Sales Trend 7 – Beyond Sales KPIs

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Performance Management, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Trends

The 2015 Sales Trend 7 – Beyond Sales KPIs see our focus shifting to how we can get closer to the moments of truth and measure sales effectiveness in a complex world. In a nutshell, this trend is showing leadership moving from a deficiency orientation (i.e. performance management when things go wrong) to a competency orientation (i.e. coaching people to achieve their best performance). It is important to note that this trend also requires a mindset shift amongst the managers involved in such a transformation.

Most companies at some stage in their history have struggled with identifying the …

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How to build a High Performance Sales Unit

By / / Performance Management, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Results

How does one go about building a high performance sales unit? What does a high performance sales person actually look like? What needs to be in place for high performance sales to flourish? These and other questions are on the minds of many sales leaders, and if they are not they should be. They are vexed questions too – not easily answered. Here’s why… Unlike a computer which is a complicated system that has predictable outputs, sales operations are complex systems with many variables and unpredictable outputs. Yet, many sales leaders from around the world continue …

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Hidden sales coaching moments

By / / Coaching, Education in Sales, Performance Management, Sales Coaching, Uncategorized

The value of sales coaching cannot be ignored. Various studies across the last 30+ years have demonstrated that regular coaching improves recall and retention of learning from sales classroom training at between 80-95%, as compared to 13% with no follow up coaching.  Coaching helps improve sales performance by around 20% when compared to a non coaching environment. Yet, many sales managers maintain they don’t have the time to perform coaching, the most important of all sales leadership tasks.  Go figure! One …

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Why managing sales inputs leads to sales disaster

By / / CRM, Education in Sales, Performance Management, Sales Forecasting, Sales Management, Sales Measures - Inputs & Outputs, Sales Motivation & Rewards, Sales Pipeline, Sales Results

‘Selling is a numbers game’ has been said more times than any of us care to remember.  And yes, numbers are critical to sales, however some organisations place far too much emphasis on the managing the numbers, especially their obsession with their salespeople’s input activities – i.e. number for prospecting (cold) calls, client meetings, numbers in the pipeline etc. This “management by numbers” approach is flawed and leads to confusion, distress and worst, poor sales results over both the short and longer term.  The approach fails to grasp that up to 80% of the activities of a sale are outside …

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Signs you are at risk of losing your top sales performers

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Coaching, Performance Management, Sales Coaching, Sales Leadership, Sales Talent, Self Development, Success, Wellbeing

There they are every day bringing in the deals. They’re always prospecting, meeting clients, networking, making suggestions about how to do things even better and they never discount unnecessarily. Best of all your clients are happy. They’re happy with your offering, happy with your service, happy with the sales support they get and your business is profitable.

Sounds magnificent doesn’t it? Your top sales performer(s) require(s) very little work. They self manage, are resilient and are such a breeze to work with. They’re low maintenance and are not temperamental like those

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Why we should coach, manage & measure Sales Inputs rather than Sales Results

By / / Coaching, Communication, CRM, Performance Management, Prospecting, Sales Forecasting, Sales Measures - Inputs & Outputs, Sales Pipeline, Sales Training, Success

Do you leave your sales results to chance? Well you might be if you are like most businesses that are too fixated on Sales Results – the Outcomes. Managing by numbers, sales managers can get blinded by measuring the number of sales made and revenue and profit margins achieved rather than focusing on the vital activities that produce these outcomes in the first place- The Sales Inputs.

Every outcome is the result of its inputs. Every effect has its corresponding cause(s).

Consider the following questions:

  • Do you know how your sales people actually achieved their …

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Can a sales manager be an effective sales coach?

By / / Coaching, Performance Management, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Talent, Sales Training, Success

Coaching usually focuses on two areas of development to achieve excellence: skills and performance. Excellence in performance is knowing the right processes to apply in the right situation, coupled with the personal insight to know how to apply them wisely. An effective sales coach is there to help people achieve excellence and realize many more benefits.

However to be an effective sales coach your people must experience you as a support in helping them achieve higher performance and not a hindrance. Often people experience performance improvement initiatives as ‘threats’ or ‘aimless chats’ leaving people feeling …

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Why hiring or keeping the 600lb sales gorilla is a mistake

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Communication, Ethics & Values, Performance Management, Recruitment & Sales Recruitment, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Teamwork

For many years the legend of the 600lb sales gorilla or Alpha sales superstar has been strutting the hallways and boardrooms of businesses. Often revered for achieving top of the league ladder sales results, yet feared by many for their aggressive, manipulative, ego centric, demanding, intimidating antics, countless CEO’s and sales managers have allowed these sales prima donnas to remain in their sales teams but at what cost to their sales team and their business?

Too scared to confront them about their behaviours or sales tactics for fear of losing their sales contribution, many sales managers and their sales team have …

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Why we should put the Trainer back into Sales Management

By / / Coaching, Performance Management, Sales Management, Sales Training

Up until 20 years ago, a key function of a sales manager’s role was the regular training of their sales people. What did this look like? Well, something like this: weekly 1 hour power training sessions for the sales team focusing on honing key skills, bi-monthly half day or 1 day sessions drilling down on account planning, strategy, market and product knowledge, and formal class room training usually employing external, expert training providers on a once or twice yearly basis to boost their teams to the next level. This was all supplemented by sales meetings and one-on-one coaching.

Many sales managers …

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Through the looking glass

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Emotional Intelligence, Performance Management, Sales Management, Sales Training, Strategy

Through the looking glass was voted by you as the number 8 Sales Trend for 2010.

Many sales people are tired of being told that they need to sell like someone else to be successful. Many are unsure of what they should be modelling. Too often they are told to ‘just be like’ someone else but with no reference to what that actually looks like they are left poking around in the dark mimicking the ‘star’ performer and left feeling unauthentic. And ‘big sticks’, bribes or fear don’t help either.

Most people, and especially sales people, …

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