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sales force Tagged Articles
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9th of the Top 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions
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| #9 - STRATEGY
Strategy comes in several forms and is required in different dosages depending on the position. For example, a line level sales manager may be more concerned with call strategy while a Worldwide VP Sales may be more concerned with market strategy. At the VP level, strategy is far more important than tactics while at the sales manager level, tactics are more important than strategy. |
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10th of the Top 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions
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| Sales managers tend to be very challenged in the area of tactics. There are two varieties of sales managers...more |
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Lance Armstrong's Metrics Applied to the Sale Force Equals Results
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| Recently, I completed Lance Armstrong's 2001 book on how he became a champion cyclist, was diagnosed with Cancer, beat the cancer, and then returned to become the greatest cyclist in the world. It was an inspiring, fast-reading book. While this won't come as a surprise to my cyclist friends, I was quite surprised to learn how metric-intensive competitive cycling is. |
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Sales 2.0 Competencies, Changes, Myths
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| There has been much talk about Sales 2.0 yet most sales experts can't agree on exactly what it is. But before we can even discuss Sales 2.0, I must confess that most companies have yet to get on board with good old Sales 1.x! Most companies are still selling without formalized sales processes, effective strategies and effective tactics. Most companies still have their salespeople show up, present, demo, quote and wait for the business. |
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Ultimate Comparison of Top Salespeople to Salespeople Who Fail
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| If you've been following this Blog you know I sometimes refer to the elite 5% of salespeople, the next 20% and the bottom 74%. After reading Super Freakonomics I was moved to take a new look at our data on the more than 400,000 salespeople we have assessed. Behavioral scientists would look at our data on the top 5% and report on some common findings. It might look like this... |
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Top 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions - What's Missing?
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| I also didn't include sales training or sales management training in those 10 sales management functions for generally the same reasons. Those are competencies best left to outside experts. Sales Managers can learn to coach - and it takes a long time to develop the ability to do it effectively - but |
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Are Sales Cycles Really Getting Shorter?
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| I read an article that claimed that winning sales cycles are getting shorter.
While I agree with everything else in the article, I questioned the 23% shorter because our substantial data does not support this claim. So where could the discrepancy be?
Let's start with the author's statement, "from qualify to close has reduced by a little more than 23%". |
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Your Sales and Sales Management Questions Answered
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| In an article last week, I provided the post to a sales competency contest. The final question in that survey asked the participants for any sales issues they needed help with. Today I'll answer the first four of those questions below: |
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Missing Sales Research and Sales Superstars
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| I read this article on the Best-Kept Secrets of Sales Research.
First, I wouldn't call this sales research as much as market intelligence.
Second, I wouldn't exactly call this stuff secretive. |
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Manage Your Sales Force
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| Many CEO's/owners do not feel that they understand the sales process, so they hire salespeople and do not manage them. They just tell them, "Don't just stand there, sell something". Does this ever work? Probably not. Do not fall for the old idea that you must be a sales expert to manage the sales process. |
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Defining Moments in Your Sales Cycle
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| What are some of the more subtle, but important, key moments in your sales process that affect every sales outcome?
If I were to review some recent conversations with clients and their salespeople, crucial accomplishments included:
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What is Maximum Effort on the Sales Force?
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| You've observed salespeople who were focused, efficient and effective for months at a time. Very few distractions, good balance of new opportunities and closable opportunities, and everything moved along as it should, driven by these great salespeople. And when they perform like this for long stretches at a time, that is maximum effort. |
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Can the Beatles Help You Close Big Deals?
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| Back in the 60's, three companies were competing for attention. But they weren't retailers, manufacturers or service providers. Despite that, they had features and benefits that caused people to follow and buy from them. Some people didn't care for any of the three and bought from alternative sources. Some preferred just one or the other. And some bought from all three. They were the big winners of their day. Who were they? Try The Beatles, The Beach Boys and The Rolling Stones. Check out the following table which, if they were traditional sellers, could have been used to tout their features and benefits. |
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When, How and Why Salespeople Discount Products and Services
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| When I pick up the dogs, Heather gives me the bill. When it's $140, I pay, she gets the dogs for me, and we leave. However, when the bill is $800, Heather gets really uncomfortable, and begins editing the invoice and always seems to get it under $650. Nice, right? Only if you're a customer. If you're Bob, the owner, who has no clue she is doing this, what must it be like for him? |
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Sales Success Secrets from Beyond the Grave
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| I have included some very controversial material in this article so I'll start with the easy stuff and finish with the material you may not want to read. I have some insights from three totally unrelated books as well as an unrelated article that I had a chance to read last week. I found common themes that relate directly to sales and sales management success. |
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Something Old and Something New - Apply Both for Sales Success
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| The phrase "something old and something new," which is often heard while brides are getting married, can be applied to using social media tools successfully. Many companies jump on the new idea band wagon, often discarding old ideas and methodologies that still produce results. Let's take a look at two ways you should combine new social media with good 'ole fashioned sales principles. |
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12 Questions Critical to Achieving Sales Plans
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| As we sat down with CEOs at the beginning of the year it became obvious that most organizations have "dreams" instead of "goals." The difference between a "dream" and a "goal" is an action plan. |
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Do I Have What It Takes to Succeed in Sales?
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| This article outlines the attributes and characteristics of successful sales people. If you want to achieve success in sales, you should have some or all of these attributes. |
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What Sales Leaders Don't Know about Ego and Empathy
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| Empathy and Ego are both a lot like food - you can't have too much of it or it will make you sick. And if you don't have enough of it you'll be weak. They are really best plotted on bell curves, not bar graphs! |
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Do you have the sales force your strategy needs?
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| The other week I ran a webinar on ‘How to clearly manage and measure your sales team’. During the webinar I was asked many questions, one of which came from a senior sales leader, “With some time to reflect over the Christmas break, what is the one thing I should focus on getting right for my business?” |
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Prediction for Your Company's Sales Force in 2011
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| Sales development not sales training! |
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Stop Assuming And Start Asking
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| The mistake that is most common throughout the sales industry is that, sale consultants think they know what their clients want rather than ask. By asking the right questions you will not only uncover your clients buying strategy but most importantly find out if you can deliver on what they are looking for.
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Hire On Attitude Not Skill
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| It seems as though every year that passes by; the process of hiring quality sales people is becoming more and more expensive. Recruitment fees are increasing by the year, and the resources required to train new recruits can sometimes cost thousands of dollars. This is why hiring the right sales person is absolutely critical to the success of any business. |
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How To Discover What Truly Drives Salespeople
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| Finding and keeping quality salespeople is not the easiest task for any company. Before you hire any new staff you need to first discover what motivates sales people to succeed within your organisation so that you can ensure their intentions are aligned to your company. |
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The Sales Phobia That Kills Bottom Line
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| When it comes to closing a sale the most important ingredient is being comfortable in taking the order. Too many sales people get nervous or are fearful that the customer will say no. What’s the point of being in sales if you’re not comfortable in taking the order? |
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The Single Most Important Trait Within Salespeople
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| It’s surprising that there are so many sales people these days selling products without first building rapport. They are missing the first and most important step required when selling a product or service which is costing organisations heavily, with the loss of revenue and decrease in repeat business. |
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How to Hire and Keep a Motivated Sales Force
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| Organizations depend upon sales to survive. Hiring a keeping a motivated sales force is a coveted achievement. Learn four tips that will improve the quality of your hire and your ability to keep them. |
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Little League and the Sales Force - It's More Than Trophies
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| The positive and negative attributes of "giving trophies to everyone." How should you reward your sales force? |
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Resolving A Conflict Between Two Sales Staffs
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| How do you get two competing groups to work together as a team? Here is a case study of salespeople on the road and a telemarketing group within the same company that just discovered they were both talking to the same customers. How did anger and recrimination turn into cooperation and partnership? |
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Sales Training
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| You may think that some people are just natural born salespeople, and often times that could be the case. But, for the most part, it is training that makes the difference between a sales star and an average or below performer. So, how can your company create a training program that is able to maximize the potential of your sales force? Keep reading for some of the top sales training tips. |
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Sales Force
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| So, your recruitment team has been working around the clock to ensure your company has the best and the brightest salespeople on board. But now what? How do you ensure that your new recruits will continue to invest their full talents and energies into your companies? How do you keep your sales force motivated and passionate about working for you? While different people will be motivated by different things, there are some commonalities that you can look to. From personal experience, here are some tips I have learned. |
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Sales Manager
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| Whether you are selling a kitchen blender, carpet-cleaning services, or cutting edge computer software, the personality traits you need to possess as a sales manager are the same. And, if you do not already have them, it is important to start cultivating them now. As the team leader, it is your characteristics and attitude that will be infused throughout the rest of the workers. What are they? |
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Get Your Sales Force to Perform Magic and Make Sales Appear!
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| I just finished a great novel called Law of Nines. A traveler from another world visits Earth in hopes of saving her own world. They have no technology where she comes from but they do have magic. Alex, the main character, just can't wrap his hands around the magic. Jax, the alien, tries to help. She said, "that little black thing you talk to where messages appear - in our world, that would be magic but we would do it without the black thing. That box that brings you up and down in a building - to me that's magic. Those enclosed carriages without horses to make them travel? Magic."
Neither world could live without what they have but they simply have different names for them.
We don't talk about it much but sales has a lot of magic to it. |
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Before Your Company Hires a Sales Leader...
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| Everyone has a plan.
Some plans are better than others because they contain all or most of the necessary steps and sequence them in an appropriate order. Most plans have gaps where steps should be and the sequence doesn't lend itself to success.
One area where we see this occur repeatedly is when companies are about to hire a Sales VP or Director AND |
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Collaboration & Team Building for Sales Force Management Growth
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| Collaboration & Team Building: Adding Value to Your Employees |
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Dropping the Ball
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| CEOs must take a more active role in the marketing of their business. More money is spent in this function without a thorough understanding of how or why B2B marketing really works than in any other business function. If the job of marketing is to create a strong environment for a sale to take place, then the CEO ought to be involved in the marketing process to give direction and guidelines that align with the corporate vision. Those CEOs who choose to ignore the complexities of marketing are dropping the ball. |
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10 Steps To Successful Sales Training!
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| In this article you will learn 10 steps to successful sales training. To find out more read on...... |
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How To Build A TurboCharged Sales Force
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| This article describes the proven steps that are required to build a salesforce that consistently "hits the numbers" and takes the company to a leadership position in its industry. |
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How To Build A TurboCharged Sales Force
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| This article describes the proven steps that are required to build a salesforce that consistently "hits the numbers" and takes the company to a leadership position in its industry. |
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Part 5: Marketing and Sales Strategies
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| Marketing is the process of creating customers, and customers are the lifeblood of your business. In this section, the first thing you want to do is define your marketing strategy. There is no single way to approach a marketing strategy; your strategy should be part of an ongoing self-evaluation process and unique to your company. However, there are steps you can follow which will help you think through the strategy you would like to use. |
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Other sales force Related Articles
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InHouse versus OutSourced Sales Force Which Is Best for Your Business
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| In building a sales force for your business, you have a critical choice: Hire a traditional sales force of employee-salespeople or out-source your sales to a network of manufacturers’ representatives. Which option will produce the best results for your business? |
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Does Your Sales Force Need Training?
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| Sales training will never do any sales force any harm, but when is a sales force truly in need of immediate or specialized training? There are early indicators you need to watch out for. |
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Managing Sales Activity for Success
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| Now that we have our sales force in place, it’s time to manage them. To be blunt, most company owners (and/or sales managers) do this incorrectly. Too often in sales, the only feedback given to salespeople ties to their results. Certainly, results are important, and they are ultimately the measurement of achievement. Unfortunately, results are not something that can be managed. Results are history – they have already happened. Activity is what is happening, or what is about to happen. Clearly, then, activity becomes the manageable part of the sales force.
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"Everyone knows Sales Force Incentives Dramatically Increase Sales"
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| Sales force incentives are a vital part of business and one of the best reasons is that they work. This is one of the few motivators that can rev up a sales force for pennies on the dollar. However it has to be well designed and executed to reap the full benefits and get the most out of your sales force. |
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Sales Success vs. Sales Productivity: Are They the Same?
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| Everybody wants their sales force to be successful. But is “sales success” enough? Is a “successful” sales force the same thing as a “productive” sales force? Not necessarily. Find out if your team is “leaking” productivity today, operating with inefficiencies that cost time, money and competitive advantage. |
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Cultural Differences with Sales Force Evaluation
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| I was in New Orleans speaking at the Gazelles Coaches Summit, a prelude to the Fortune Magazine Sales Summit. I was asked a question about cultural differences with the Sales Force Evaluation: Is the lack of Money Motivation on an entire sales force in Ireland a cultural difference? |
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Create your ‘Ideal’ sales force blueprint
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| Now is the time to rethink your sales strategy and your sales force. Design the sales force your business needs and get great results. To help you start your thinking and planning here are two case studies from our work files where the businesses got it right. |
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Establishing an Outside Sales Force
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| This can be a daunting task for someone wishing to distribute a product. Enough cannot be said about the importance of establishing an outside sales force when it is used as a marketing tool for your product or service. There are a couple of options available to help you on your way though, and maybe a general understanding of how these things can operate will help you on your way. An outside sales force that is managed and operated by you is an exciting and challenging proposition. Qualified individuals for your outside sales force would have to show a proven track record.. |
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Optimize Your Sales Force Without Spending a Dime
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| Enter to Win a Free Sales Force Makeover!
This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a company that wants to grow more quickly....
If you can state your case effetively than anyone else, your company could win a Sales Force MakeOver worth between $100,000 - $250,000!
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What's a professional sales person?
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| I often hear my clients lament that they wish they had a more professional sales force. That idea of a "professional sales force" gets a lot of conversation in sales management and sales executive circles. But what exactly does it mean? And why is it a good thing?
Here's one person's opinion.
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