Sales Management Training | The 5 Biggest Sales Management Mistakes

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Ralph

sales management mistakes Last year, in a very non sales management training related move, we made the decision to leave home, travel cross country for a year and homeschool our two grade school boys.

We figured that instead of paying the $20,000+ per year to pay for the to go to a perfectly nice private school on Cape Cod, we’d save that money, indulge in our passion for travel and see the country instead.

So as part of that, we decided we would take our kids out of school for a year and home school them along the way…even though neither of us are teachers.

Sales Management Training and Homeschooling

All summer long, as we visited National Parks, new cities and had a real good time, we knew September and “back to school” would soon arrive. Both my wife and I work from home so we figured with the kids the ages they were, now was the time to do it before they (or we) got too old.

The real difference for me was when September rolled around…back to school time.

Uh oh.

As the guy who used to be a sales management professional in the medical and other health related industries, Continue reading →

Sales Management Training | Kill Your Powerpoint Now!

Posted on September 30, 2011 by Ralph

All us sales managers love our power point slides.

In fact, we love them way too much its killing our sales management leadership.

As soon as you fire up the LCD projector, find the right setting so your presentation actually shows on the screen instead of only on your computer (hit “function f8″ by the way)…chances are pretty good, you’ve already lost them.

As Jerry McGuire might have said, you lost them before you even said hello…

Unless they’re in the mood for a nice afternoon nap, salespeople by and large, hate power point slide presentations. They just don’t want to hear you talk to the screen about sales figures from Q4 in yet another snazzy pie chart engineered by Bill Gates’ programmers. Continue reading →

SMM 29 | How To Motivate Your Salespeople Like A Caveman

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Dan

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You’re a sales manager who really likes his job…all except one: speaking in front of your salespeople.

Each month, you take out those old power point slides, with all the charts and graphs and go through the monthly sales reports, the stats, the call reporting……zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Im getting sleepy just writing this…

Imagine how your salespeople feel?

So what’s the solution?

You can spice things up with even more spiffy charts, graphs and stats using those wicked cool power point “animations” and clip art, right?

That just isn’t gonna cut it though.

Or you can mimic what the cavemen and cavewomen did for eons to pass along information handed down from generation to generation. Its the same technique your forefathers and foremothers used to get their point across for generations. Neither may have been trying to rally their de-motivated troops to sales stardom, but its the same thing.

That tried and true technique is to simply tell stories.

People remember stories much better than they do bars and graphs. Storytelling also naturally lowers our own innate defenses and make us more apt to learn.

Why? Most theorists believe its because its hard-wired into our genetic makeup…hence the cavemen example above.

The good things is that you can use this in one-on-one sales conversations with your salespeople as well. Its not just for public speaking only.

Find out exactly how you too can become more “caveman” and “cavewoman” here.

Now…if you or your company is seriously interested in learning “How to Motivate Your Sales Team, Get More Sales and Lead Your Sales Team to Sales Superstardom”, contact us directly at info@salesmanagementmastery.com for more information on our live sales management training seminars and workshops.

CLICK HERE to get immediate FREE access to your choice of sales management training at The Sales Management Mastery Academy. Get your own free sales manager training course – you can actually choose which one you want.

Courses include: “How to Motivate Your Sales Team to Peak Performance”, “How to Lead Your Sales Reps to Sales Stardom”, “How to Turn Around Your Underperformers in 30 Days” and “How To Hire A Sales Superstar”…plus you’ll get dozens of free tools and resources to turn sales managers into top-performing sales managers. Get it today.

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SMM 28 | How to Motivate Your Most Difficult Salesperson, Part 2

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Ralph

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How do you motivate and coach your toughest salesperson?

Most sales managers just avoid them…or just leave them alone.

Or worse yet…they constantly butt heads with them.

It makes it hard to motivate and coach the salesperson if you do that, don’ t you think?

OK, let’s face it, not every one of your salespeople is going to willfully follow you, do exactly what you say all the time and go along with whatever the company tells them to do.

You probably wish you did though.

Last week we old you how to identify them and gave you a few tips on how to approach them.

This week, we give you 4 super-simple techniques that will help you big time.

Get the whole story here.

Video:

SMM 28 | How to Motivate Your Most Difficult Salesperson, Part 2

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SMM 27 | How to Motivate Your Most Difficult Salesperson, Part 1

Posted on January 27, 2011 by ralphburns

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You got em.

We all got em.

Not every one of your salespeople is going to listen to you, willingly do what you ask them to do and go along with any of those silly corporate initiatives that usually waste everyone’s time…(let’s hope you don’t have too many of those by the way).

You know the one, it’s the difficult salesperson.

Yep, the one who questions EVERYTHING you and your company does, complains, seemingly always has negative things to say, challenges your authority and generally makes your life as a sales manager really difficult.

Why do we put up with it?

Its simple…its because they are usually (not always) your best salespeople.

So if they’re really difficult to deal with and don’t produce…then you need to do something about that.

I’m not talking about that one though. I’m talking about the ones that need power and need to be heard and are the most vocal ones in your sales team…but at the end of the day…they are good salespeople.

They may actually be your best salesperson.

So how do you harness their abilities without losing your marbles?

We teach you the first steps on how to motivate the most difficult power salesperson here.

Video:

SMM 27 | How to Motivate Your Most Difficult Salesperson, Part 1

Transcripts:

SMM 27 | How to Motivate Your Most Difficult Salesperson, Part 1

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