What got my attention was that one of the topics discussed at length was that of sales coaching. Apparently, there’s not enough of it going around. Sales people are still left to their own devices to a large degree.

Why? Mostly because most sales managers are former top producing sales people that were promoted into sales management as a reward for their success. The skills required to manage sales people and those required to go out and sell are wildly different. So, most new sales managers find themselves able only to share their own previous experiences with their charges as a way of teaching/coaching. They further lack the ability to analyze the mechanics of the sales process and optimize it.

Think of this in terms of baseball…

Would you take last season’s home run leader and make him the coach this season? Would you make the strike out leading pitcher your new pitching coach?

Pulling Productive Players from the Field

Of course not! Why? Because you can’t afford to go without their contributions on the field.

Normally, when a player begins to loose his ability to be productive on the field, he may begin to consider coaching. Even then, he starts out in a junior coaching role so that he can learn how to coach.

What we’re doing with our sales organizations is punishing our top producers by taking them off the field AND making them responsible for the performance of the team, having just had the team’s best player taken off the field.

Is there another way? Is there a way to groom a sales person for sales management before pulling him/her off the field?

I think so. Of course, you could call upon the trainers and coaches at Top Sales Experts. Or you could just begin to delegate simple basic sales management tasks and responsibilities to the “sales manager in training” slowly and over time.

What are your thoughts? Please share your experiences and thoughts with us by commenting!

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Ms. Needleman quotes Bob Riordan, leader of labor and employment practice group Alston and Bird, as saying the best defense against employee theft is prevention.  Mr. Riordan suggests codes of ethics and video monitoring where appropriate.

What struck me as I read is that no where is information piracy or security mentioned.

No offense to Ms. Needleman or Mr. Riordan… its a fine article but, its almost 2009 right? 

If you’re reading this post, you’re probably in the sales or marketing game.  So, other than sales people adding an extra lunch or two to their expense account or walking away with a box of pens, what are the most valuable assets that sales and marketing employees have access to?

Its information about your customers, prospects, sales methods, pricing policies, marketing strategies, etc.!

The fact is that whether the economy is up or down, most businesses have minimal to non-existent security policies for information related to customers and marketing.  I know.  When talking to business owners interested in SalesNexus’ online contact management system, I’m constantly hit with this irony:

The greatest fear most business owners have when considering a hosted contact management or CRM system is the security of the information.  So, I always ask them where they keep that information currently.  Inevitably, the answer is that its stored on each sales rep’s computer in Outlook, ACT!, Excel, etc. and maybe there is some master copy of all this on a server in the office.  The next question is "Who has access to that information now and would you know if they made a copy of it or modified it maliciously?".

Point is that information about your customers is currently in the hands of your sales reps and you probably don’t even have an up to date copy of it yourself.  You are currently at risk for one of the most damaging frauds that could possibly hit your business!

So, if a sales rep is considering an offer from your competitor, do you think he’s making a copy of the information?  If the sales rep leaves or you fire them, how will you "pick up" the relationship with your customers?  How much information will you lose when the sales rep is gone?  How much information will your competitor gain when they hire that rep?

In my view, the potential risk to your business in piracy or damage to your customer information is far greater than anything an employee could do by stealing office supplies or parts from the warehouse.

Of course, a hosted contact management system is not the only solution to this risk.  Here are a couple of suggestions:

• Automated backups - be sure that each employee’s computer is being backed up daily and that you’ll have access to the information if the sales rep, their notebook computer and their cell phone or PDA dissappear one day.  www.carbonite.com is an easy and affordable solution that offers corporate accounts your control.
• Frequent, consistent and mandatory updates to a master list of customer and prospect information by all customer facing employees.  This could be solutions like ACT! or Goldmine, hosted online solutions like SalesNexus.com or Salesforce.com, or just excel sheets submitted by reps that someone merges into a master list.  Important note - be sure you put some teeth into this.  A rep planning to leave is likely to "forget" to submit their information.  Make paying commissions contingent on compliance with the policy.

Your business’ existence is based on the relationships you have with customers.  Information about those customers is a strategic asset.  Protect it with the same vigor your do your physical and financial assets.

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If sales is your game, then honing your skills is always on your agenda. Its almost 2009 and there is now soooo much great advice available online for FREE that its unbelieveable.

Jonathan Farrington just released his list of the World’s Best Sales Blogs. This is a tremendous resource of expertise in sales.

In fact, I’m proud to announce that this very blog was included in the World’s Best Sales Blogs!

I hope you’ll check them all out!

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We’ve been holding one every week for over a year now with great success.  I’ve been demoing software for years and I’ve learned a few things in the last year about holding webinars that were not obvious to me.

If you’re currently or planning to hold webinars to promote your business, I hope the following list of tips and suggestions is helpful.

1. Practice.  Do a dry run or two to be sure the audio is clear, the slides or demos work and flow smoothly.
2. Set expectations up front.  This is public speaking 101 but, is easy to forget…  Tell them what you’re hoping to accomplish during the webinar in outline form and let them know how much time they should expect to spend.
3. Don’t let any one person dominate with detailed questions.  Always keep the general audience in mind and ensure that the discussion is relevant for all.  An easy way to redirect in the case of the squeaky wheel is to offer to follow up after the webinar is over.Open up with introductions all around.  If your group is not too large, it really helps get everyone engaged early on.  The risk in a webinar is that people will be checking email, etc. and not paying attention.  If you can spare the time, go down the attendee list and invite each person to introduce themselves and state why they’re attending so that you can use that feedback as a guide to what to focus on.
4. Be sure you have a good strong, and short, list of "take aways" that you want each person to leave the webinar having learned.  Be sure to summarize them at the end.
5. Close with a compelling call to action.  In some cases, its appropriate to go for the close and offer something special to those that attended and then purchase your product or service in the near term.  However, often its better to invite them to simply take the next step in learning more about your company and services.  Be sure its clear how they can take action, make it easy to do so, and be sure they can easily understand how they’ll benefit.
6. Follow up!  This is probably the most overlooked step in webinar success.  Believe it or not, many companies wrap up their webinar and then turn their backs on the attendees.  An easy way to engage the prospect post webinar is to call (or email) and ask for feedback.  Ask for feedback about the webinar itself, not your company’s products and services.  Was the subject matter valuable to them?  Was there anything they would suggest be done differently in the future?  These types of questions will naturally lead to the prospect opening up about their intentions regarding doing business with you.

If you’ve not done it before, jump in and try it.  Webinars can be a tremendous marketing tactic and an efficient means of moving folks through your sales pipeline.   If you’ve been there and done that, I hope this list will help you take a step back and refine things.Good luck!

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