The Art and Science of Sales Management

This week I did a poll on sales leaders working for their team, not the other way around.

At it's core, sales management is a combination of art and science, requiring balance and understanding of the evolving business landscape.

It's all about providing the tools, guidance, and support to help your sales team sell more.

Peter Quirk outlines a comprehensive set of best practices around leading by example, measuring outcomes, and many more principles.

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Tech Sales Insights LIVE

Join Randy for this weeks episode of Tech Sales Insights LIVE featuring Paul Fipps ; President, Strategic Accounts at ServiceNow :

'Sales Leadership Best Practices'

This episode is sponsored by The Alexander Group , our GTM & Sales Compensation Partner. Alexander Group provides revenue growth consulting services to the world’s leading sales organizations. When clients need to grow revenue, they look to Alexander Group for data-driven insights, actionable recommendations, and results.

"Storytelling is critical in communicating the value of technology solutions to customers."

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Modern Revenue Operations Architecture

Having the right tech stack these days makes an enormous difference in selling.

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Randy's Tips to Sell More ?? Excerpts from Your Go-To Sales Advisor

Sales Management Best Practices

By Peter Quirk

What the Idea Is: Sales management best practices

Why It Is Valuable: Use these best practices to effectively lead your team and exceed expectations.

How It Works: These are best practices I’ve gathered over the years I’ve been in sales management:

Lead by example, be persistent, and drive the message through that will exceed your goals.

• Clearly define the goals and the steps you will take to win.
• Measure results.? “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” –Peter Drucker
• Over communicate
• Follow through on what you say you are going to do—keep your word.
• “Target ten sales calls a week.” –Randy Seidl
• Do not procrastinate; just get it done and move on to the next step.
• Time is your enemy; manage it well.
• Follow through with what you say you are going do.
• Be early for appointments.
• Be organized; plan your week, and review every Sunday evening before the week starts.
• Listen more than you talk.
• Understand your customers’ business and personal needs, and create solutions that help them advance, both personally and professionally.
• Understand your employees’ business and personal needs, and align the positions available to advance them, both personally and professionally.
• Practice your presentation skills.
• Keep your LinkedIn up to date.
• Look into a mirror while you are on the phone. Your facial expressions will come through on the call; smile and be happy, and your customer will hear it in your voice.
• Be confident, well dressed, and prepared for all meetings.
• Have an agenda for all meetings.
• Do not waste the customer’s time.
• Send a follow-up email with next steps the same day or evening.
• Network, network, network!
• The more you know about your employees and customers, the better you can serve your customers and lead your employees.
• Network with your competition. ? Know your competition ? “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”—Godfather, Part II
• Be the first one in the office and the last one to leave (if and when you have an office again).
• Treat everyone with respect; treat them the way you would want to be treated.
• The people you see on the way up the ladder are the same folks you will see on the way down.
• “You are not as good as you think you are, but you are not as bad as they say you are.” –Lou Holtz
• Be honest.
• Be to the right of right.
• Be accountable, take responsibility for your actions and for the people on your team, and don’t blame others for your mistakes; learn from them and take risks.
• Protect your people, but hold them accountable. (Be loyal, but objective.)
• “Run to the fire; bad things don’t get better with time.” –Meg Whitman
• Gray is good sometimes, but do not go over the line.
• Be a lifelong learner.
• If you are comfortable, you are dying and on the way to being irrelevant.
• Become comfortable being uncomfortable.
• Read a diverse portfolio of business information, news feeds, and books you enjoy? PodCast, WSJ, Economist, The Daily, etc.? Listen to the opposing side and learn.
• Be recruiting all the time.
• Always have a bench.
• Stack rank your reps.
• Turn over 10 percent of your sales team every year.
• Always be available to the customers and respond quickly; let them know they can count on you.
• An angry, upset customer is a good customer, because they are still talking to you and giving you a chance to fix the problem.
• Keep a good life balance between work and family.
• Spend the company’s money like it’s your own money—don’t waste it. Build a diverse, inclusive team.
• Whether you’re hiring men, women, someone of a different race, tech- nical talent, or sales talent, ask:? Do they fit culturally with the team? ? What are their goals? ? Will they make us better and challenge us, but not be too disruptive?
• Be committed and represent what you believe. Don’t avoid conflict; don’t be a pushover—be respectful but hold your ground. Know when to back down or push forward.
• Selling is a combination of art and science.
• Plan—daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually, both best prac- tices and goals.

Weekly:

• Meet on Monday evening to plan the week; send out the agenda the Friday before the weekend and resend on Monday morning.
• Have no internal meetings Tuesday through Thursday at a minimum, as that is prime selling time; be in front of customers.
• Have a recap call every Friday with the managers or reps, depending on your role, to discuss how the week went.
• Do weekly training on relevant subjects, products, and sales.

Monthly:

At the end of month one, know your pipeline in the current quarter. You need to have 60 percent commit coverage at the end of month one. You have to have a solid commit for the quarter and understand any risks to your current commit and what the upside is. Are there any game changers in the funnel? What executive support may be needed to reach quarterly commits, etc.?

Quarterly:

• Have quarterly business reviews.
• Look at YOY compares, QOQ compares, and YTD performance. Review all segments/BUs. In Q1, provide an initial yearly plan. In Q2, recap the prior quarter/quarters and focus on current quarter activity, review business and sales goals, and set the commit for the current quarter.

Annually:

• ?Align sales FSC, margins, and sales goals with the overall financial plan for the company. Build plans around:
• Internal partners (i.e., different BU’s and specific targets; I can provide examples)
• External partners, distribution, VADS, VARS, SIs.

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