How are your sales people maximizing the selling opportunities that exist within your selling area? How are you, as their sales manager, contributing to their selling success and profitability? What "management style" are you utilizing when you deal with your sales people?

Are You A "Doing" Manager?
The majority of sales managers only function as "Doing" managers. A "Doing" sales manager is a manager who has multiple responsibilities other than managing the sales force. There are several categories of "Doing" sales managers:

- Sales Person/Sales Manager - Also called a "Selling Manager." You split your time between functioning as a sales person and acting as a sales manager to other sales people. You spend part of your time selling to your own customers and the rest supporting your company´s sales people. A "Sales Person/Sales Manager" normally handles the largest (or most important) accounts and is the busiest member of the sales team.

- Owner/Sales Manager - As the owner of your company (or as General Manager of a location), you have all departments reporting to you. Your time with your sales people is only a minor part of your total responsibility.

- Worker/Sales Manager - This position is normally only present in small companies where everyone handles a variety of jobs and responsibilities. Though very rare, there are sales managers who split their time between managing your sales people and working at some other task such as running a piece of equipment.

Which type of "Doing" Manager best describes you? Though each management approach has a different set of problems, they all share the significant challenge of shifting their focus between successfully managing a sales team and handling another significant, and radically different, responsibility. How successful are you at balancing such divergent responsibilities?

The "Firefighter" Approach To "Doing" Management
How much of your management time do you spend being "Proactive" v.s. "Reactive?" A "Reactive" manager approaches his/her work life with a "If it isn´t broke, then don´t waste time trying to fix it" mentality. The majority of managers are so overworked they can never accomplish all they would like. How many mornings have you started with your personal "Critical To Do" list, and then, distracted by a variety of crises, found your untouched "To Do" list had doubled in size? A "Reactive" management style works best at maintaining the performance of a department, but this style will not allow you to significantly grow or improve your department´s success. If this "never able to do all that is necessary" style of management describes you, then you most likely also approach your sales management team in that same "Reactive" style.

A "Proactive" management style is just as overworked, but he/she has somehow added an additional future focus or planning component to their daily managerial efforts. How many steps do you utilize when resolving a crisis? Almost all managers approach a problem with the two steps of:

- 1st, Identify the full scope of the problem and then
- 2nd, Identify and direct the implementation of the necessary solutions to fix or eliminate the original problem

A "Proactive" Manager will add an additional third step by spending some time discussing or identifying how this problem can be prevented from occurring again in this or any other account. So many managers keep functioning as successful firefighters, they never devote any time to working on preventative issues to eliminate the potential for new fires.

The Most Significant Uniqueness Of Managing A Sales Force
Managing a sales team requires a major shift in your managerial style. With other departments, you can still be successful managing your areas with a predominately "reactive" style. You can be a "firefighter," only fixing problems as they arise before quickly moving onto other challenges. Though you do occasionally invest time helping your people understand what can be done to prevent these problems from occurring in the future, this type of proactive planning and coaching is definitely in the minority of your time allocation.

Managing a sales force requires a major shift in focus. A sales team needs to be led, not just fixed. In my sales training programs, I identify how most sales people function as "Hellarewe" birds. The "Hellarewe" bird is a three foot bird, living in four foot grass, and spending their entire life asking anyone they can find "Where the hell are we?" Sound like any of the members of your sales team?

You cannot build a successful sales force by just fixing problems as they occur. The goal of sales management is to significantly grow a sales force, not just maintain your current performance level. How much effort have you invested in profoundly improving your sales team compared to just maintaining? The most critical error the majority of "Doing" managers make is trying to manage (and grow) their sales levels by only managing with a Reactive" maintaining style of management.

Your sales team is the single most important area to grow your companies revenues and profitability. Everything else will only maintain (or erode) the performance volumes established by your sales team. Since your sales force is the leading edge of your company´s growth, then you need to manage this "leading edge" with a different style than the rest of your areas of responsibility.

How To Shift From A "Reactive" To A "Proactive" Sales Management Style
Successfully shifting from a "Reactive" to a "Proactive" style of sales management is based on how you handle your coaching efforts. Being able to devote additional time to coaching and guiding your sales people could also improve results, but may not be an acceptable alternative based on your other responsibilities and commitments.

The first consideration to shifting your managerial style is to review where you focus your attention when talking with your sales people. When working with their team, most sales managers divide their conversations spending approximately 50% of their time on "History" and 50% on "Today" focused issues. "History" focused issues deal with understanding how things progressed to where they are now allowing you to identify the necessary background information. "Today" focused conversations allow you to identify what immediate actions need to be taken to resolve the identified problem. Both conversations, though positive and critical to any problem resolution, are still only functioning in the "Reactive" management style.

A "Proactive" manager, before ending the discussion, will pull the sales person into a third conversation focusing on the "Future" issues of what extra efforts can be accomplished to either prevent this problem from occurring in other accounts or to turn this situation from a negative problem into a positive selling opportunity.

The majority of problems facing your experienced sales people do not focus on productivity or functional implementation issues. An experienced sales rep usually has these skills under control. Growing the sales volumes and profitability of an experienced sales person requires you, as their sales manager, to help change their focus, approach, messaging or persuasive style. These kinds of changes involve more than just "fixing" problems but instead require your coaching and guidance to help your rep redirect and refocus their efforts.

Simply put, successfully managing your sales team requires you to focus on coaching the "big" stuff at the same time you deal with the more normal day to day "small" stuff. The "Hellarewe" bias of most sales people means they only tend to bring you smaller, more detailed problems. As their sales manager, your job is to lift them above their mental four foot grass to show them the solution to their detailed problems may involve doing something significantly different.

So many times you, as a sales manager, find one of our sales people mentally banging their head against the wall, when you ask them what they are doing, they respond "I´m trying to find the door to leave this room." They are working and trying hard, they just lack direction and focus. As their sales manager, your job is not to do their job for them, but to gently grab their shoulders, move them over about two feet and then watch as they move forward, head first and go right out the doorway instead of pounding into the wall again. How are you redirecting and refocusing each of your sales people?

Strategically Redirecting And Refocusing Each member of Your Sales Team
As you go about your normal job as a sales manager, consider maintaining a "Future" focus with your sales coaching efforts. As you work with your people solving problems, consider ending each problem resolution discussion with questions like:

- "So what can you do to make sure this never happens again with this customer?"
- "If this happened with this account, then lets talk about how many of your other customers are most likely headed
toward this same problem?
- Now that you´ve solved this crisis with your customer, what can you do as an extra effort to rebuild, improve or
strengthen your relationship with your client?"
- "What have you learned from this problem and how can you now change the way you sell to improve your overall
success?"

Becoming more "Proactive" as a sales manager is more based on the focus of your comments and coaching efforts than it is the additional time you can devote to working with your sales people. The job of a sales manager is to help each individual achieve more than they would have without your involvement. How are you helping each of your people "see over the four foot grass" so they work on the really big stuff as they improve the way they sell and build their profitability? This is the goal of becoming more `Proactive" in your efforts as a successful sales manager.

May you enjoy the process.

Copyright 2008 Jim Pancero, Inc.

One of the most fundamental, yet critical skills in selling is your ability to listen and understand what your customer or prospect is really saying. How persuasive listener are you?

The majority of sales professionals brag about being great communicators. They are proud of their ability to deliver a persuasive message.

But the majority of sales reps are also doing all the talking. How much time in a sales call do you spend talking vs. listening? The average experienced and successful sales professional still spends over 90% of a sales call talking. How much time in your sales calls are you talking vs. listening?

Consider this example. Your customer asks "Why are you so expensive compared to your competition?" That was a three second question. How many minutes does it take you to provide an answer? Your calls are interactive. The customer is asking you questions and you are providing answers, and hopefully solutions. The problem is you are still doing the majority of the talking.

There are two ways to find out if this is a problem for you. The first is to audio tape some of your phone conversations. You don´t even need to tape both sides of the conversation. After your call play the tape back and time out how many minutes, and what percentage, of the call were you talking.

The other alternative is to ask one of your peers (or your manager) to go with you on a sales call and to time how many minutes of your call you actually talked. You will first need to get a stop watch that doesn´t make any noise when you turn it on or off. Notice what time your call begins and then ask the person helping you to time the call turning the watch on any time the customer is talking.

Most sales reps spend 90% of more of a sales call talking. What percent of your calls are you talking vs. listening? In today´s hyper-competitive environments your most significant advantage over your competition might come from you learning more about your customer and their unique needs and challenges than anyone else. How can you achieve this enhanced level of awareness if you are the one doing all the talking?

Consider asking open ended questions to provide your customer with more time to talk. Also ask additional probing questions such as "How much are those types of problems costing you per day?" or "How important is it to get this type of problem immediately corrected?"

Also be sure you are an active listener. An active listener is one who participates by providing encouragement and positive feedback to the person talking. Nodding your head in agreement and maintaining strong eye contact are two integral components of active listening. Also provide brief statements or questions to encourage the talker to keep sharing. Brief statements such as "They did?" "How many were there?" or "How did they react?" are all active listening motivating statements.

What can you do to increase your active listening skills?

Copyright 2008 Jim Pancero, Inc.

The first issue of "You Can Always Sell More" Coaching E-Newsletter has arrived with the November issue! We want to help you make more money! This monthly e-newsletter is aimed at helping you, the experienced sales pro, to strengthen your selling "best practices" and to increase your competitive edge. There is also an article each issue for the leader/manager of your sales team.

Join us each month as we feature brief, yet condensed articles by Jim Pancero highlighting an immediately-implementable sales idea or suggestion to help you increase your selling skills, competitive advantage and selling success...or to help you lead your sales team. You will also be provided with additional ideas from other experts as well as links to great free stuff that can help you make more money in selling.

SUBSCRIBE NOW by filling out the form on our homepage at www.pancero.com.

Read the current issue or listen to the sales and sales management articles in MP3 format by clicking here.

The role of sales manager varies from company to company. Demands on you change with the changing times. But some things always stay the same.

As a sales manager, you need to be comfortable with being evaluated solely on the efforts of others. You have to assume the roles of both strategist and coach, devising a game plan for customer support. And you must keep your salespeople consistenly and actively motivated.

If the constraints and restrictions of your sales management job are causing you to delay or ignore your important goals and objectives — you are not alone. But you need not fall short of any of these goals. Let sales management pro Jim Pancero teach you how to get back on the fast track to success.

Based on extensive research, “Leading Your Sales Team: How to Manage A Winning Sales Team” is an enthusiastic, yet always sensible, advanced training course in keeping and increasing the competitive advantage of your sales team.

Packed with pertinent, practical advice, this no-nonsense look at what it takes to conquer the challenges of your sales management job includes:
- Three areas that help define your personal management style.
- Ways to help salespeople enhance their skill and to keep them growing and competitive in your changing sales market.
- Using a four-step hiring process to build a winning sales team.
- Ideas for creating a long-term positive environment for your sales staff.
- Steps for solving any customer/account crisis.
- Commission and compensation strategies for increasing your sales teams’ success.

“Leading Your Sales Team: How to Manage A Winning Sales Team” is the full coverage guide you need to master all aspects fo your complicated job as a sales manager.

Whether it is creating employee performance plans, understanding the three documents critical to sales management success, using the four strategic points of motivation - or any question you might have about your job - Jim Pancero is the expert ready with the answer. Your success as a sales manager depends on the success of other people. Now you can depend on Jim Pancero to tell you how to get the most out of it. Buy a copy today at “Leading Your Sales Team: How to Manage A Winning Sales Team”

#1 - Use your coach to help plan and strategize.

#2 - Always design and follow a multi-stepped plan.

#3 - Initiate instead of respond.

#4 - Make sure your entire team delivers a single, consistent message of uniqueness.

#5 - Stay “customer solution focused” by talking about their challenges, their opportunities, and your ability to help.

#6 - Ask more questions, do more homework, conduct more research.

#7 - Use your entire team to sell.

#8 - Work to get higher, wider and deeper within their organization.

#9 - Strengthen your “brand” by improving your (and your company’s) service, quality and response predictability.

#10 - Remember you are not in a price-driven market. You will get a higher price only when you first prove a higher value.

Copyright 2007 Jim Pancero, Inc.

Selling has profoundly changed. Customers are less loyal, more demanding and are more price sensitive. Your competitors are effective selling professionals with a solid set of existing customers, offering proven services at a very competitive price. Your ability to competitively win in this intensive market will be based on your capability to consistently strengthen all areas of your selling expertise. In the two audio CD set, Jim will share with you the latest strategies and techniques being utilized to gain a selling advantage in today’s even tougher, and more competitive markets. Just being good as a salesperson is no longer enough. The most critical issue today is “Are you good enough to get better?” Find out by ordering the latest best selling CD program “The New Rules of Selling - Are You Good Enough to Get Better?” The next best thing to Jim’s live presentations! Double audio CD - 95 minutes.

Hi Jim!

It was great to have the opportunity to talk to you several times during the last ISSA Convention and attend some of your seminars. Over the years I have found your material to be valuable. By attending your seminars and using your tapes and books over the years, I have found that the basic concepts are still effective when applied in today’s rapidly changing selling environment.

Perhaps the most lasting impact of your training upon my career was your 2 day sales management training seminar I attended years ago. True to your supposition, it has been the only in-depth sales management training I have ever received! Two ideas from that seminar have been the basis of my sales management since:

1. Some of the best fiction has been written in call reports. Therefore, you proposed that weekly meetings with sales staff should be focused on what is the PLAN for the future, day, week, etc. and a Q&A about the last plan we discussed. The theory is that if there is a PLAN, it is more apt to be worked!

2. The second was a way to bring quality training to the sales team on a continuous basis, even as a small company. Your idea was to use cassette recordings of training programs. You said to buy a set of tapes for each sales rep so that everyone was listening to the same cassette several times during the week while working. Then at our weekly meeting we discussed the tape and it’s application to our work using the workbook as a catalyst for conversation. It worked tremendously! I am in the process of rebuilding our sales staff and look forward to using this process again!

Thanks for all you do in your work with ISSA to raise the level of professionalism in our industry! Keep up the GREAT work!

Sincerely,

David G. Champagne, President, Beacon Distributors, Inc.,
Lincoln R.I.

There are three ways you can increase your success and enhance
your effectiveness:

1. Review your basic selling skills.

2. Increase your focus on individual customers.

3. Increase your strategic positioning.

Review Your Basic Selling Skills

Go back to the basics. You probably know the basic selling skills by heart - but
are you using them on every customer call? Could you:

· Ask more questions in your calls?

· Listen more?

· Re-establish any habits you’ve abandoned that make you more effective?

Increase Your Individual Customer Focus

Sometimes the more successful you become, the less flexible you’re willing to be.
Loosen up a little. Sell the way your customers want to buy. Don’t demand that
they do it your way.

Increase Your Strategic Positioning

When there is little difference between products, customers are most likely to
base their purchase on your selling message and the company uniqueness it
communicates. Work on your message. Use it to sell an entire relationship, not
just an order.

To focus on that relationship:

· Emphasize follow-through and after-sales support by introducing service and support people to your customer during your selling process.

· Become more proactive in your account work.

· Increase your strategic planning by spending more time prioritizing accounts in your territory, and developing strategies to sell them.

One important step you can take is to develop a strategic plan of your goals for the next 12 months. Set up a three-point strategic plan that clarifies your sales goal and breaks down the amount of time you will devote to each of your account groups. Plan
to spend:

· 60 percent of your time re-qualifying and growing your best customers

· 30 percent of your time initiating new business

· 10 percent of your time re-qualifying or dropping your lowest customers.

Most salespeople don’t drop accounts, but real growth can only come when you give away your lowest producers and focus on accounts with potential.

Remember that strategic improvement is an ongoing process that requires you to reevaluate your goals, your accounts, and your habits. But by working on the three steps of strategic change - awareness, raw implementation, and refinement - you will bring yourself closer to success at the top.

You’re facing a competitive opportunity - if you take action. Just do it! Start today.
Learn more about strategic selling and gaining your competitive advantage in Jim’s audio CD series “Selling At The Top - Volume 1.”

To gain credibility and customer loyalty, always be fair and honest in your comments about your competitors. Avoid negative comments like, “that company misses all its delivery dates.” When your competition spreads false information about you, is failing its customers, or can’t do its work, use this three-step approach to respond.

1. Remain positive or neutral. Do not attack the situation or the competitor directly.

2. If the situation is really negative, consider referring your prospect to a satisfied customer who experienced a similar problem with the competitor that you helped resolve.

3. Instead of making negative comments, reply with a customer-focused answer. Suggest that your customer evaluate all vendors on the same criteria. Build your list of criteria ahead of time. Include the most critical evaluators a customer should use to measure anyone in your industry. For example, if on-time delivery is a must, you can mention that a few vendors have very poor delivery schedules and that your prospect should check all vendors being considered to make sure this is not a problem. This customer-focused tactic lets you alert customers to potential problems without pointing out specific vendors or sounding negative.

How coachable are you? How open are you to new ideas and suggestions...especially ones that require changing the way you have always done things?

If you are not very coachable then there is most likely no one pushing and encouraging you to get better. You also have no one to "bounce ideas off of" to help you with your account planning and strategizing. Your lack of awareness of the benefits of coaching also mean you most likely brag to others about not having a coach and see the lack of a coach in your life as an affirmation of your seniority and success.

But does that make any sense to you? That kind of person is letting their ego and self importance get in the way of being more successful and enjoying their job more.

The most successful sales professionals are ones who have found someone to help them stretch and improve to get better. That person might be your manager, it might be a more senior and successful sales rep in your office, or it might be someone else from outside your company. But the bottom line is...the best sales reps have realized that, no matter how good you are, you can always get better. You need a coach to help you think more moves ahead and to identify strategies and changes to the way you sell to help increase your competitive advantage and selling success. You need to be open to ideas and suggestions from others that will help you get better.

So how do you become more coachable? First check your ego. The sales reps who most reject the help of a coach also have the largest egos and lowest sense of awareness for what could be happening to you and your success. Getting help from a coach is not a sign of weakness...just the opposite. Weakness is when you are not aware enough to even accept help from others.

Second start checking out who might help to be your coach. It doesn´t have to be just one person...it could be several each helping you on a different area of selling.

The job of a coach is not to be a better sales person than you are. Their job is to help you become a better sales person than you are right now. We all know you´re good...but are you now good enough to get better?