Thinking of promoting your best sales performer to sales manager? Think again!

Many businesses have made the mistake of promoting their best performing sales person into the role of sales manager. Their logic – well they are great at selling, they’ll be great at sales management. Sadly most of these situations end in disaster.

To start off the top performing sales person has usually been given no training or a development framework to help them make the transition into what is a very different role. It is almost assumed they will know how to be a sales manager because they ‘know’ (sadly usually only intuitively) how to sell. The …

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Peak Performance in Prospecting

Building on from last week’s topic ‘The Optimistic Sales Professional’ I thought I would extend the theme further and explore the topic of ‘Peak Performance in Prospecting’.

A peak performing prospector is a salesperson who displays passion, self motivation and results focus. They are disciplined in their approach, evaluate and purse viable opportunities while remaining optimistic, resilient, committed and energized. They are ethical at all times and display empathy, respect and courtesy towards their prospects. To help us look at this in more depth let’s look at what is considered peak performance.

What is Peak Performance?

“Sustained, continuous performance at …

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The Optimistic Sales Professional

Sales is a demanding profession. Top performers know that to sustain a high level of performance, they need to keep fit and well – both physically and psychologically. An increasing body of research is showing that keeping an optimistic outlook, and having the physical energy to meet the demands of working in sales are critical to a sales person’s effectiveness, success and overall well-being. Something many of us know intuitively, however it good to have it validated.

Managing and overcoming setbacks is key to succeeding in anything. In sales we are tested everyday. Without a sense …

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Watch who you let near your mind

With the Sub-prime market issue in the US and its effects on countries and the world’s stock markets featuring as a daily major news item at present who can blame people for getting a bit nervous and worried about the future. You can see it with the panic selling of shares and so forth. However if we let this and other issues get to us and allow ourselves to blow things out of all proportion we can, in turn, create our own demise. Whilst it is critical for business owners and sales people to keep abreast of …

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A Car Sales Story with a difference

Is there such as thing as a ‘good’ car sales story?

My husband and I recently bought two new cars over the Christmas break. We initially went in to buy one car. It wasn’t a Christmas splurge if that’s what you’re thinking – nor was anything it like the recent press on luxury cars and their owners. We wanted to go smaller and greener for all sorts of reasons I am sure you can image and one of our cars was at the end of its lease. Having done our research, the ‘make’ of our last …

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Meditation as a path to Happiness

 

Season’s greetings to you, your teams and your families.

I have enjoyed sharing my opinions, ideas and work with you over this year.

I hope it has supported you in some small way to achieve your goals and endeavors and I look forward to being of service to you all in 2008.

 

Now given my focus has been on ‘Sales’ you might wonder why I am focusing on “Meditation as path to happiness’ as my final piece for 2007. There is method in my madness. You may recall some months ago I wrote about ‘reflecting on reflecting’ and how …

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Don’t tell me it’s out of your control

‘It’s out of my control.’ ‘I can’t do anything about it.’ ‘I’m just the sales person.’

Sales people who sell in equipment and service contracts take note. This story is about you and your responsibility to the customer for the life of the sale not just the initial sale of the machine and the signing of the contract.

The quotes above are what I heard this week from a sales person from a well-known equipment manufacture who sold us a complete equipment and service package 18 months ago. It certainly wasn’t what I wanted to hear. Without going into too much detail …

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You’re on show

Today people are looking for honesty and authenticity and do not have time to be misled. They want to work with people who are what they say they are. They are assessing your every word and action. They are looking beneath the surface and are wanting to see the real you.

Many people are now more wary about companies and sales people making big claims and promises with lots of ‘sizzle’. They are wary of the ‘charmers’ and the sales people after the ‘big kill’. What they are now looking for is the steak and all that comes with …

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Broken Promises & Bagging the Competition

Watching the antics of all the parties in the Federal Election, especially the two major parties, and how they go about trying to convince the electorate to vote for them, has reminded me about what NOT to do in sales:

  • Make promises you cannot keep
  • Bag the competition

Nothing irks customers more than sales people overstating their capabilities and making claims and promises they cannot keep or live up to. It’s the fastest way to break trust and leave customers doubting you and your business. Making grand claims with little or no substance is foolish at …

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A Time To Reflect

I don’t know about you, but I often find myself reflecting on a whole range of things in my life including my professional sales career and wondering at all the things I have learned over the years.

Conscious reflecting on sales has now become almost a daily occurrence for me, especially, since I have been writing this sales blog. There are so many aspects to selling that the more I look into selling the more I find to reflect upon. So it was with some amusement that I found myself reflecting on reflecting itself and how valuable it …

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