Collaboration – The New Competition

By / / Communication, Customer Service, Performance Management, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Relationships, Sales Skills, Success, Teamwork

The New Competition was voted by you as the number 7 Sales Trend for 2010. Over the coming years, we will see collaboration become the new competition. Markets around the world are crying out for collaboration as innovation and differentiation become scarce in a sea of commoditised products and services.

Sales people who see themselves as collaborators, both internally (colleagues, departments) and externally (customers, competitors), will prosper more than ever during 2010 and beyond.

A large 5 year long research study conducted by B. Rosenbaum, Business Horizons, entitled Seven Emerging Sales Competencies and published in Jan/Feb 2001 revealed what makes highly successful …

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Is internal competition eating away at your sales results?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Ethics & Values, Performance Management, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Relationships, Sales Talent, Self Development, Strategy, Success, Teamwork, Value Proposition & Value Add

Many sales cultures are traditionally based on respect for authority, status and success, and encouraging competitive, challenging and achievement-oriented atmospheres. Although this is not true for all businesses, especially in the 21st Century! There are a growing number of businesses adopting more collegiate, lead team approaches. However, despite different types of cultures, sales performance and results are usually derived from the efforts of individuals. Harnessing those individual efforts to achieve synergy (the sum is greater than its individual parts) is a key task of management, yet so many get it wrong. Let’s take a look …

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How do you create future sales superstars?

By / / Attitudes & Behaviours, Sales Assessments, Sales Culture, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Sales Talent, Sales Training, Strategy, Success, Value Proposition & Value Add

How many of us entered our sales careers with our eyes wide open? Fully aware of what it takes to be an effective sales person – ably resourced with the tools, processes, plans and support essential to our success. Knowing full well what you were getting yourself into.

For most, if not all of us, our initiation into sales was nothing like this, and was cushioned with little or none of these luxuries. Does the analogy “sink or swim” resonate with anyone?

All of this makes the story I am about to share quite unique and refreshing. Recently, …

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Why Sales Managers need to work on the business, not just in the business

By / / Sales Forecasting, Sales Management, Sales Measures - Inputs & Outputs, Sales Planning, Strategy

Playing “catch up” is a common challenge for organisations of all sizes. Whether you have enjoyed a period of rapid growth and prosperity, or encountered some unexpected obstacles or losses, with little warning, businesses can discover that their decision making and activity has become very reactive. Too much time is spent putting out spot fires and reacting to situations, while too little time is spent on pro-active and strategic activities.

The very real and legitimate day to day business pressures result in many (if not most) decisions being made on an ad-hoc basis, with each one disconnected from the next. The …

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What’s channel stuffing and why is it problematic?

By / / Ethics & Values, Sales Forecasting, Sales Management, Sales Measures - Inputs & Outputs, Sales Pipeline, Sales Planning, Strategy

How much do you actually sell? How profitable are your sales? How accurately can you forecast your sales results? How many ‘returns’ do you receive? How often do you need to discount? How often are you left with old stock? What are your sales cycles? Are your sales people rewarded on volume only or on margin, account growth, account retention, and customer satisfaction?

The answers to these and other key questions will tell you just how effective a sales force is functioning, how they measure their effectiveness, how they think about their business, their customers, their careers, and how likely they …

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Do you have the sales force your strategy needs in 2010?

By / / Sales Consulting, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Strategy, Strategy

The other week I ran a webinar for SmartCompany.com.au on “How to clearly manage and measure your sales team”. During the webinar I was asked many questions, one of which came from a senior sales leader, “With some time to reflect over the Christmas break, what is the one thing I should focus on getting right for my business?”

Given that business as usual is not ‘usual’ anymore, I suggested the following:

1. Review your business and sales strategy

  • Do you have the right strategy in place?
  • What has changed over the last 12 months
  • How has your client mix changed? i.e. …

Do you have the sales force your strategy needs in 2010? Read Post »

Measuring and managing the right things in sales

By / / Performance Management, Sales Coaching, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Motivation & Rewards, Sales Results, Sales Skills, Sales Training, Self Development

Who wants to work with accountable, responsible, and self-directed sales people? Of course we all want these types of sales people in every sales team. Yet, most businesses do not support this by setting up their sales team to clearly measure and manage their sales performance.

Sales performance management begins with accurate role descriptions and perception, data collection, and measurement in line with set goals and strategy, however many organisations measure only one variable, sale results (outputs measures).

This type of approach leaves businesses and sales teams in the dark about how they arrived at their sales …

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Why Sales Coaching Really Matters

By / / Coaching, Sales Coaching, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Training

You may recall that I recently wrote about an international study which reported that if Sales Managers were more frequently and better trained and coached, their sales teams achieved higher performance and results. In no other type of sales training was a more positive correlation found between frequency of training and sales performance. This article is dedicated to the importance of sales coaching and what you need to do to be an effective sales coach.

Despite popular opinion, the sales profession is very skillful with many technical and interpersonal skills that need …

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The coming together of sales leaders in Australia

By / / Business Acumen, Complex Selling & Transactional Selling, Networking, Sales Culture, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Sales Research, Strategy

I recently had the opportunity to attend the inaugural Optimising the Sales Force Conference (osf2009, site not exist anymore), along with over 120 high level sales leaders across Australia. I was privileged to be part of the panel of international and local experts presenting on sales effectiveness where we explored the latest research on sales strategy, leadership, learning and development, sales management, sales people, and current market trends.

This was the first time in Australia we have had the opportunity to come together as a profession and share ideas and discuss important matters moving forward. There have, of course, been industry …

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Who’s delivering your sales training?

By / / Education in Sales, Sales Coaching, Sales Driven Organisations, Sales Excellence Acadamy, Sales Management, Sales Skills, Sales Strategy, Sales Talent, Sales Tips, Sales Training

You cannot fake real sales experience and sales wisdom. It is one of the professions that is the hardest to teach and train because without real life sales experience you are at risk of being seen as inauthentic.

To help you make the best choice when it comes to selecting the right sales trainer let’s consider the following:

  • What capabilities do you need to be a good sales trainer?
  • What attitudes and mindsets can makes sales people and sales results worse?

To sell or not to sell

Without real life sales experience, you will are likely to lack empathy and real insight for the …

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