Kevin F. Davis

The executive sales team at a start-up company recently challenged my contention that sales managers should be spending as much (if not more) time on developmental coaching as they do on account management. But the critical piece of information missing from this logic is that developmental coaching is the best way to drive revenue growth.

Every time I ask a group of sales managers what their single biggest challenge is, at least half say “time management.” But the truth is that mastering the art of multitasking isn’t necessarily something to be proud of.

There aren’t many companies today that sell a commodity, where price is the sole basis for a purchasing decision, or that have such a unique offering that they can name their own price. That means most of us fall into the arena where the way we sell and how closely we connect with a customer will play a big role in whether that customer decides to purchase from us.

I’ve discovered in recent years that it’s not enough for me to ask sales managers if they are coaching their team. Everyone answers “yes”— though most admit they’d like to have time to do more! But then when I probe further, I find that their understanding of “coaching” and my understanding are vastly different.

In the six months since my newest book was published, I’ve received a lot of questions about why the title refers to “greatness” (as in The Sales Manager’s Guide to Greatness). The genesis of the title came from my own personal experience and my observations of thousands of sales managers. All of us were, at … Read full article

An interviewer recently asked me to imagine that I’d just been hired as the Director of Sales at a company whose sales have stalled out, and the sales reps were demotivated. The CEO, naturally, is anxious to hit the reset button, to get things back on track as quickly as possible. “Your first week on … Read full article

In an exercise I conduct in all of my sales management workshops, I have sales managers identify the coaching needs of one of their sales reps. Almost everyone has an easy time writing down specific ideas for what the rep could do to improve. Then I ask them, “How many of you have already communicated … Read full article

Several months after attending one of my sales coaching workshops, a VP of Sales told me that one important takeaway she’d gotten was that she tended to be overly trusting of others. I was a little taken aback since I talk a lot about the importance of sales managers having trust and being trustworthy (here, … Read full article

Andy Paul, the host of the sales improvement podcast Accelerate!, reminded me in a recent interview about how sales managers are constantly being told to “improve the productivity of their sales team” through sales coaching. Then he asked me whether that improvement should start with the individual salespeople or with the sales manager. My answer … Read full article

Not long after I became a sales manager, I inherited a second team from a manager who was “de-hired” as the saying now goes. On this inherited team, there was one rep who was a chronic underperformer, never reaching quota and seemingly not very interested in improving. Every month, I’d think to myself, “Will he … Read full article