Kevin Davis

Have you ever considered what made you successful when you were a salesperson? You were, and still likely are, action-oriented, decisive, and adept at problem solving. These sales attributes were rewarded as a salesperson – and then you got promoted and everything changed. Except – perhaps – you.

Now I ask you to consider – are the same keen sales attributes which made you a successful salesperson creating a stumbling block to effective sales management?

As a sales manager, if you are still action-oriented, decisive and adept at problem-solving – are you jumping in to “rescue” your salespeople and help them close the deal? Does it really help your salespeople when you jump in? Because of your problem-solving ability, are your salespeople bringing you more of their problems, problems which they can and should be solving themselves?

Way back in 451BC...

At the beginning of a recent Slow Down, Sell Faster sales seminar, I asked each participant “What is your #1 goal for this session?” Several stated that their biggest challenge is how to get past a low-level relationship and reach decision makers with more money, authority and need.

Later that day, when we arrived at the “C-Level Prospecting” skills module, I asked them, “When you call a prospect on the phone, what do you say?”

Almost uniformly, the answer was, “The first thing I do is qualify him/her by asking, ‘Do you make the decisions on products such as X?’ If the prospect answers ‘Yes’ then I try to persuade him or her to agree to a face-to-face appointment.”

My challenge to the participants was this: If you want to form multiple relationships within an account why are you being so choosy about the first prospect with whom you meet? If...

1. Communicating clearly to your salespeople the specific behaviors and activities that you both want and need for sales success is essential for sales coaching. Here’s a quick exercise to test common understanding. Send out an email to your sales team and ask, “In regards to the first meeting with a new prospect, what specific behaviors do we need to perform, and in what sequence?” How many different answers will you get back from your sales team? If you don’t have a systematic sales process implemented in your company, a process everybody understands, you cannot coach effectively.

2. Be a proactive sales coach. Don’t wait to get blind-sided by salesperson who badly misses forecasts. Instead, get involved earlier in the sales opportunity by asking your...

Recently a prospect asked me to explain what I meant when I said that many sales managers would be more effective sales leaders if they used what I call “positive confrontation” with their salespeople.

Positive confrontation is the discussion that a sales manager has with a salesperson in a timely manner, regarding an unsuccessful behavior or attitude exhibited by the salesperson. “PC” just means that you slow down a bit, and talk to the salesperson about the issue. That’s all.

Like many words in the English language, the word “confront” has multiple meanings. One is “to face or oppose antagonistically.” Not good. But another meaning of the word confront is “to stand or meet face-to-face.” It is this 2nd meaning that I am referring to.

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