The Exceptional Sales Manager | Sales Manager Archive

Celebrate strengths, downplay weaknesses
April 2007
In previous columns, I have shared with you thoughts on the ABCs of Sales Management: Attitudes, Behaviors and Coaching. Your attitude toward your position and toward those around you is key. The behaviors that you institute will either quantify your success or define your struggle in your responsibilities. Your ability to coach will determine the future of your organization. Properly applied, these principles will translate into better practices and better outcomes. Today, we will turn our focus away from you and onto those around you.sort of.
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Shared success
February 2007
Every year, we must take an objective look at our previous effort and make an evaluation of things that we did well, but more importantly, things that we can do better. The military services call it an after-action review (AAR). What does your AAR for 2006 look like?
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Effective meetings
September 2006
The tribulations of the sales manager. We survive excuses, attitudes, infighting, absenteeism, projections, budget cuts, irrational customers, opinions, evaluations and the powers that be (to name a few). One crucial and often overlooked obligation is the sales meeting. Can you ever recall attending a class or getting some solid advice on how to run an effective sales meeting? Me neither.
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Title abuse
August 2006
I was reading Drucker the other day and came across an intriguing statement about failed managers. His point (paraphrased) was this: many managers fail in their new position because they attempt to execute the new job acting the same way and doing the same things that they were doing in their previous position that perhaps gained for them recognition and propelled them into the new position. However, the new position - a sales manager - may require an entirely different skill set than the previous position.
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Train always
June 2006
A popular platform for our training organization is the examination of arrogance that pervades the salesperson culture. We attempt to differentiate between healthy confidence and natural arrogance.
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Influence positively
May 2006
Sales managers, take heed. You are affecting people's lives. Sure, the argument can be made that we all affect lives, every one of us. But sales managers are uniquely suited to be highly influential. Most sales managers are former salespeople. And salespeople are skilled artists of persuasion.
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Stop talking
April 2006
Let's take a closer look at an area in which you may be stunting the growth and development of your people and may not even know it. Sales managers: Stop talking so much on calls or presentations.
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Acknowledge effort
March 2006
One of the easiest ways to assail your people's enthusiasm or confidence is to overlook their effort. Why do you think your people are working so hard? Sure, most people want to do a good job. They want to succeed at what they do and they want to be recognized for it. Additionally, many folks work to impress their managers. They strive to bring value to a team. They desire to contribute a new idea, a new process, or a new solution that will make a difference to the division or to the company.
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Be specific
February 2006
The fact is that many of you wouldn't have a job without salespeople. Still, managing them tests our resolve. Each presents his or her own set of issues, problems, concerns, fallacies, inadequacies, annoyances, attitudes, etc. Each also presents his or her own character, enthusiasm, flare, potential, passion, charm, dedication, etc. Spend time with me and you'll hear me talk much more about the second list than the first.
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Robert King is president of The King Consortium, founder of Executive Exchange and author of "Are You An Exceptional Salesperson?" He lives in Midlothian with his wife and two sons. To learn more about The King Consortium, visit: www.thekingconsortium.com.