📖 New Release · 2026 · LEARNIT PRESS
Becoming A Sales Leader of Influence
Most revenue problems don’t start in the pipeline. They start in leadership. In stalled decisions. In unclear standards. In conversations that never happen.
This is the book for sales leaders and CEOs under pressure who want clarity, momentum, and predictable revenue – without losing their soul, diluting their spine, or outsourcing their judgment.
the Field
The Difference Between Leaders Who Plateau and Those Who Create Lasting Impact Is Not Strategy.
It is influence. And influence is not something you acquire – it is something you choose. Again and again. In the moment between what happens and who you decide to be.
Under pressure, many capable sales leaders default to control, urgency, or activity – and unknowingly become the chokehold of their own organisation’s growth.
This book reveals the five choices that separate reactive sales management from true leadership influence – drawn from forty years inside one of the world’s most demanding commercial environments.
Three Things That Run Through Every Page.
Not chapters. Not frameworks. The spine of everything Bernadette has learned and lived over four decades.
Forty Years in the Field
From the offices of Rank Xerox in Melbourne in 1983 to navigating bankruptcy as a CEO to boardrooms of global corporations – lived experience, not theory. Every lesson earned.
Five Choices That Separate Leaders
Not competencies. Not skills. Choices – that every sales leader faces under pressure, and that determine whether revenue grows or stalls or is lost.
One Truth About Leadership
Beneath the strategy – one truth that took forty years to fully understand. Simple enough to remember. Powerful enough to change everything.
The Five Choices Every Sales Leader Must Face Under Pressure.
Each choice maps to a dimension of the Revenue Leader Of Influence™ system — and each one addresses a specific point where leadership behaviour either protects or costs you revenue.
Manage YOURSelf
Lead Under
Scrutiny
Every time you protect yourself or try to control something, you trade something more valuable. Showing up with congruency is a choice that impacts results and relationships.
Motivate Others
Lead Through
Decisions
Not just how you make decisions – but how your team makes decisions and how your buyers make decisions. Curiosity is a choice that can make or break your business.
Mentor the Team
Own Pipeline
Upstream
Role clarity upstream of the pipeline impacts revenue more than activity. Flush out purpose, wrong perceptions, priorities and standards. Accountability needs somewhere to start.
Mobilize the Business
Coach with
Conviction
Hold people to account with both kindness and conviction. The real choice is to coach in a way that builds commercial independence – not dependency.
Multiply Your Impact
Capture Your
Genius
Take your lived experience and leverage it through story, frameworks, and a point of view that is genuinely your creativity. To everyone else, it is your influence.
This Book Was Not Written in a Boardroom. It Was Forged in Life.
Bernadette began her career at Rank Xerox in Melbourne in 1983 – told three times she was “too nice,” “not aggressive enough,” and didn’t “have what it takes” for sales.
She asked anyway. All three times. And on the third, walked down the hallway as the full, undiluted version of herself – and got the job.
What followed was forty years of learning what leadership actually requires when things get hard. Not in theory. In territories and teams and hospital rooms and bankruptcy courts. On mainstages. In coaching sessions. With men in high-security prisons.
Every layer of the model in this book was earned. And it all comes down to a decision. Yours.
Rank Xerox, Melbourne
Told ‘too nice’ three times. Asked anyway. The seed of everything.
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
A second-hand bookshop. A seagull who flew higher. The scraps mindset vs. Deliberate Disruption™.
Illness, Bankruptcy, Rebuild
The family business didn’t survive. But she did. Four hundred metres to a small business expo. ‘I can do that.’
Tony Robbins, Harvard, Global Stages
Tony Robbins Master Coach (APAC). Harvard MBA mentor. Record-breaking performance at Unleash the Power Within. Speaking on stages across all continents, except Antartica. EB1 Green Card granted for being in the Top 1% in Sales Leadership globally (USCIS).
Six Suitcases to Colorado
Sold everything they owned distilled to what they could carry. One way ticket to the USA. Jonathan Livingston Seagull came too.
Becoming A Revenue Leader Of Influence
Forty years. Five choices. One truth. And it all comes down to a decision. Yours.
Written by the Man Who Watched Her Get Back Up.
The preface to this book was written by Tim McClelland – Bernadette’s husband. Not because it was a nice idea. Or because he is a Revenue Leader Of Influence himself. Because he was there.
He was there when the business didn’t survive. When she was in hospital. When he sat beside her bed every night after travelling all week, trying to keep things afloat.
He built her first website in a dark room for three months while she studied coaching. He was there for the stages, the travel, the move to the United States with six suitcases.
“This book isn’t theory. It’s lived. It’s forged from seasons that would have finished a lot of people.”
If you want to understand what Bernadette means when she talks about leading under pressure – start with the preface.
She lives what she teaches. Pushing through under pressure. Holding her values when it would be easier to give in. The influence she writes about didn’t come from talent alone. It came from decisions. Repeated choices. Especially when things were hard.”
Seven Books. Forty Years. One Consistent Voice.
Bernadette McClelland is a global keynote speaker, bestselling author, and sales leadership expert. Born in New Zealand, a citizen of Australia, now based in the United States.
She has secured million-dollar deals, mentored Harvard MBA students, and delivered a record-breaking performance at Tony Robbins’ Unleash the Power Within. She works with organisations including Nokia and American Express.
She also mentors incarcerated individuals inside Colorado’s maximum-security prison system – because she believes leadership behaviour matters most when circumstances are hardest.
She lives in Denver with Tim. Loves renovating old furniture. Proud Mum to Matt and Danni and Nanna B to Grace, Bonnie, Luna, and Jaeger.
Forty Years. Five Choices. One Decision. Yours.
Available now in paperback, hardcover, and digital. Order directly or through your preferred bookseller.
Bulk orders available for leadership teams, corporate events, and conference attendees. Contact Bernadette directly for pricing and signed copies.
📖
Paperback
Available on Amazon and direct
📱
Kindle / eBook
Available on Amazon Kindle
🎧
Audiobook
Coming soon
Signed copies
Order a personally signed copy direct from Bernadette — ideal for gifts, milestone events, or leadership onboarding.
Bulk orders for teams
Equip your entire leadership team. Bulk pricing available for 10+ copies — contact us directly for a quote.
Conference & event packs
The book as part of a keynote or workshop package. Ask about bundled speaker engagements.
Corporate gifting
A meaningful gift for clients, high-performers, or incoming leaders. Custom branding available.
The Book Sharpens Judgment. The Method Installs It.
Becoming A Revenue Leader Of Influence is where the ideas live. These are where they go to work.
🎯
Start Here
The Revenue Diagnostic
5 minutes. Identifies which of the 5 choices needs the most attention in your leadership right now.
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The Intensive
12-Week Cohort Programme
The complete Revenue Leader Of Influence™ Operating System embedded across all 5 choices – with a cohort of peers + direct access to Bernadette.
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Flagship
Fractional Sales Leadership
Bernadette embedded in your business. The five choices, installed across your team – not just read about in a book.