5 Sales Management Errors That Make You Look Like An Ass

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Ralph

Sales management professionals unwittingly look like asses all the time.

I know, because I’ve done it plenty of times.

One time, I showed up for a sales meeting in front of my entire sales team with my fly wide open (I even had the t-shirt hanging out a little bit too).

Thank God for Dustin MacPherson who coughed “FLYIN LOW!!!” as I entered the room.

Dumb…horse’s ass.

Well, actually embarrassing is more like it…that could be entire series of sales management blog posts on sales management mistakes.

Looking dumb is inevitable, you just can’t avoid it – we’re all human and were going to make mistakes.

But as a sales manager, when you start making the same mistakes over and over again they make you look like an ass…and that’s when it becomes a real problem.

And when you look like an ass on a regular basis, your sales management leadership goes right down the crapper.

So in an effort to help you not to look like an ass in front of your sales team on a regular basis, in this sales management training here are five things Continue reading →

The Sales Management Trick to Motivating A Players

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Ralph

a player sales management I once had a salesperson who just wanted to be left alone.

He was one of my top salespeople, an A player, and I figured he knew best.

“Leave well enough alone”, I thought. And I happily spent my time coaching my other, less effective sales reps; the ones who “needed me”.

I figured this was a pretty solid sales management strategy.

That is, until he left to go to the competition in his third year with the company. It was almost exactly a year after I had become his sales manager.

I always regretted that “leaving him alone” decision and I learned never to do it again…especially after he started eating our lunch in the territory he vacated to go to the competition.

The Sales Management Dilemma of The A Player

Your sales people probably tell you that they want to “run their territory as if it’s the business”. They think they’re in charge of their own destinies and all I have to do is just Continue reading →

7 Steps to Sales Management Coaching, Part 2

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Ralph

sales management Christmas ornament In the last sales management training post, I left you hanging like a cheap ornament on a Christmas tree (which I just took down yesterday and still have pine needles all over my living room)…

The truth is I was catching a plane back East and I just ran out of time to get all 7 steps into the first post.

Then Christmas came, then New Years….

Enough of the excuses, here are the rest of the 7 steps to sales management coaching here.

This is a great way to start off the New Year and really get some momentum going in 2012.

And it all starts with good solid sales management coaching.

As you may recall from our previous post, the first three steps to effective sales management coaching Continue reading →

Maslow’s Guide to Sales Management Motivation

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Ralph

sales management motivation When it comes to sales management, if you cannot motivate your sales force, then you are done.

And when it comes to motivation, no one has gotten more press on motivation than Abraham Maslow.

Don’t know who Maslow is?

Well as a sales management professional, you should.

At the very least you should use a few of his tips to motivate your sales force.

Sales Management Motivation Maslow Style

If you don’t know, Abraham Maslow is commonly known as “the father of modern motivational theory” and is one of the only theorists on motivation whose ideas have actually withstood the test of time…in spite of hundred of eggheads who have tried to dispute his theories.

In short, Maslow states that each person is motivated by a series of physiological and psychological needs that he put into his “Needs Hierarchy Theory”.

These needs are listed from basic to advanced, the lowest common denominator being these five:

1.Hunger, thirst

2. Sleep

3. Safety, security

4. Shelter

5. Health

As a sales management professional, you have to figure that most of your sales force has these five basic needs covered, right?

So what does Continue reading →

What Saving Private Ryan Can Teach You About Sales Management

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Ralph

sales management war 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 →