In sales management, sometimes things get hot.
Uncomfortably hot at times…
Most sales leaders have no idea when a major argument breaks out.
They panic instead.
The Sales Management Argument
Your sales team is arguing over a hotly debated sales management issue at one of your sales meetings.
If its a really hot issue, then chances are it has something to do with money or bonus. The hottest sales management issues you face will involve one or the other:
“We’re getting screwed on this new compensation plan”…
“The sales tracking system is missing my sales”…
“Management just cut year end bonuses”…
“I’m not getting paid on all of my sales”…
Or any number of myriad sales management issues you have to deal with, that you have no say in…but have to diffuse somehow.
Things are getting out of control.
Your salespeople are angry, upset, unruly.
People are yelling, they’re angry.
You, the sales leader have lost control.
What do you do?
- Do you start yelling?
- Do you antagonize?
- Do you tell em all to “all of you…shut the hell up!!!!”?
You should do none of that.
You “diffuse the time bomb” instead.
Captain John Miller (played by Tom Hanks) does it brilliantly here in Saving Private Ryan…
What Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) Knows About Great Sales Management
How does Miller Continue reading

Ahhhh….it’s football season again.
No sales management professional really wants to be a dick.
I once took a sales management training course on how to give speeches. The well-meaning sales trainer told us the best way to “warm up” the audience he said was to open your speech with a joke.
All us sales managers love our power point slides.