Coaching “symptoms” instead of underlying causes does more harm than good. Accurate diagnosis of a performance problem means looking for the common threads, then applying a bit of detective work to consider: Is this a skill problem? If so, teach. Is this a willingness/motivation problem? If so, help the rep understand the reasons why they … Read full article
A common mistake sales managers make in sales training, is to give salespeople a laundry list of things they need to improve upon. However, most salespeople only have the capacity to improve one or two things at any given time. You don’t want to overwhelm them because you may hurt their self confidence – not … Read full article
Companies interested in increasing the professionalism and productivity of their sales force often select a sales training program to solve this need. This decision, however, places the cart before the horse. The success of a company’s sales training initiative is absolutely affected, both positively and negatively, by the company’s sales managers’ ability and commitment to … Read full article
Is your sales team lagging well behind where they should be? You’ve no doubt heard the saying, “success breeds success.” Unfortunately, the reverse is also true: failure can breed failure. Here are some specifics about how you can turn around a lagging sales team. Even if your team is doing fairly well, you’re bound to … Read full article
Webster’s defines the word solution as “the answer to a problem.” So why is it that so many sales organizations fervently believe that they are the “preferred solutions provider” in their marketplace, but their sales proposal document makes no mention whatsoever of the customer’s problems and issues? How can we call ourselves solutions providers if … Read full article
Paul Nutt, author of Why Decisions Fail, studied 400 decisions made by senior executives in medium and large businesses. Decisions studied include Disney’s EuroDisney failure, various components of the Denver International Airport construction, etc. Nutt’s research found that fully half of the decisions had failed. A decision “failure” was defined as a decision that either … Read full article
Is your sales team performing far below potential? Mine was. As a first-time sales manager many years ago, my office ranked dead-last out of 64 offices. We had ten salespeople, nine of whom had less than one year of sales experience with our company and were performing far below standards. The lone exception was Norm, … Read full article
Sales Results = What you do? + How you do it? First, let’s look at how you sell relates to the care you show the customer during the sales cycle. Since customer care is now a commodity, how you do things is no longer a source of differentiation. That leaves what you do on each … Read full article
I have a book published by Harvard Business Review titled Business Classics: Fifteen Key Concepts for Managerial Success. The book contains the 15 articles in HBR’s history that have sold the most reprints. One article, published in 1964, was titled, “What Makes a Good Salesman,” by David Mayer and Herbert Greenberg. The author’s research found … Read full article
In my book, “Getting Into Your Customer’s Head, I describe the “buy-learning” process customers go through when making an organizational buying decision. But don’t for a minute think that your customer is doing a good job of buying. According to studies referenced in the leadership book, For Your Improvement: A Guide for Development and Coaching, … Read full article