Sales Leadership Challenges to Having a World Class Sales Force

January 14, 2015
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Category: Understanding the Sales Force

Dave Kurlan is a top-rated keynote speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and expert on all things sales and selling.

World-Class Sales Organization.

We hear those words a lot. Some companies aspire to it. Others claim to be there already. You are more likely to hear claims like those from a large enterprise, but you have better odds of actually finding it in a small-to-midsize company.

World-Class Sales Organization.

Some would say it’s a description of a company’s people. Others would suggest it has more to do with results. Many would say it’s about the size of the sales force. And a few would point to sales leadership and discipline.

World-Class Sales Organization.

The top team of sales strategists at my sales leadership consulting and training firm, Kurlan & Associates, set out to define what a world-class sales organization is and we developed this model.

World Class Sales Force

There is an important distinction to be made here. At a large company, there could be one or more individuals responsible for each category in the model. In a small business, one person (and sometimes fewer than that) may be responsible for all categories. And in many companies, some of those categories are placed under the direction of people who aren’t qualified to lead them. In other companies, there are huge gaps where some (or all) of one or more categories are missing.

Let’s discuss the challenges of this model in a smaller company where there may be a half dozen salespeople reporting to one sales manager. How is one person supposed to handle:

Sales Leadership
Sales Architecture
Sales Infrastructure
Sales Talent Management
Sales Enablement
Sales Human Capital

Some of the help, which we provide in small and mid-market companies, occurs when some (or all) of these pieces are missing altogether, or when they have been undefined or improperly executed.

We are nearly halfway through 2013, so this is a good time to determine where the gaps exist in your sales organization and then deal with them. It’s not as important that you get it right, as it is that you have the above in place. You can get them right over time.

Speaking of time, we’re on the cusp of summer which begins on June 21 and it can’t come quickly enough for me! Nancy Bleak, author of Conversations That Sell, has published her 3rd Annual List of sales books you can bring to the beach. We are proud and thankful that Nancy has chosen to include my best-seller, Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball on her list. We also encourage you to include Frank Belzer’s terrific book, Sales Shift, on your summer reading list.

Here are some articles on the subject of sales leadership that you might find helpful:

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