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Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management Planning For The Slow Season Of Your Business To Increase Sales Every business experiences slower periods. For some, they sell more during the Christmas season while others move at a snail pace. Some sell more during the summer and others less. The key is being aware of your seasons and alternatives available to solve the challenge and change the results. Aug 9, 2005, 00:33 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management Sales Plan? What's a Sales Plan? In the past, if you said the word “plan” to me, I would bolt and run. I’m the “creative type,” a former ballet dancer and choreographer—I’m terrible with details. When I was dancing professionally, all the details were taken care of; all I had to do was show up and dance. Even when I was choreographing, as long as I met my deadline for when the dance needed to be complete, I could go with the moment, go with the impulse and see where the dance led. Jul 31, 2005, 01:36 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management How To Use A Powerful Leadership Tool To Step Up Sales Results Good sales people can close, but few "step up" for even more sales from that close. Yet stepping up should be one of the easiest accomplishments in sales — that is if you know how to build the staircase Jul 31, 2005, 01:34 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management Selling Successfully In The 21st Century (And Some Tips On How To Manage Your Sales Team) Selling. Cold calls, introductions, interviews, appointments, proposals, referrals, call cycles, building rapport, listening, asking for the order, overcoming objections, closing the sale, and rejection. There's a lot to know about the business of selling. No wonder many people are a bit overwhelmed when they are asked to do it. Jul 31, 2005, 01:33 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management 8 Procedures to Take Control of Sales and Marketing The Cash to Cash Cycle. We’re sprinting toward that million dollar mark...and we’re only a couple strides away… Decreasing inventory carried us over the first hurdle, and last week reducing Accounts Receivable sped us through the half-way mark. We’re making great time, so let’s bring on the next mile marker – marketing and sales. Jul 31, 2005, 01:21 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management Keeping Your Sales Team Motivated Sales managers frequently approach me for advice on how to keep salespeople motivated, especially when sales reps get into a rut - and seem to keep slipping deeper into it. Telling managers what not to do usually solves the problem. Most managers do things to de-motivate salespeople without even knowing it. Jul 31, 2005, 01:20 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management Sales Coaching... Fact or Fiction? The old adage in selling has always been, “Find out what they want, then, give it to them.” The fundamentals of selling are clearly that elemental. The application thereof, however, continues to be the litmus test that quickly separates the skilled from the rest. Jul 31, 2005, 01:15 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management Hiring--A Vital Key In Sales Management Success Recently, I was asked to spend some time on the telephone, coaching a client’s administrative assistant on how to check out an employment candidate’s references. After each in-person or telephone conference, I complete a brief written report going over the information discussed. The information that I gave this worker was so vital to the company’s overall sales management success that I felt impelled to share the report in my periodic client e-mailings, feeling that it might be of value to others that I serve. The information is so vital to the management process, I decided to reproduce it here as well Jul 31, 2005, 01:11 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management Shorten Sales Cycles in Complex Sales Environments Help buyers discover the answers they need to understand and align all of their decision variables. Jul 31, 2005, 01:08 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management The Four “D”s of Sales Management Recently I stumbled across some notes that I had kept from a project I had been involved in which involved looking at manager behaviours. The aim of this project was to identify "preferred behaviours" in sales managers when they were working closely with their sales representatives. The outputs were interesting and helped my colleagues identify four main types of sales managers and the differences between effective and ineffective behaviours. Jul 31, 2005, 01:01 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management 5 Secrets to Managing Your Sales Manager Productively Many people believe that the main reason for representatives leaving their organisation is that of money in that they leave for a bigger salary. In fact, the biggest reason why people leave organisations is that the role they are doing is no longer offering any challenge or excitement. The second reason is due to the behaviour and capability of the immediate line manager. More often than not, the two are strongly linked with the manager taking little interest in the representative’s development and as such the representative feels under valued and bored due to the lack of attention and challenge. Jul 31, 2005, 01:00 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Sales Performance -- Part 2 Another key reason why companies suffer from 80/20 performance is their processes for hiring, training and managing salespeople rely almost entirely upon subjective information. Jul 31, 2005, 00:49 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Sales Performance -- Part 1 Business executives and sales managers frequently bemoan "80/20" performance on their sales teams, where approximately 80 percent of sales are produced by approximately 20 percent of salespeople. Why do salespeople perform so differently? What is it about top sales performers that enables them to achieve such vastly superior results? Jul 31, 2005, 00:48 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management It’s Time For A Sales Management Revolution Are you dog tired because of the way you manage your sales team? Many managers tell me that they cannot see a way out of traditional sales management methods that keep them working like dogs, including focusing strictly on revenue goals, staying late, traveling up to three weeks a month, tightly controlling teams, and constantly reacting to emergencies. There has to be a better way. Jul 31, 2005, 00:45 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management Change in Sales Organizations Starts with Me Question: What do the following have in common? I spend a lot of time spinning my wheels and not getting very much done. I am continually frustrated with the performance of my sales team. Why can’t my sales team be more independent thinkers? They come to me with EVERYTHING! Jul 31, 2005, 00:44 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management Free to Succeed: Effective Sales Leadership Using A Coach Approach About 2 years ago, I participated in a training program I'll never forget. The leader divided us into two teams. Each team's task was to fire a whack of darts into each number on a dartboard. The leader of Team A was given instructions that his team had to hit the numbers in a certain sequence. He then related the sequence, number by number, to his team. Jul 31, 2005, 00:41 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management A Coach's Handbook For Sales Managers This article may be reprinted in its entirety with express written permission from Nicki Weiss. The reprint must include the section “About the Author”. Quote of the month: "A leader is the relentless architect of the possibility that others can be." Benjamin Zander, Conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Jul 31, 2005, 00:40 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management Stop Drowning: Nine Strategies For Managing Your Priorities I just got off the phone with Susan. She is a well-meaning, big-hearted, caring, effective and creative sales manager. Susan is also exhausted. Jul 31, 2005, 00:37 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management Leadership Lessons for Sales Managers Leadership, like class, is hard to define, but easy to spot. Someone once defined management as “the effective coordination of the efforts of the individuals in a group to accomplish that stated objectives of the organization.” Managers get results by establishing goals and working with and through people to achieve those goals. Jul 31, 2005, 00:23 Business Articles : Sales & Selling : Sales Management How To Become A Better Sales Manager It was all about people and management skills. You either have them or you don't! Today, being a sales manager, is a tough job - and it can also be extremely rewarding. Here's what I find bizarre. There are too many undertrained sales managers trying to coach and develop their undertrained salespeople. It's not a pretty picture. Jul 31, 2005, 00:20 More Headlines