How to “Spell” Sales Management Coaching

Posted on September 26, 2011 by Ralph

When my kids ask me how to spell a word for their homework, I don’t tell them.

When they were younger, I would just tell them, eager to show them how smart I was because I could spell the word “guarantee” without looking it up in the dictionary.

But now, I never tell them.

They used to then go to their mom and ask her, but although she used to do what I once did and just outright tell them, she now does what I do. She doesn’t answer either.

Sure, they didn’t like it at first. In fact, they never liked it and now that I think of it they still don’t like it.

But now they don’t ask me how to spell words nearly as much as they once did. They just wanted the answer, they wanted the easy way out. They didn’t want to have to go through the trouble of THINKING.

No, we don’t Continue reading →

7 Killer Tips: How to Get Your Salespeople to Sell More Effectively

Posted on August 25, 2009 by Dan

One thing’s for sure: Cork Walgreen REALLY knew how to sell.

In one of our previous posts, we talked about how Walgreen’s Drugstores figured out how to sell more stuff and become one of the top-performing stocks in the last forty years in the process, beating Intel, GE and Cisco! Their formula for success was simple: have the best, most convenient drugstores, with a high profit per customer visit. A simple formula, no doubt and that‘s the formula for creating the single most successful company in terms of market return in the past forty years.

What Walgreens did is what you as a sales manager must do as well. If you are to fully distinguish yourself from the competition just like Cork Walgreen, then you’ll need to think about what you can be the best in the world at – and then funnel all your energies into pursuing that one thing. Figure out what one thing you do better than anyone else and teach that one thing to your salespeople over and over and over again. Continue reading →

How I Made $185,126 in My First Full Year As a Sales Manager

Posted on April 26, 2009 by Dan

I was thinking the other day…it seems like there are a lot of struggling sales managers out there right now.

With the economy the way it is, it doesn’t really matter what industry you’re in – chances are that you and your sales team are feeling the pinch.

So I was thinking…what if I could just write out five big concepts that really helped to shape my success as a sales leader?

I figured if I could do it using these concepts, then a lot of other people could do it as well…

The truth is…I didn’t start off my sales management career doing too well…in fact, I really didn’t know what I was doing until my first full year.

But I think I was smart enough to realize that I didn’t know much…so I studied how to be great almost non-stop for an entire year.

Also, I was lucky enough to have a really good boss and access to other leadership mentors…their ideas really shaped my thought process as a sales leader.

In my first full year as a sales manager, I began to use some of these ideas and to my suprise, I had my best money year ever, up to that point in time.

I included those five things here.

Here they are:

Trust: Get your salespeople to trust you so that they can in turn, produce great results for both themselves and for you.
Empowerment: Learn how to empower your salespeople so they don’t have to come to you for every little thing. Learn the key concepts that train your reps to take responsible, correct, consistent action without your intervention needed.
Accountability: Set the bar higher and keep raising it! Bring your sales team along by making them fully accountable (this means no excuses, by the way) for their actions and results…whether those results are stupid or stellar.
Release of Control: Release your own self limiting/time intensive/hours-sucking control complex, while pushing your sales reps to produce even bigger sales when you’re not with them!
Hire great (not just merely good) sales people, coach them, support them then unleash them…and let them be themselves.

These five concepts have made all the difference…and still do to this day.

Ill keep passing on what has helped me so that maybe it’ll help you too.

To learn even more about sales management training, get our free ebook.

Then, post a comment below and tell me what great secrets you learned form some of your mentors in the past that have helped you to trigger explosive sales results with your sales reps?