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For over 200 years the US Constitution has served as the system of fundamental laws and principles of our society. This amazing document has served as the cornerstone of our democracy. A reflection of our Founding Fathers’ core values, the Constitution has kept our society on track since 1787, and has certainly contributed significantly to the growth and success of the United States.

What is the Constitution of your sales team?

Have you, as yet, identified and communicated your cornerstone? If I was to ask five of your salespeople to describe to me what is expected of them in areas other than sales results would I receive five different answers?

The Production Equation: B+A=R.

Behavior plus activities equals sales results. Or, another way of saying this is that every successful sale is the outcome of a series of behaviors (how something is done) as well as activities (how many times a behavior is performed).

A customer’s opinion about an organization is largely based on the people that he deals with. For the organization, this is the ultimate salesperson. It is the salesperson’s job to build and enhance a customer’s opinion of the company. Therefore, the success or the failure of any organization rests largely on the effectiveness of the salesperson.

Customer servicing, and adding a personal touch, is now a growing trend. As a result, there has been an increase in “face time” with clients, and the focus is largely on servicing the client. With an increasing number of metrics available to measure the outcome, sales management is definitely changing. Furthermore, globalization poses as a challenge, when it comes to understanding how cultural elements influence business behavior.

“Face Time”- the Key to Long-Lasting Success  Read more...

So you want to improve your sales team’s performance.

There are so many places to try and squeeze additional performance improvements out of your team. The question is…where do you start?

Do you start with better tools like Sales Force Automation (SFA) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM)? Maybe implementing opportunity, account, and territory management methodologies would work. How about improving sales skills? You could train them in value/relationship/consultative/collaborative/strategic selling or negotiation. The truth is if your company is weak in any of these areas you could experience improved performance by addressing them head on.

I can hear some of you groaning already. I know you invested thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement new tools, processes, methods, and training before, but it didn’t stick or you got marginal returns on investments.

Sales Productivity Secret #1  Read more...

At first glance, an interim sales manager may seem like a strange concept. After all, “sales” is a constant, “business as usual” function within any organisation.

However, over recent years, the concept of an interim sales manager has emerged. Specifically interim sales managers are increasingly seen as a flexible and appropriate solution in the following three business situations:

1) Stop Gaps

2) Start-ups

3) Special Projects

This article looks at each of these three situations and explores how an interim sales manager can add immediate value.

Stop Gaps

Many companies can find themselves in positions where they have a short-term requirement to plug a gap in their sales function. Typical scenarios include long-term illness, maternity leave and any type of sudden unplanned crisis.

 Read more...

Plan and prioritize your time! was the first instruction ever given to me by my very first sales manager. He was ex army and I was fresh out of

university.

I had a whole lot of enthusiasm and not much else. He had the experience, though maybe not the best coaching skills.

I laugh now about how bad I was. I can honestly say planning was one of the best and most productive skills I ever learnt.

Time management and organization are like evergreen trees- they never lose their importance and are frequently discussed topics in managing a sales team.

With the economy the way it is it is so easy to panic and run around,trying to do every thing. Where as, if you take time to sit down and really think about what you want to achieve, your focus and results can’t help but happen.  Read more...

We limit ourselves when it comes to selling and business development. Here is another story from my networking association meeting the other night.  This article can help you or your people overcome self limiting sales beliefs and develop more business faster.

 

Back to the two ladies I talked about in my previous story, after I asked my favorite question.  “So ladies, what are your major issues as it relates to business development during this economic down time,” here is what happened.

I started giving my suggestions about what they could do about the low price issue (see previous story.)  As I’m talking, one lady is sort of listening as the other is checking out all the other people to see if there is someone better that she can network to.  As people walk by she actually starts talking to them as I’m talking and then comes back to my golden nuggets of selling wisdoms.  Obviously she wasn’t interested in hearing what she could to do about her issue.  The other paid a little closer attention, but then wanted to tell me why the customer was wrong.  Basically, without words, she told me she was going to continue doing it her way.

Product Description
Management of a Sales Force is the best selling text in the sales management market, with a reputation for blending leading-edge research and student-friendly writing better than any other book. The 12th edition has been thoroughly revised to reflect all the changes that affect the sales manager’s role, from the increasing globalization of business to savvier customers who now use the internet to research their purchasing decisions. All chapters have been updated with current company examples that demonstrate how the best sales executives are adapting to these and other new challenges. In addition, the latest sales management research studies and reports are presented in a straightforward, easy-to-read manner, making Management of A Sales Force, 12e, by far the most current sales management textbook on the market.

Management of a Sales Force

Company’s used to as a matter of course promote the best sales person to the position of sales manager/ coach purely on the basis of their own results and not on their ability to coach and mentor their peers, thankfully this practise in most cases has ceased.

Below I have listed some of the criteria I believe to be important if you are to become a successful sales coach, these are the methods I have used personally very successfully over a number of years

CREDIBILITY

It is important that a sales coach has credibility with those he or she is mentoring.

That means they need to have walked the walk before they can talk the talk. They must have a successful sale background not necessarily have been the best but certainly in the top 10 % of achievers. This may sound contradictory to my previous statement, there is a lot more to being a successful sales coach than being a successful sales person, but you must have a score on the board before you can convince others to follow you.  Read more...

Product Description
“Sales Force Management, 9e” remains the most definitive text in the field today. Mark Johnston and Greg Marshall team up to maintain the quality and integrity of earlier editions while also breaking new ground with relevant new content for the changing field. The familiar framework of this text – from which instructors love to teach – remains the same while relevant, real-world student learning tools and up-to-date sales management theory and application have been added. The framework has been developed to portray sales managers’ activities as three interrelated, sequential processes, each of which influences the various determinants of salesperson performance.The three interrelated parts of the framework, formulation of a sales program, implementation of the sales program, and evaluation and control of the sales program, remain consistent and highly relevant in the 9th edition. This edition integrates new, innovative learning tools and the latest in sales management theory and practice.  Read more...

Yes, I said it, some sales managers are idiots.

I know, I work with field sales professionals all the time and deal with the problems that sales managers cause.

Look at the really smart companies whose sales managers are always successful, they do it right, IBM, P&G, Xerox. We all bought their books and training programs, but few of us actually implemented what they taught us.

I guess the companies simply expected the sales force to improve without good sales management! Sales training does not relieve a company of management responsibility.

Two things that sales management does wrong continually are no goal setting and the wrong skills training.

First, establish goals and then a reward system based on those goals. That sounds simple, but most companies don’t do it. They say “we need to increase the number of new customers this year. So go out and get more customers.” That’s it, no reward system for achievement, no consequences for failure. And, that is not really a goal!!  Read more...