Remember Me
forgot your password?

Take Your Sales Team from Good to Great with Sales Management Training

I recently reread Jim Collins' book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't and found that many of his ideas can help you improve performance of your sales team.

Collins' book answers the question: How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? Using tough standards, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results and sustained those results for at least fifteen years. The research team contrasted the good-to-great companies with a carefully selected set of "comparison" companies that failed to make the leap from good to great.

Over five years and 15,000 hours of research, Collins and his team deduced the key determinants of greatness – why some companies make the leap and others don't. Here are a few of their findings and what, I think, Collins' findings mean to you and the development of your team.

Good is the enemy of great

Some sales teams will never be great because their sales managers settle for being good. It's easier than being great. We have also found that a lot of sales manager do not send their salespeople to any sales seminars.

First Who... then What

Collins expected to find that Good to Great leaders would begin by setting a new vision and strategy. What their research discovered, however, was that the best leaders first got the right people on the team, de-hired the wrong people, and got everyone in their optimal position... and then decided what the vision and strategy was. The saying, "People are your most important asset" is incorrect. It should be changed to, "The right people are your most important asset." Then, put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems.

Application questions: Is there anybody on your team who shouldn't be? Do you have any team members in a less-than-optimal position, a person whose skills are not being fully utilized? What, and when will you rectify these situations?

Confront the brutal facts, but never lose faith

One of the most important findings from Collins' research is that breakthrough results come about by a series of good decisions, diligently executed and accumulated one on top of the other. You don't need to be perfect, but to be great you do need to make many more good decisions than bad ones. And good decision-making requires accurate information, which can be difficult to obtain. Collins writes:

Indeed, for those of you with a strong, charismatic personality, it is worthwhile to consider the idea that charisma can be as much a liability as an asset. Your strength of personality can sow the seeds of problems, when people filter the brutal facts from you.

Winston Churchill understood the liabilities of his strong personality. He was concerned that he wouldn't get accurate information from his subordinates, so, during the darkest days of World War II, he founded the "Statistical Office", a separate department outside the command structure that fed him the most accurate, indeed brutal, facts of the war. Churchill also possessed the second requirement of greatness -- an unwavering faith that Britain would survive and thrive, even when things looked so bleak.

Application questions: What's one great dream you would dare to dream (for your team) if you knew you could not fail?

Your "Stop doing" list is more important than your "To do" list.

Many sales managers lead busy lives, accomplishing task after task after task. Interestingly, the leaders studied in "Good to Great" companies made as much use of "stop doing" lists as "to do" lists. They continually asked themselves:

What can we do better than anyone else? What type of opportunities are we passionate about? And, what segment of customers allows us to make the most profit?

Good to Great leaders instilled the culture of discipline - by teaching their team where to focus, and what to ignore.

Application questions: What opportunities, or customer segments, can your team make a compelling case of being the best choice? Which of these opportunities are most profitable, and why? Finally, what can you become passionate about?

Is your team brilliant on the basics? If not, you may be losing sales you should be winning. At TopLine Leadership, we help salespeople re-focus on the fundamentals of effective salesmanship, and sales managers to master the basics of management / leadership. We can help you and your sales team with these concepts with our sales management training seminars and coaching. 

Kevin Davis

Kevin Davis is the president of TopLine Leadership Inc., a company that provides speaking, consulting and training services that dramatically increase TopLine revenue growth. Since 1989, Kevin has delivered sales and management/leadership training to tens of thousands of tenured salespeople and sales managers.

Rate this Article: 5 / 5 stars - 1 vote(s)
Print Email Re-Publish

Add new Comment



Captcha

  • Latest Training Articles
  • More from Kevin Davis

How Can a Fake Smile Makes You Healthier And Eliminates Stress?

By: H. Bernard Wechsler | 10/11/2009
Smiling is not something to take for granted. It affects and improves the state of both the body and the brain. Discover a 20-30 second method of extend health and longevity. Start now.

Quickstart Electrical Training

By: Mark Nelson | 10/11/2009
There are many places in the United States, where you can get trained as an electrician, or for your own core Around-The-home repair or build a large new lucrative career electrician. One school in California, is dedicated to nothing but electrical training for those who can demonstrate the skill and desire to go to the end. Let's look at what it offers.

Beat the Rush with this Internet Marketing Training System

By: Martinact420 | 10/11/2009
Hello Internet marketing friends from across the world, I have received some exciting news you may be interested in and this is HOT! News of a great new Internet marketing training program that launched 2 months ago and is still so new, the paint isn't even dry yet! I was quietly informed about it, took a look and immediately took a spot.

Advantages of Getting Nursing Assistant Certification

By: Steve Harmision | 10/11/2009
Your nursing assistant corroboration can be virtuous one locomotion on your way to obtaining your professed permit to be a nurse, still umpteen individuals like the progression freedom that existence help gives.

Online Cash Pump

By: Martinact420 | 10/11/2009
I would like to congratulate all of you who were able to become members at Wealthy Affiliate University and are already making money using Kyle and Carson's Wealthy Affiliate strategies. I can not believe the type of success people are having in just a few short days of applying these super secret Internet marketing techniques.

Running a Business that Runs Through Walls: Josh Millet, the founder and CEO of Criteria Corp. is a Leader in the Employee Testing

By: Uwemp | 09/11/2009
Josh Millet is a Harvard graduate who couldn’t get the jobs he wanted in teaching, so he starting using the Internet as a tool to help people study for the SATs. The program was a runaway success and within a year had over one million clients. He parlayed that experience into Criteria Corp., which has become one of the leading purveyors of employee-testing programs. He aspires to help others overcome the challenges involved with starting a business.

Challenging Yourself Through Adaptive Leadership

By: Tim Millett | 09/11/2009
Have you wondered why some companies seem able to handle whatever comes their way including the difficult economic conditions over the last year? While other companies go bankrupt, the successful companies deliver results over and over again. If you could look inside these companies there’s a good chance you will find adaptive leaders who remain invigorated and ready to accept any challenges coming their way while becoming change agents.

Do Cool Ideas Arouse Your Curiosity?

By: H. Bernard Wechsler | 08/11/2009
Warren Buffet has just broken Wall Street's Primary Directive - Past Performance Does NOT Guarantee Future Results - for $32.2 Billion. Learn something vital to your success. Start now.

Diagnose Little Problems and Uncover Big Needs

By: Kevin Davis | 06/10/2009 | Sales
With a few variations, 80 percent of the objections sales people hear are: "It's too expensive." (I can't afford it.) "It's not in the budget." "I don't need it."

How to Yield Big Sales with Healthy Margins

By: Kevin Davis | 07/09/2009 | Sales
To find big problems, which yield big sales with healthy margins, you need to be talking to CEO and Core level managers because these larger problems and longer view issues are their natural habitat.

Valuable Skills for Sales Presentations -- Go Beyond the Show and Tell

By: Kevin Davis | 27/06/2009 | Sales
It's not enough to show that you can meet your customer's needs. You must also have some reasons why your solution is the customer's best choice. To deliver a winning sales presentation, you must do the same. When you implement these 10 tips in your sales presentations, you will win more sales.

Sales Management Training: Competitive Selling Skills

By: Kevin Davis | 16/05/2009 | Sales
This article explains four of the most common reasons why competitive sales opportunities are lost -- and specifically what you can do to win more often. These are the mistakes to avoid if you want to give your competitors fits.

Take Your Sales Team from Good to Great with Sales Management Training

By: Kevin Davis | 05/05/2009 | Training
Some sales teams will never be great because their sales managers settle for being good. It's easier than being great.

Power in Buy-Sell Negotiations

By: Kevin Davis | 30/04/2009 | Negotiation
Negotiating power plays a major role in every type of negotiation, whether it's a labor negotiation, political negotiation, or a buy-sell negotiation. Both the buyer and the seller have power in a negotiation. Power is each side's perception of its strength or weakness in comparison to the other. This perception of power affects the ability of each party to achieve its own goals. The more negotiating power you have in comparison to that of your buyer, the fewer concessions you'll have to make.

Submit Your Articles Free: Signup
Article Categories




Use of this web site constitutes acceptance of the Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy | User published content is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Copyright © 2005-2008 Free Articles by ArticlesBase.com, All rights reserved. (0.27, 6, w1)