Category Archives: Sales Management Articles

'Your manager is leaving … you’ve been in sales for years and do a good job, so we will make you the new Sales Manager. I'm sure you'll be fine at it.'” This is an all too common scenario for many newly promoted sales leaders, but managing people, especially sales people, requires quite a different…

The demand for highly qualified sales people - such as those with degrees in engineering, economics and the sciences - is constantly increasing. In many companies, however, it continues to be difficult to attract appropriate applicants for sales posts. Selling is so unpopular in the minds of this target group, whereas its sister discipline, marketing,…

Are you unhappy about the results your sales team are achieving? Has the situation manifested itself over quite a long period of time? In these situations it is easy for your sales people to point the blame at the current economic situation, excessively high selling prices set by your company, insufficient advertising measures etc. However,…

Sales teams naturally have a higher turnover of staff than other types of teams. Recruiting sales people therefore is a regular part of the sales manager’s job. As with many of the tasks that the sales manager has to perform to do their job effectively, developing a recruitment plan requires considered thought and careful planning.…

[caption id="attachment_6093" align="alignleft" width="300"] Speaker at sales conference[/caption] With sales training budgets under constant review, some companies are looking at using large conference style events as a cheaper way to provide their sales team with internal training. As with any training investment the question that must be asked after the conference is “Was it worth…

On the job training of sales people is usually done by the sales manager as it is he or she who accompanies his/her people on client visits. During such on-the-job training sessions there is a temptation to try to cover every skill improvement needed in just one visit. Don’t. (more…)

Providing good after-sales support to your customers is expensive! Any services you provide should, therefore, contribute to both increasing your customer’s satisfaction and giving your company a real competitive advantage. (more…)

A key part of the sales manager’s responsibilities is to support their sales team in making profitable sales. One way of doing this is to arrange joint visits with each of your sales people to customers and then to use these opportunities to uncover any poor sales techniques or personal behaviours that are limiting the…

The popular BBC1 TV series "The Apprentice" - the programme in which Sir Alan Sugar sets weekly tasks to test the abilities of the contenders and then grills them in the board room before firing one of them in order to decide who will become his business partner has just finished. Whilst Sir Alan's methods…

Richard Stone, leading Sales Trainer and Coach from the Spearhead Training Group, provides the following 9 recommendations on the subject of effective on the job coaching for sales people. read more