his spreadsheets. Spending twelve years within sales teams, he routinely hit his targets by staying disciplined and organized compared to his colleagues. It wasn’t surprising that he rose up the ranks within several tech firms and found himself as the VP of Sales and, when the company expanded overseas, his role went global. It was at this point where something went wrong.

Singapore’s 2018 Budget includes a new Enterprise Development Grant (EDG) designed to help firms internationalise. This is welcome news, but with today’s growing climate of global protectionism and fragmentation, it will take more than grants and tax breaks to help firms navigate overseas expansion in this post-globalisation era.

The Year of the Dog begins this week which means, among other things, this is the season when western companies fall over themselves by slapping zodiac animals on their products in hopes of appealing to Chinese consumers. Gucci dog purse, anyone? At the same time, digital payments in China continue to accelerate. Last year, the Chinese New Year tradition of ‘hong bao’ – where cash-filled red envelopes are given as gifts – saw 46 billion electronic transfers. Yes, billion.

Overseas business deals are part of the global landscape but often bring serious unintended disruption. Just ask Cardiff City, where foreign investment caused their soccer team to turn from blue to red. What happened in this Welsh town is a story about the challenges of investing abroad as well as the growing trend of Asian investment finding its way west.

How do you find sales people when the APAC region is so competitive? Is it a mistake to bring in your sales team from another country? How important is it to hire local? In this podcast, Kyle Hegarty, from Leadership Nomad answers the most pressing sales team questions when it comes to growing across Asia.

Congratulations! You’ve just been promoted. The company wants to take all that great work you’ve done with your team and repeat the success at the global level. You’ve got good instincts, you’re a “people person” and have a proven track record of getting results.

Selling across cultures requires a revised set of sales skills. Traditional sales processes including sales stages and how pipelines are measured may need to be reconsidered and adjusted. Sales methodologies – your approach and philosophy to working with prospects and clients – also may need to be adjusted based on different markets around the world.

This is Part 1 of a 2-part Globig Podcast Series about sales strategy and what you need to know about the Asia Pacific market. Globig’s guest is Kyle Hegarty.

Published in the Straights Times, this article explores the key lessons learned from global companies struggling to adapt in this new power-sharing environment.

One of the quintessential Disney rides from several of their parks is “It’s a small world.” As Disney continues its expansion overseas with new theme parks, movies, educational programs and all-other-things Disney, the company continues to provide a great on-going case study for how brands wrestle with the challenges of a world packed with different local and regional preferences and tastes. In many cases, it turns out it’s not such a small world after all.

Companies both large and small have global footprints in ways few imagined even one or two decades ago. While the geopolitical conversations across the world today are shifting towards what Singapore Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat called a more “inward-looking mood,” with Brexit and Trump’s populism, the business environment continues to globalize. Many businesses need to be global in both operations and mindsets in order to stay ahead of the competition and even survive.

In their attempt to break into the Chinese market, Victoria’s Secret seems to have been caught with their pants down. Their most recent fashion show in Paris last December was intended to win over Chinese shoppers as the company is in the process of opening their first stores on the mainland. But critics saw things differently. The Global Times called Victoria’s Secret “the latest international brand to rub Chinese consumers the wrong way with ill-conceived Chinese-inspired elements in its designs.”

For most of his big assignments away from Head Quarters (HQ), Leroy Chiao says communicating back to the main office back in Texas was one of his biggest challenges. He specialized in leading elite teams and they worked in remote locations far, far away from their organization’s hub. Communication was tough. The team back home didn’t always seem to understand the local environment where Chiao and his team had been sent.

Angela Merkel really doesn’t like Multiculturalism. As far back in 2010 she declared the idea a failure. Ever since, she’s argued against it. “Multiculturalism leads to parallel societies, and therefore multiculturalism remains a grand delusion,” she’s said in her direct, German way.

Congratulations! You’ve just been promoted. The company wants to take all that great work you’ve done with your team and repeat the success at the global level. You’ve got good instincts, you’re a ‘people person’ and have a proven track record of getting results.

A frazzled commuter talks into her headset during her morning commute. Her colleague on the other side of the world is standing outside a bar, desperately trying to hide the fact that he’s had a few cocktails. It’s 9pm where he is and he’s wobbling around the sidewalk keeping a respectful distance from the other people on phones doing the same thing. These two are waiting for their partner in London who’s running late from a lunch meeting.

Leaders of foreign companies are sweating more than usual here in equatorial Singapore. The country’s Ministry of Manpower (M.O.M.) has been turning up the heat, demanding firms massively increase their local hires for senior management positions. Regulations are coming, they warn. More foreign hires will no longer be allowed.

I once sat through a lecture where the teacher explained that people only retain about 20% of what they hear from a class. I can’t remember the rest of his talk, so his story checks out. One of the biggest headaches sales leaders face is how to get sales training to stick with their sales reps. After making real investments in sales training, it’s frustrating to watch 80% of the material vanish after your team walks out of the classroom.

Here in Singapore, you often hear these comments from business leaders: “I walked on to my sales floor and could hear crickets chirping.” Or, “I thought I was in the accounting department it was so quiet.” Whatever the remark, the point is the same: A noiseless sales team means people aren’t selling. You don’t need a fancy business degree to know this means trouble.

Companies with sales teams both big and small should have a sales methodology – a system sales reps follow in order to win deals. There’s a lot of options out there. Some of the bigger, more widely used, methodologies include SPIN Selling, Bosworth’s Solution Selling, Miller-Heiman’s Conceptual Selling, or Sandler.

Years ago I found myself having drinks with former President of a large Hollywood movie studio. I was way out of my league and did what you’d expect, I drank too much and pitched him a movie idea that was partially made up on the spot. I wanted to bring the biggest names in Hollywood, China and Bollywood together in one epic global romantic comedy designed to appeal to billions of moviegoers around the world.

Are you a moron or is your extended family a bunch of idiots? It turns out insults can tell a lot about where people come from. And, believe it or not, global insult patterns can be applied towards strengthening multi-national teams and even deciding what to sell and where to sell it. Really.