Transitioning Into Sales Management

When a company is ready to hire a new sales manager, the first place they look is usually the best salespeople on their existing sales teams. After all, the senior managers reason, those salespeople already know the products and the sales process and know how to sell them effectively. Why not put one of them in charge of the team?

On the salesperson's side, many view the change to sales management as a logical next step on the sales career path. If nothing else, it's flattering to be offered a promotion and it can be difficult to turn down. But those salespeople often fail to consider the complications that will arise from this change.

Sales Management: Preparing for 2013

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in another conference (14th of the year), they are always great times when you can hear other speakers, learn new ideas and meet new people. During the session I lead a panel discussion on “Killer Strategies for Prospecting” and I spoke separately on “Leveraging Your Business by Partnering”.  I thought I might simply highlight a few points from both sessions since there are pertinent for everyone as we move into 2013.

Panel Discussion

There were four panelists -all with real world experience in selling and marketing. We discussed a variety of topics, but specifically on the topic of what was marketing’s contribution/responsibility to growing the sales funnel vs what is expected from the sales team.   As you would expect there was a lot of give and take and great audience interaction on this topic.

What Success Is Not

Success isn’t easy. This is why a lot of people don’t achieve the level of success they desire.

Success isn’t fast. This is why many people quit too early.

Success isn’t certain. This is why many never begin.

12 Things Salespeople Would Like to Tell Their Sales Manager

If you’re wondering what salespeople would like to tell their sales manager, below are 12 things salespeople have shared with me.

Sales managers, read this list and ask yourself if any apply to you.  If you’re a salesperson reading this, you can agree with any or all, but in the end, don’t use any of them as an excuse as to why you can’t do something.  Great salespeople are able to find success no matter what is going on around them.

Don’t Own the Problem. Own the Solution

If You Argue FOR Your Problems …

At least twice a week, I have a conversation with a person or a team about a problem they’ve discovered with their business. Soon as I can I start asking questions about what makes the problem a problem and how we might unravel that knot to get things moving smoothly again.

What’s interesting is that most folks first want to convince me how terrible, awful, horribly huge and unsolvable the problem is. They want to dig deep into the details and issue and vent the emotions they’ve carried while the problem was tying itself up.

5 Secrets of Epic Motivators

Do you dream of motivating your people to be as engaged as you are? Stop wasting time with gimmicks that don’t last. Learn to develop a perpetually motivated team.

Business owners and managers across the globe are faced with the demand of maximizing their people’s productivity. They want to be inspiring and supportive–but time crunches, stress and bad habits unintentionally smother team morale instead.

Leaders often respond to their team’s sluggish performance by offering shiny trinkets as an incentive to anyone who can hit their goal for the week, or by bellowing from the center of the sales floor, “Come on team…you can do it! Just smile and dial…smile and dial!” Managers only do these things in an attempt to light a fire under their teams, but unfortunately the only matches they’re equipped with are the same old, soggy sticks of sparkless wood they inherited from their current boss or previous managers.  If you have ever managed anyone, or had the pleasure of being the recipient of this type of management style, you know how ineffective and unsustainable these tactics are.

Inside Sales Management - What Matters Now?

It's official! Our 2012 Inside Sales Metrics & Compensation Report is now available. This report is focused on the inside sales (closing business) model.

Our fourth report since 2007, this year we tried something a little different. We asked survey participants:

   How has managing inside sales changed in recent years?

Below, I've shared a few responses that really resonated with me.

The Seven Types of Managers: Which One Are You?

Determine Your Management Style

If you oversee a sales team, what's your management style? Do you inspire fear in your employees, or fierce loyalty? Are you preoccupied with making sure everyone is happy, or are you just looking out for number one?

Sales coach Keith Rosen explains the seven basic managerial types, including their strengths and weaknesses. Do you recognize yourself in these seven types of sales managers?

7 Signs There is a Cancer Growing in Your Sales Team

Is your sales team healthy?

Are they performing to the level you want them?

Is there a cancer growing within your team that you’re not aware of?

Do you have underlying issues within your team that is destroying productivity, creating turnover, and maybe even driving away existing clients?

Here are 7 signs that indicate you may have serious problems within your team:

Three Disciplines of Sales Management (A Note to the Sales Manager)

There are dozens of tasks and activities that dominate a sales manager’s day. There is no doubt that the sales manager’s job is one of the most difficult in business and there are hours of work each week just serving the sales organization. But there are three disciplines a sales manager absolutely must keep to succeed.

These three disciplines should take precedence over other work, and they should be treated as the sales manager’s real priorities.

Discipline 1: Ensuring a Healthy Pipeline

The End of Solution Sales

The Role of Sales Leadership & Management

Now what does that title mean to you? Recently I spoke at a major software vendor’s partner and client conference and a few weeks later I received an email from one of the attendee’s  suggesting I should comment in a future blog on the Harvard Business Review (July/August 2012) paper titled: The End of Solution Sales.  I put it in my to read file and as I fly to Hong Kong (16 hours) to lead a clients sales leadership workshop I pulled it out to read and contemplate. At 35,000 feet it woke me up.

Four Personality Types & Three Types of Salesperson

On several occasions quite recently, I have found myself discussing the work of Merrill and Reid with good chums and colleagues, so it seemed like a good topic for a post today, because it really is fascinating stuff, and I first discovered it almost twenty years ago ….

According to Merrill and Reid there are four personality types or social styles – Analyticals, Drivers, Expressives and Amiables – and all four have their own unique approach to business, their own language and thought processes etc. As a consequence, the very best sales professionals have become adept at recognizing which personality they are dealing with and adapt their approach and communication style accordingly.

7 Tips Selling with Power & Confidence

As women business owners, we get into business with the best of intentions because of a passion for what we love to do. Then we are faced with the facts that sales skills are an essential part of doing business and a critical part to staying in business. Selling with anxiety, uncertainty and fear will sabotage their efforts and keep women from reaching their business goals.

If You Don’t Understand the Importance of Empathy – You Are Probably On the Wrong Wavelength

“If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him you are his sincere friend.” Abraham Lincoln

I actually have a major problem with that statement now: It suggests that we are striving to be liked by the prospect before he/she will buy, and actually, all of that is a complete nonsense today. They may like you, but will they respect you in the morning?

Unfortunately, as I have said before, most salespeople assume that the opposite of “like” is “dislike” when in reality, the opposite is “ambivalence”

Why Your Sales Manager Wants You to Make More Calls

It’s true that there is a difference between efficiency and effectiveness. It’s also true that way too many sales managers demand efficiency because it’s easier than helping their salespeople improve their effectiveness. But just like all sales problems aren’t efficiency problems that need to be solved with more activity, not all sales problems are effectiveness problems either.

Sometimes the reason your sales manager wants you to make more calls is because you need to make more calls.

Building Your Sales Metric Management System In 4 Easy Steps

Thinking back to one of the great cult films of the 1980s…Caddyshack. There is a conversation between Ty Webb (Chevy Chase) and Judge Smails (Ted Knight) in the locker room after Ty has just finished a round of golf. Judge Smails asks Ty what he shot that day and Ty responds by telling the Judge that he doesn't keep score. Puzzled, Judge Smails says, "How do you measure yourself with other golfers?" Ty responds by saying, "By height."

Obviously, height doesn't tell you anything about a golfer's performance which is what makes the dialogue humorous. Yet, there is nothing funny about a sales organization that is using meaningless, arbitrary data to assess the performance of their sales team. Even worse is if the only number tracked, measured, and monitored is revenue quota attainment.

Time Management Tips for Sales Managers

The most frequent complaint of sales management is that there's never enough time to get everything done. Many sales managers work sixty or even seventy hours a week, yet their inboxes are always overflowing with urgent tasks. If this is your situation, you may need to work on how you prioritize your projects.

As a sales manager, the lion's share of your time should be spent managing your salespeople. This sounds obvious, yet sales managers often get caught up in other projects – whether it's an urgently needed report to the CEO, a series of meetings with company executives, or defining requirements for a new CRM platform. Most of these tasks are one-time events, but no sooner have you completed each project than the next project appears on your desk.

Sales Teams Are Only As Good As Their Sales Management Processes

Over the years of being in business, I’ve discovered a common strategy among consistently successful sales teams.  These sales teams thrive even in fluctuating market conditions.  What is their recipe for success?  Strong sales management processes.  Strong processes provide solid footing for a growth culture where sales people get better month after month after month.

So, an important area to evaluate when considering mergers and acquisitions is the sales management processes.  Here are some specific examples to analyze:

Searching for Excellence – 4 tips for improving your sales team’s success

The following four tips can help you to help your team improve their sales results, increase their revenues and exceed their sales targets.

Tip #1: Love the one you’re with.

Many companies invest far too much time chasing new customers, and far too little making sure their existing customers are happy.
Research tells us that selling to an existing customer is between five to fifteen times less expensive (and takes far less time) than acquiring a new customer. Why risk losing something you worked so hard to secure in the first place?

How to Beat Your Top Competitor – The Status Quo

5 strategies for being a change catalyst

Your customers and prospects are crazy busy. The last thing they want to do is change the way they do things. There might be a better way, but what they're doing works. Remember: change is always disruptive.

But your job is to make change happen, either with a new product, a process or an idea. How do you get frazzled people to stop for five minutes to hear about your magic solution?

Here are five strategies you can use to be a change catalyst.