Lance Armstrong at the 2005 Tour de France. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
More precisely, what can sales managers learn from what happened to Lance Armstrong?
Is it don’t be a winner? Perhaps, don’t be a cheat? Maybe, don’t lie? Certainly, don’t get caught. And when you do get caught, carry the can, walk away. Fighting for your corner will just get other...
What’s the best approach to managing sales reps?
Is it monitor activity? There are lots of guys who do that – the 100 calls each week type task masters.
Is it micro management? – go there, say this, ask that, give this presentation, close, discount, plead, threaten. There are more than a few who’ll work that way too.
Then there’s the Analytocrats – bureaucratic types who know all the data, but not what it means.
There’s also the Patriarchs – father figures who’ll carry the can.
And the Teflon guys, who spend all their time making sure somebody else...
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| Sales Probability Process Management |
Well, that's a relative term. Nobody gets sales forecasts right, but there are ways of getting your sales forecasts more right than wrong. And, perhaps more importantly, there are ways of explaining to the people who rely on your forecasts just how you deal with the complexity of your situation.
Sales Management seems to be a hot topic these days. Our blog at Successful Sales Management is attracting a lot of interest from people wanting to understand more about it. Or at least, somebody else’s thoughts on the subject.
Readers registering for our email newsletter are asked what their role is in business. The one quoted most often is, unsurprisingly, sales manager, but its closely followed by sales executive, and business owner.
The business owner category is interesting. Invariably these are hard working entrepreneurs building a business. They’ll be specialists in what their business does – business services, manufacturing, real estate, financial services – but almost certainly not generic sales and sales management. They’ll need an effective sales operation, but be having difficulty with typical sales speak, and sales culture.
The world of punters, cold calls, sales funnels, activity...
