The best Sales Managers turn failures into teaching lessons. A failure is a failure only when we don’t learn from it. When people make mistakes, encourage them to share their experiences in order to help others avoid similar problems. This can be a great motivational tool because you focus on learning rather than assigning blame. … Read full article
Listen to others. Listening shows respect… that people and their ideas are important to you. When people know you’re willing to listen, they will share their ideas as well as their frustrations. Listening enables you to build trust, which is essential for creating an elite, high-performance team. Clarify your expectations. Meet with your individual sales … Read full article
Get in the habit of inviting team members to challenge your ideas. Encourage them to constructively (and positively) criticize your plans. Make it okay for people to disagree with you. This lets people know you value their input, and ensures that implemented ideas will be well thought out. By giving your sales people permission to … Read full article
Sales Management Leadership Seminar: July 14-15, 2010 Does your company have one or two sales managers who would benefit by learning new skills to develop an elite, hi-performance sales team? Just nine seats are still available for our next open enrollment Sales Management Leadership workshop at the Peppermill Hotel in Reno, Nevada. This session will … Read full article
A similar questioning track can help you, the sales coach, diagnose sales skill deficiencies. For example, you could debrief a rep’s first meeting with a prospective customer by asking the salesperson: What problems does that customer have that we can solve? Why is the customer experiencing these problems? What will happen to the customer if … Read full article
Most sales managers coach too fast. When coaching, we don’t help sales people find their own answers. Managing a sales team is a much different set of skills than selling, but in at least one respect, the same skills which helped you become a great salesperson can, when applied, help you become a more effective … Read full article
Cure questions help you identify your prospects’ expectations of value. In other words, is the solution you offer, and its associated cost, worthwhile in the prospects’ mind? Have you demonstrated need and built sufficient discontent within the prospect to justify the cure? Examples of Cure Questions: Suppose you could (fill-in-the-blank). What would that enable you … Read full article
Here’s a common scenario being played out in hundreds of corporate offices every day. A salesperson suffers a bad month, so in swoops the sales manager. The necessary sales training and encouragement is given and voila! – the sales rep is sent back out to reverse their fortunes. But is this what the top 1% … Read full article
At TopLine Leadership, our coaching model actually is in the form, in the acronym, the word coach: C-O-A-C-H. At the center of the process is Commitment. It’s commitment both on the sales manager’s part and also on the sales person’s part as well. That’s the center focus. If we don’t have commitment on both ends, … Read full article
What are your Sales Coaching strengths? Areas to improve? There’s something I want you to do: define what your sales coaching strengths are, and what coaching areas should you improve? Next, I want you to tell one other person in your organization, two of your coaching strengths, two things that you do really well. One … Read full article