salespeople

Why Many Top Salespeople Don’t Get Better

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A calendar with the words change your behavior written on it.

Whenever I ask sales managers to describe their approach to coaching their highest producers, they almost uniformly have the same answer: hands-off! They tell me: “I may get involved when a big deal is nearing to close, but otherwise if a peak producer is doing well, why would I want to mess with a good … Read full article

Getting Senior Salespeople to Use CRM

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A man sitting at his desk looking at the computer.


While seasoned salespeople are highly valued for their expertise, they can sometimes pose a challenge when it comes to change. Name any kind of change—in company structure, compensation, sales territories, product lines, ownership, etc.—and it’s likely that many seasoned salespeople hate it. It’s understandable to some degree. Successful salespeople have fine-tuned their techniques and are extremely reluctant to change anything about how they work.

It’s no wonder, then, that I often hear sales managers complain: “My seasoned salespeople haven’t yet bought in to using our company’s CRM system. What can I do about it?”

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5 Ways to Prevent Sales Reps from Saying “I Quit!”

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There is nothing more frustrating for a sales manager than to have a senior-tenured sales rep resign.

Many companies are coming to realize that the #1 reason why productive salespeople leave is because of their relationship with their sales manager. The decision sales reps make to quit your company doesn’t occur in an instant. When there is too little coaching from the sales manager and very little feedback (other than negative), a salesperson becomes gradually disengaged with what is going on. He or she perceives they are not growing and they begin to wonder if the grass may be greener somewhere else.

Here are five things sales managers can do to prevent sales rep attrition:

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Great Sales Coaches Help Reps Learn from a Lost Sale

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Nobody, no matter how good they are at selling, has a 100% win rate. That means all of us have to learn how to deal with losses. As a sales manager, your job is to help your team learn from these lost sales. A lost sale is a failure only when we, individually and as a team, don’t learn from it.

Having a positive attitude is especially important in the sales profession. And when a salesperson loses a big deal, it is easy for them to get down. That’s a normal human reaction. But if your salesperson stays down, that’s not good. And one way to help salespeople process their lost sales quicker is to teach them how to “look for the lesson” in every lost sale.

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How to Manage and Lead your Millennial Salesperson

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I often get asked about coaching millenials—the youngest members of the sales force (under age 34), who are the fastest growing segment in today’s workforce. While sweeping statements about an entire generation can never be 100% true for any individual, there are a few factors that do separate millennial salespeople from both Baby Boomers and … Read full article

4 Tips for Sales Coaching & Leadership

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Communicating clearly to your salespeople the specific behaviors and activities that you both want and need for sales success is essential for sales coaching. Here’s a quick exercise to test common understanding. Send out an email to your sales team and ask, “In regards to the first meeting with a new prospect, what specific behaviors … Read full article

How to be a bad sales coach

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When we ask the participants in our training courses what “bad sales coaching” would look like, there is no shortage of answers. “Having inconsistent standards” …. “Tell you the problem but don’t help you work through the solution” … “Care only about results and not how we get them” … “Make you do exactly what … Read full article

How is your Peak Performer retention strategy working?

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A few years ago I delivered a two-day workshop to the senior leadership of a 225-person sales organization. One of the several topics in the workshop was to debrief their individual “behavioral profile” assessments. Interestingly, all 7 executives had a similar profile – high dominance and high task orientation, low relationship-focus. When I pointed this … Read full article

Are you a “Sales Manager” or a “Sales Leader”?

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As a sales manager you have a high activity level. You work hard every day to both direct and support the efforts of your sales team to produce sales results. But often, a manager’s high activity level can actually inhibit the development of the sales team. As author Steven Covey says so well in 7 … Read full article

What is “Positive Confrontation”?

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Recently a prospect asked me to explain what I meant when I said that many sales managers would be more effective sales leaders if they used what I call “positive confrontation” with their salespeople. Positive confrontation is the discussion that a sales manager has with a salesperson in a timely manner, regarding an unsuccessful behavior … Read full article