Are You Making This Costly Mistake When Trying to Motivate Your Reps?
I’ve written about several times about motivation (here, for example, and in my new book). But “de-motivation” is a different animal. Typical motivation techniques are designed to create inspiration. They work well for unmotivated reps—those who haven’t found or have lost their internal desire to excel. But demotivated reps are those who are encountering barriers […]
Simple, Powerful Sales Management Insights from a Golf Pro
In my part of the country, golfing is a seasonal event, and the warming weather has opened the local courses. Every year, I remember my favorite golf pro’s approach: Whenever he watches me take a swing, I know he can spot at least a half dozen flaws. But he doesn’t try to burden me with […]
How to Hire the Best Sales Rep Candidates
There’s an old saying that the most effective strategy is to “hire the wills, coach the skills.” That means hiring interviews are essentially a test of how well you can determine whether a candidate has the right wills (attitudes). How do you evaluate wills or attitudes during an interview? The trick is to add methodology—meaning structure and […]
3 Ways to Create Greater Impact from 1-on-1 Reviews
“How often do you have 1-on-1 meetings with your salespeople?” I ask a sales manager. A typical reply is “I talk with my reps all the time.” Then I ask, “Do you sit down with each rep regularly? ” The answer is usually something along the lines of “I try to it monthly, but don’t […]
This 1 Simple Tactic Has Helped Sales Managers Increase Closing Ratios
I recently caught up with the director of sales for a company I worked with. He’d come to me for help some months ago, saying that he sells a high-tech product whose benefits aren’t easy to explain. “We’ve already sold to all the companies that are early adopters, the ones who already knew they needed a […]
How Squeezing a Coin Transformed My Sales Team
My first year in sales, many years ago, I was awkward—and a slow learner. But my first sales manager, Guy Campbell, must have seen some potential because he invested a lot of time in coaching me. When Guy joined me on a customer meeting, I noticed he had a habit of pulling out a coin […]
Coach Inputs, Not Outputs to Maximize Team Sales
One of the biggest mistakes that sales managers make is looking only at results, rather than the host of activities, behaviors, and other inputs that contribute to those results. If a factory uses faulty materials, no amount of fiddling with the machinery is going to make the goods come out correctly. It’s natural for us […]
How to Get Promoted to Sales Manager
Other than the obvious advice to be sure and hit your numbers consistently, what can a salesperson do to increase their chances of being promoted into sales management leadership? Basically, my advice boils down to this: Do everything you can to prepare yourself to succeed in the position. To prove that you are serious about wanting to […]
What to Say to an Under-Performing Sales Rep
Whenever I conduct a sales coaching training workshop, I make a habit of asking participants about how many of them have a performance problem among their teams which they have not yet addressed. The vast majority of participants always raise their hands. When I then ask how long this has continued, participants often report it […]
3 Coaching Tips for Faster Sales Growth
We as sales managers have a critical shortfall to overcome if we wish to cultivate sales growth. That is, we are often late to the party. When I ask participants in my sales coaching training seminars about their coaching habits, many report stepping in to act after a salesperson on their team has a deal […]