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Salespeople: What Works - Commission or Retainer
One of our coaching clients asked for some thoughts on structuring rewards for their sales people, and the following notes arose from our thinking on the subject. On reflection, even though it's just an outline, I thought it may be relevant to some of you, so here you go:

Emotion Generates Momentum
Positive emotion is the basic building block of creating momentum within yourself and your organization. Positive emotion will create positive motion.

Increasing Sales Teams' Productivity
Sales people may appear to be busy but they may not be bringing in the desired results. Here are some tips to help them.
Sales Team Transformation thru Coaching
When the performance of the sales team takes a sharp dip, what is the Sales Manager supposed to do? Shall he try coaching or some other intervention methods, before things worsen? Find out from this article!
6 Proven Strategies For Sales Managers
Do you know why most sales managers aren't exceptional? Well, because they do the same things that ordinary sales managers do. Here are 6 proven strategies that will separate you from the pack.

How fit is your sales team?
Earlier this year we had the opportunity to put a client’s field sales force through our Sales Fitness Circuit to test their sales fitness. The Sales Fitness Circuit is designed to reinforce and continue the process of learning from our Sales Communication Training. The Sales Communication competencies (skills, knowledge and mindset) covered in the initial training is put to the test through a series of exercises. The aim is to embed the learning from the training as a way of life in the sales team’s actions and thinking.
Are you ready for the phenomenon of Social Sales?
Arguably, social media is contributing to the democratisation of information and, armed with this information, customers will demand different things from sales people and companies. Customers are tuning into online communities, blogs, forums, and social networks to gather information and make buying decisions. For instance, the retail car market is undergoing significant changes with customers firmly in the driver’s seat. With the emergence of the information age consumers have far more knowledge about what to buy and where to buy it. On the whole, customers are doing their research, checking with their networks and peers groups, reading or viewing the latest comments online, and have potentially even made a buying decision before they step into a store. This is fast becoming the norm in car sales.
Why Sales Managers need to work on the business, not just in the business
Playing “catch up” is a common challenge for organisations of all sizes. Whether you have enjoyed a period of rapid growth and prosperity, or encountered some unexpected obstacles or losses, with little warning, businesses can discover that their decision making and activity has become very reactive. Too much time is spent putting out spot fires and reacting to situations, while too little time is spent on pro-active and strategic activities. The very real and legitimate day to day business pressures result in many (if not most) decisions being made on an ad-hoc basis, with each one disconnected from the next.

Is internal competition eating away at your sales results?
Many sales cultures are traditionally based on respect for authority, status and success, and encouraging competitive, challenging and achievement-oriented atmospheres. Although this is not true for all businesses, especially in the 21st Century! There are a growing number of businesses adopting more collegiate, lead team approaches. However, despite different types of cultures, sales performance and results are usually derived from the efforts of individuals. Harnessing those individual efforts to achieve synergy (the sum is greater than its individual parts) is a key task of management, yet so many get it wrong. Let’s take a look at one case study and see why.
It's Always Sunny...in the Workplace
Sales reps can enhance performance after learning from tv characters that run an unsuccessful business...It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is probably one of the funniest shows on television. For those who have never seen an episode, you should change that. It is a show about a gang of friends that own an unsuccessful bar in Philly...
Mistakes Most CEO's and Managers Make When Hiring Salespeople
It cannot be denied that many CEO's, sales managers and HR folks make mistakes when hiring salespeople. In fact, the industry average yields only about a 20% success rate. This is understandable as finding and choosing suitable individuals is not an exact science... at least that's what most people in charge of hiring salespeople believe. If you want to ensure that you hire the best salespeople for your sales team, read about some mistakes commonly made. Perhaps if you can familiarize yourself with the mistakes made by countless HR departments, sales managers and CEO's, you should stand a better chance of taking onboard the best possible candidates.
The real $ value of role playing
Tell almost any sales person they are going to participate in role plays as part of their sales training and you will hear a collective groan. In short most sales people hate role playing. It is often seen as a form of potential embarrassment, or something stilted and false. Many people feel self conscious and don’t want to look ‘bad’ in front of their peers. It doesn’t help either that over 90% of all sales people follow no logical processes when selling.
How can we learn from our best sales performers?
How do we get the rest of our sales team learning from our top performers? Should we get our top sales performer in front of our sales team to teach them how to be more effective? Well that all depends… * How well does that top sales performer understand how and why they sell well? * Can they articulate what they do in a step by step process? * Can they teach to the others in a simple and meaningful way? * Do they want to teach others?
How much training should I give my sales team?
Highly effective sales people and teams do not happen by chance. A study by Aberdeen Group (2009) of 8,500 top performing companies with a turnover in excess of $50 million, showed that the highest performing of these in each of their industries provided their sales teams with no less than 8 days of focussed sales training per year, and this did not include product training.
The Yin Yang of Selling
In the 20th century the emphasis on B2B selling had a distinct aggressive ring to it. So much so, that you could walk down the halls of many businesses and think that you were involved in big game hunting. Many of these teams saw selling as an extreme sport, or more precisely, Big Game Fishing or Hunting. * Customers were ‘Targets’. * Getting a sale was referred to as ‘the Kill’. * Customers were regarded as objects to be possessed or trophies to be placed in their cabinet.
H.U.G. Your Sales Reps
Do you hug your salespeople? Hugs are actually the little things you do for your sales team.
Stop Assuming And Start Asking
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.

Hire On Attitude Not Skill
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.
How To Discover What Truly Drives Salespeople
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.

Sales Coaching: For Entrepreneurs – Part 1
This article examines deterrents to coaching and de-mystifies the coaching process by providing ideas and tools that help create a coaching culture for generating a high ROI.
The Sales Phobia That Kills Bottom Line
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?

The Single Most Important Trait Within Salespeople
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.
Every Sales Assessment Tells a Story - This is Fred's
Our assessments allow us to see the story behind every over and under performer you have on your sales team.

6 Tips for Setting Better Client Expectations
As an experienced business consultant I see issues with client expectations all the time. Businesses don't want to say ‘no' to customers during the sales process. They don't want to tell a new potential customer the truth about how long, how difficult or how costly it will be to achieve the desired result. They want to say ‘yes' and get the new customer to say ‘yes' so they overpromise. Somewhere down the road, your customer will question the promises you made and start to wonder why their expectations haven't been met. The natural reaction to losing clients is to assume the problem was with them-they didn't give you enough time or enough budget and they wanted the world in return, right?
Sales Training
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.

Sales Training Tip – How To Retain Top Sales People
Keeping your sales staff is a tough job as there doesn’t seem to be any loyalty any more. Read this article for tips on how to retain your best sales staff!
Sales Training Tip – How To Retain Top Sales People
Keeping your sales staff is a tough job as there doesn’t seem to be any loyalty any more. Read this article for tips on how to retain your best sales staff!
Assembly a Successful Sales Team
Does your company's success depend on the performance of your sales team? Take a close look at those on the front line. Do you believe that you have the people on board who can take you where you need to go in 2012?
Common Time Wasters of Sales Professionals
Sometimes it’s procrastination that steals the dollars out of your pocket, but sometimes it’s a false perception of what works. Here are some common time wasters, and a testing tool to make sure you don’t get caught out spending your precious time fruitlessly ever again.
Common Time Wasters of Sales Professionals
Sometimes it’s procrastination that steals the dollars out of your pocket, but sometimes it’s a false perception of what works. Here are some common time wasters, and a testing tool to make sure you don’t get caught out spending your precious time fruitlessly ever again.
Sales Management 101: How You Manage Your Sales Action Team
You may not be managing your sales team right now but you should still know the basics of sales management at the least. Your sales force is what brings profit into the company, so it’s important that you keep an eye on it even if you hire sales managers to call the shots. Sales management is what makes or breaks your business. Your sales staff depends on management support so they can be productive. This calls for an organized, creative and attentive management team to define the proper direction of the sales team. They both work as one, and there is no other way around it.
Where are you going in your sales career?
What drives you, drives your sales. Do you have a clear mission and purpose defined for your sales career? Do you have a clear path defined to become better at what you do in serving and selling your customers?
The 8020 Rule Fallacy In Sales
The 80/20 rule in sales organizations dies hard. You’ll need to work diligently and hard to eliminate it and then even harder to keep it from resurfacing.

Dropping the Ball
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.
Sales is a Flawed Model
Until or unless buyers have all of the change management issues covered, they will not buy, regardless of the match between your solution and their need: they are doing ‘well-enough’, and if they could have resolved the issue, they would have already. Add Buying Facilitation® to your tool kit, and increase your productivity.

Other sales team Related Articles

Sales Training for the B2B Sales Team
Sales training for B2B sales professionals can streamline sales activity to allow your B2B sales reps more time to invest in profitable, revenue-producing leads. Sales training for a B2B sales team will also provide your team with the skills they need to successfully present themselves and your company to complex prospects.

Sales Process: Repeat Success and Avoid Failure
Good sales people are naturals. They just get on with the job, their customers love them and they keep bringing home the bacon. But what is it that they are doing right? Do you know? Can you pass on those lessons to other members in the team? If you can get the whole sales team to consistently follow best practices, your sales revenue will increase dramatically.
What Is the Most Effective Quality Within Your Sales Team?
Sales has always been a team effort even if you are one person team because your potential customer (a.k.a. as prospect) is also a member of your team. If you could identify the qualities of an effective sales team, what would you consider those to be?
Qualities of an Effective Sales Team
In sports, there is an old adage, “There is no ‘I’ in team”. This statement is especially true in a sales team. How do you take a group of individuals and make them a cohesive, productive, and thriving sales team?
The C Factor!
Assembling a 'dream team' sales force is not as difficult as you may first think. I've known of businesses reaching great heights through the salesmanship of only a few sales-guns! Before creating a 'dream team' you need to have at least one exceptional salesperson you can model. Someone has to go there first! Whether this person is the company founder, (if sales savvy,) or a senior leader, there must be a working best-practice sales-process you can model and replicate. Once you have a high performing salesperson to model; their core characteristics, behaviours, and activities, then form the blueprint (DNA) of your 'dream team'. Keeping in-mind, that it's ok to have varying personalities in the same team, this enables your team to demonstrate versatility and engage a diverse customer base. You don't need to 'literally' clone sales

Team Effort
Because many sales people are hired for their independent skills, some of them have no interest in the concept of team selling. But little do these people know that a team effort can help sustain relationships, especially with customers who are willing to commit themselves to one supplier, in exchange for a team of experts ready to meet their needs. By having a selling team, you can bring high ticket sales into the organization. If you are considering the team selling approach, you can begin by following these guidelines:
Sales Growth Teams Drive Revenue
Achieving ever-increasing revenue targets requires that new recruits and average performers are equipped with the right tools, resources, training, and knowledge. Establishing a Sales Growth Team can help you transfer sales & marketing Best Practices from your top performers to those who need them most. Use Demand Metric’s downloadable Sales Growth Team Charter template to set a mandate for this new team.
Sales Leader’s Job in Perspective
Sales leaders must recognize their role within the context of the sales organization. They have to remove their personal attachment to the sales team, and approach sales from a business perspective. This creates clarity and helps them focus on their main objectives as team leaders: Increasing revenue and encouraging the growth of their sales team.
The REAL Secrets to Sales Management Motivation
Motivating your sales team is just one aspect of the job of a sales manager, but it is all encompassing in that it also includes all of the other things that you do as a sales manager. Sales managers are not only coaching and leading, but there should also be an undercurrent of motivation in everything and anything that you do. And be acutely aware that every interaction that you have and every message that you send has to have an undercurrent of motivation associated with it in order to keep your sales people at peak performance, especially in today’s economy when sales are tougher to get, it is very important to have a highly motivated sales team to push you towards your goals as a sales manager and towards the goals of the organization.
Sales Management 101: How You Manage Your Sales Action Team
You may not be managing your sales team right now but you should still know the basics of sales management at the least. Your sales force is what brings profit into the company, so it’s important that you keep an eye on it even if you hire sales managers to call the shots. Sales management is what makes or breaks your business. Your sales staff depends on management support so they can be productive. This calls for an organized, creative and attentive management team to define the proper direction of the sales team. They both work as one, and there is no other way around it.
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