One of my former subordinates told me a little story. He is one of the most effective salesmen I happened to know and later became a friend for lifetime.
Some evening he had a long talk with the in-house trainer of his company. At one moment the trainer exclaimed that my friend is a hell of a great person and asked why he stayed hidden for so many years (about six). (more…)
Two months ago I was talking to a friend who works in company involved in a merger. He mentioned about their management request that sales people should allocate time in the field to simply get know their counterparts from the other merging company in their territory.
I was wondering then why? Pretty often sales people within the same company either do not know each other or (if they know) do not work well together or care about their colleagues (not to mention that sometimes they truly hate each other). It may be nice that they are aware about who their colleagues are but is quite unlikely to provide any benefit in the short or medium run. It is so funny how during business as usual management do not really care who knows whom but in a merger situation they want everyone to know everyone to show progress through the process. It’s a kind of “keep’em busy until we figure out what to do next!” (more…)
A friend who works in sales just sent me a PowerPoint Presentation of a reputable training company in the field of sales titled just like above. It was a rather plain sales brochure trying to create awareness of their services.
The problems as resulted from a study involving 100+ sales managers on the market were no surprise for any professional in the field:
The authors also suggested that such problems could be “repaired” through training which I seriously doubt because I am perfectly sure that a great majority of the sales representatives have been exposed to such trainings before (except maybe last year in some companies) and problem still persists. (more…)
TRUE STORY:
There was once a medical rep that came to his colleagues and proposed to play a football game against (possibly) their biggest competitor. In a macho style atmosphere (they knew nothing about football capabilities of the others) the majority of his colleagues subscribed and a place and a date have been set. (more…)
This is probably a question that should not be missed in any job interview for a managerial position. I do not like too much superlatives in supporting a point of view so I would resist stating that setting appropriate targets is the most important skill of all in a managerial job. However, both my sales and consulting experience convinced me that this skill is seriously overlooked in today’s business (especially sales) world and has one of the highest costs on the success of the organization. (more…)
