I’ve been to my share of good and bad sales kick-offs. While the intention was usually pure, too often the design of these events were flawed. Now as a consultant, I continued to hear the horror stories of failed SKOs. Budgets were through the roof, but the sessions didn’t achieve…...
Top 21 Sales Management Books
How many books do you read each month? How about in a year? Maybe you feel like there’s no time for a “luxury” like reading. Or maybe it’s just never been your thing. I’m here to tell you, there is and it should be. “If I have seen further it…...
Breaking the Sales Coaching Dilemma: Four keys to jumpstart your coaching efforts and overcome sales leaders’ greatest blindspot – | The
A recent study of more than 800 front line sales reps and sales leaders highlights a disturbing trend in sales management. While organizations are making ever greater investment in technologies and operational processes to improve performance, sales reps are citing Training and Development as being one of their greatest challenges…...
What Percentage of Sales Managers Have the Necessary Coaching Skills? –
I am often asked to explain what we look for when we evaluate Sales Managers. At this point, most experts agree that a good Sales Manager will spend half of their time coaching up the salespeople. Recently, I was asked to share some statistics about sales management coaching – the…...
The Definition of Sales Management – What’s Missing
The state of sales management in many companies is disturbing. Consider these stats from our Top-Performing Sales Organization study:66% of companies do not believe their sales managers have the skills needed to manage and coach sellers. Elite performers are 2.4x more likely to agree that sales managers and leaders are…...
Are First-Line Sales Managers In Danger Of Extinction?
The sales landscape has changed dramatically over the past decade as modern and empowered buyers, new technologies and competitive pressures forge new realities. This confluence of factors has imperiled various sales roles, creating adapt-to-survive imperatives.For example, nearly three years ago, Forrester Research predicted (registration required) the impending death of the B2B salesman…...
Are You Missing This Powerful Selling Skill?
Sales organizations invest thousands of dollars in sales training every year. They offer such programs as lead generation, asking effective questions, negotiation, and account management.There’s good news and bad news when it comes to training. The good news is that the company is investing in its sales team’s professional development.…...
The Checklist Every Sales Person Should Ace Before Being Promoted
It’s no secret. Often times the best sales people do not make for the best sales coaches, yet sales departments continue to promote their top performers into coaching roles.Personally, I believe this happens for 3 reasons. (1) It is how it has always been done. (2) It's easy and convenient.…...
Sales Coaching 101: How to Help Your Sales Representatives Succeed
Strong sales coaching is critical for sales success. Research shows that sales representatives who receive effective coaching can increase their win rate by 54% within a year and a half of starting a coaching program. Furthermore, overall turnover can decrease by 12% simply by implementing good coaching.But despite the benefits of…...
The 7 Bad Actors on Every Sales Team & How to Manage Them
Conventional wisdom states that there are 7 types of sales reps that often exist in many mid-market or enterprise-level sales teams. No matter how big your sales team, you'll probably recognize many of these bad actors, and especially their bad behavior.Use the tips below to avoid or manage these…...
The World’s Most Dysfunctional Sales Team
Building a world-class sales team doesn’t sound that hard, until you realize how many things can go wrong.From hiring to lead gen to sales forecasting, it’s easy for your team to get tripped up and fall into a pattern of bad habits and costly mistakes.Compare your team’s performance to the…...
Sales Management: The Ultimate Guide
Even the most talented, hard-working, persistent salespeople only bring in so much revenue. They’re limited by their time. With a set number of selling hours in the day, a great rep can sell twice as much as an average performer -- probably no more.But a great sales manager? They can…...
Aligning Functions for Enablement
Sales Enablement can be defined as getting the right content, in the right hands, at the right time, with the right message to further the right sales opportunity. A lot of right’s, right? At face value, this seems like a straightforward task. Have a Sales Enablement charter. Build the right sales plays and…...
Product Over Price: How To Beat “Your Prices Are Too High” | Ian Altman | Sales Gravy Articles
I promise that it is almost NEVER about price. But, if it is, here is what probably went wrong. You jumped to what you were selling instead of focusing on the issue they needed to solve. You failed to engage the customer in a discussion about their past…...
Accelerating Your Deal Velocity: Are You Driving a ’79 Civic?
My first car was a used 1979 Honda Civic. Five-speed manual. Cracked dashboard. Brown. She was a beauty. At 60 horsepower, there was no possibility of burning rubber. Yet, my mother relentlessly warned about the dangers of driving too fast: “Speed kills, young man!”In modern sales, it’s the opposite. Deal…...
How to Choose Between Personality Tests and Sales Assessments
Finding good salespeople is one of the biggest challenges that sales VPs face today.Most sales managers find themselves stuck in a never-ending quest to hire quality salespeople that will help grow the company to new levels.And, as you gain more hiring experience, chances are you are learning that the standard…...
