Category — Sales Management

Hiring successful sales people and sales managers requires a scientific process, not a resume and interview ritual.  You’ve probably been fooled many times from a great impression at the interview, and then the person didn’t cut it.  S/he either quit, got fired or worse yet, s/he is still with you under producing.  Well these mistakes can be avoided, along with all the lost customers and associated expenses for training, salary, etc., by using my recruiting process.

 

The Science of Sales Person Selection

 

There are certain elements present and/or absent and/or mixed in proportions that determine selling and sales management success.  (See the White Paper described at the end of this article).  So in order to hire super sales people companies must:  Measure the amounts of each element; determine what mixes and what doesn’t; decide what can be changed or improved in the time allotted to change it; analyze findings; Interview candidates that tested positive and make your selection. 

 

This science is 96% accurate for selecting successful sales people for any industry.  That’s better than 9 super sales people for every 10 you choose.  Selling success means the person is an over-achiever and/or a top producer on your selling team.    Think of all the sales people you’ve hired and determine how many of them stayed with you and turned out to be top producers.

 

Selling Success Is Not a Personality Score

 

I’ve been doing some prospecting lately and found that every CEO and Sale Manager I speak with has issues with their sales, but few want to do anything significantly different about their sales issues.  Sure they want everybody to do more, better and faster.  However this is the classic definition of insanity – doing the same thing and expecting different results. 

Managers don’t want to change.  They live in the hope it will get better, or they make excuses, or they use the work harder tactic.  Whipping your horse that feels he’s going all out doesn’t work, and feeding him high energy motivation doesn’t last.  It’s better to teach the horse a different gait (if he’s capable) and then maybe he can go faster, do better, and accomplish more. 

Here is the key to your success.  Your sales will grow only as fast as you grow.  In other words;

1. Do something different
   a. Have a different kind of meeting, phone conference or review.
   b. Read a book and deploy 2 ideas.  I recommend Take Me To Your Leaders.
   c. Hire someone to run a teleseminar with one specific topic and then discuss how all of you will implement it.  Majority rules.
   d. Analyze each sale and lost sale.  What worked?  What didn’t work?  Then reinforce what worked and start implementing the opposite of what didn’t.

Abstract

The paper discusses three sales management strategies that are currently used. Each of the strategy is analyzed in details. The entity advantages, disadvantages and practical application are discussed for each of the strategies.

Introduction

Nowadays the world economy becomes more and more complicated because it becomes more and more global. As a result this leads to the development of an unparalleled competitiveness. Naturally in such a situation it is extremely important for survival in the market to remain competitive that demands to use the most advanced technologies, including not only technical aspect but managerial as well. It means that a company that uses the most advanced and most effective management strategies can be more competitive and has more chances for success. It is especially important when the company deals with the sales management.
The sales management is one of the most significant part of any company’s work since it is due to sales management the company can finally sell its products or services to customers and the general success of the company greatly depends on the effectiveness of the sales management. Consequently, it is absolutely necessary to know well recent trends and strategies that are used nowadays by the most successful companies that would permit to realize what strategies are the most perspective what are their advantages and disadvantages and finally it would be possible to define what strategies may be used in the future or in what way the current strategies should be modified in order to be the most effective. In terms of this paper three sales management strategies would be basically analyzed and discussed. These strategies are: Establish a Never-Before Sales Quota, Establish and Build a Team Selling Program, Employ Advanced Prospecting Technologies.  Read more... (1528 words, estimated 6:07 mins reading time)

If sales managers taught their sales and support staffs to interview and listen, they would increase their territory sales tremendously.

 

I just read an interesting White Paper that said sales people are hindered cross-selling in existing accounts because they are out of their comfort zone. They are OK selling products / services they know well and avoid selling those they don’t know as well.

 

Now some of my clients argue that their sales people stick with one because they make more money vs. the other. I agree with both, but lean heavily towards this comfort zone observation.

 

Anyone who has been involved with my coaching knows that I strongly encourage prospecting extensively in existing accounts.  It is the easiest place to get more business and grow sales volume because you have contacts, credibility and access – if you choose to use them. 

 

However, sales management has to make this happen.  So if sales people are uncomfortable or don’t like the money they get from the cross-sell, what is an astute sales manager and profit-center leader to do?  I suggest “Effective Listening”.  Relieve the burden of promoting products / services and enforce the tasks of interviewing and listening for key words and phrases. 

 

 Read more... (950 words, estimated 3:48 mins reading time)

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).

Unfortunately, many of us sales managers try to manage results. We wait until a rep has a bad month before we decide to get involved in “coaching” them. So then, when a rep produces a bad month, we rush over and smother them in coaching trying and get their production back up quickly. Sales managers who try to manage results are like a driver of an automobile who only looks in the rear view mirror… chances are they will be surprised when they collide with something that is unexpected. Looking only in the rear view mirror is not an effective way to drive a car, but it happens to be the way that many sales managers drive their sales teams.