Understanding the Sales Force

Most companies don’t have formal sales processes but some companies think they do but really have a list of milestones.  How can you tell whether you have a sales process or a number of milestones?  You can map them!

That was the question posed to me yesterday while speaking at the Crystal Palace in Livingston NJ.

To effectively answer that question one must ask another question, that being, what is the largest number of salespeople a sales manager can manage? 

The sale doesn’t end when the sale is made.  It ends when someone screws it up!

I was speaking at PAC Park in Pittsburgh this week when an audience member asked what he could do about Mavericks.  Since this is a common issue and I haven’t previously addressed it here, I’ll do so today.

If you’ve been reading my Blog for a while you’ve probably learned  that sales managers should be spending about 85% of their time on Accountability, Coaching, Motivation, Growth and Recruiting.  We mined some of our never ending data to see what sales managers actually spend their time on. 

It’s not unusual for management to get push back during the sales development process.  Whether it’s during the evaluation of the sales force, raising expectations, initiating accountability, when coaching, modifying compensation or during training, push back is the one thing you can count on.