Posts by Adam Boyd
Most Sales Teams Are Racing With The Parking Brake On
NOTES FROM NORTHWOOD You know that scene in Armageddon where Bruce Willis is looking at NASA’s version of his drill? He’s just grabbing parts and throwing them aside like “what is this… we don’t need this… what is this?” That’s your sales process. I’ve worked with over 150 sales organizations, and here’s what I see…
Read MoreWhy Everyone’s Looking at the Wrong End of the Grill
NOTES FROM NORTHWOOD You know what I love about Texas pitmasters? Everyone thinks their secret is in some magical sauce recipe passed down through generations. But watch a real pitmaster work. They’ll spend 14 hours smoking a brisket, and maybe 30 seconds applying sauce at the end. The real work happens before anything hits the…
Read MoreWhat Josh Heupel taught me about sales
NOTES FROM NORTHWOOD When Josh Heupel arrived at Tennessee in 2021, he inherited a program that had been struggling for over a decade. Players, fans, and even some coaches were skeptical of yet another “system” change. After all, they’d seen multiple coaches come and go, each promising their approach would be different. But Heupel did…
Read MoreThe $50M Lesson from Narcos: Mexico
NOTES FROM NORTHWOOD There’s a scene in Narcos: Mexico where Félix Gallardo gathers all the independent drug lords in a room. His pitch is compelling: “We’re stronger together than apart. One federation. Shared resources. Coordinated territories. Everyone makes more money.” The logic was sound. Each group had their own strengths, their own connections, their own…
Read MoreThe Tennessee Problem (And Why Your Sales Training Isn’t Working)
NOTES FROM NORTHWOOD Living in Texas, it’s painful when everyone talks about UT and it’s not Knoxville. But as a long suffering Vols fan, I’ve watched the same cycle for 15 years: Butch Jones, Derek Dooley, Lane Kiffin, Jeremy Pruitt… hire a coach, expect immediate results, get frustrated when it doesn’t happen, fire the coach,…
Read MoreWhy Every Manager Needs a Coach (Even Lane Kiffin)
NOTES FROM NORTHWOOD Last fall, Lane Kiffin’s Ole Miss Rebels handed Georgia their first regular season loss in 42 games. The morning after the win, Kiffin did something that caught my attention. He praised his coaching staff. Not himself. Not his game plan. Not even his star quarterback. His coaches. The same man who once…
Read MoreNorthwood Group Acquires Trinity Training & Development, Expanding Professional Development Offerings
Austin, TX- May 14, 2025 – Trinity Training & Development, a nationally recognized leader in professional development and training services, announced today that it has been acquired by Northwood Group, led by Adam P. Boyd, expanding its capacity to deliver comprehensive leadership and sales training solutions. The acquisition, finalized in March 2025, brings together Trinity’s…
Read MoreYour Presentation Is Killing Your Conversion Rate
A year ago, I was working with a professional services firm in a competitive industry in a competitive market. The people who were talking (ahem, “selling”) to potential clients were well-educated practitioners, not traditional salespeople. They did a fabulous job telling potential clients about their expertise, how they’d handle the problem, and what they could…
Read More3 Lessons On Talent from College Football, Week 2
It’s officially football season, which means you may be getting a dose of analogies and metaphors involving the 85 scholarship limit, cover 2, the veer and shoot, and the SEC in Birmingham, not Washington D.C. To get this fall going, let’s extract some lessons from Saturday’s games to help you develop your sales organization and…
Read MoreIs your sales pipeline lying to you?
Tell me if this sounds familiar. In management meetings, sales say something like, “We have a great pipeline, with over X number of qualified opportunities, totaling 5x what we need to hit our number.” It sounds like some good math, right? But when you inspect it, it turns out that there are only about 8…
Read More