Cracking The Sales Management Code Quotes

It became clear that the results of our actions are not as controllable as the actions themselves.

If Account Management is important to your organization, then do it. If not, then do not. But don’t find yourself in the middle ground of investing moderate effort with zero return. The

An Account Management process is used to maximize the long-term value of selected customers. It helps you to align your company’s goals with those of your customer and to find compelling ways to strengthen your business relationship.

don’t prescribe a remedy without first examining the patient—particularly when the remedy is an invasive procedure.

Companies with more developed sales processes enjoy greater sales performance.

Plan from the top to the bottom, and then manage from the bottom to the top.

It became quickly apparent that sales pipeline metrics have two distinct uses. The first intended use is to measure the health of the company looking into the future.

The second use of sales pipeline metrics is to measure the effectiveness of salespeople at moving opportunities through their sales cycles.

Of course, as high-level corporate outcomes, Business Results cannot be directly managed. To exert any form of control over these numbers, leadership needs to select the right Sales Objectives and manage the right Sales Activities to drive its desired outcomes.

Hiring the right salespeople, deploying them in the right way, targeting the right customers, and selling the right products is the only formula for long-term organizational health.

have control over something, it is fundamental that we understand the cause-and-effect relationship between the action we take and the outcome we expect.

Activities can be managed—outcomes can’t.

First, you need to ensure that you have enough selling effort to sufficiently cover your target markets. Second, you must develop a sales force capable of effectively selling your products and service. Third, you need to focus them on the right types of customers. And finally, you must provide them with guidance on what types of products to sell.

The objective of the Market Coverage sales metrics is to help make staffing and time allocation adjustments that will keep your sales force operating at peak productivity. There

Since not all customers are equally desirable, sales management must be directive about where its salespeople are investing their time.

Letting go of the past is as much a part of management as providing guidance for the future.

W. Edwards Deming is credited with saying that “A bad system will beat a good person every time,

Basically, our ability to report data accelerated faster than our ability to understand it.

When the right artist gets the right canvas and the right subject to paint, magic can occur. While

With extremely rare exception, the best sales managers we’ve encountered are unconsciously competent scientists. They hold formal meetings with formal agendas on formal schedules. They set rigorous expectations for their salespeople and track progress against those goals with equal rigor. They manage by analysis rather than anecdote and by measurement rather than gut. They are continuous-improvement experts with action plans galore. While their lower-performing peers try to manage with the same artistic flair that served them well as salespeople, high-performing managers adopt a more scientific approach to management that enables them to get consistently higher performance from their team. Salespeople

Therefore, the closest you can get to managing your sales pipeline is to manage your salespeople’s opportunities and calls. In

First, you need to ensure that you have enough selling effort to sufficiently cover your target markets. Second, you must develop a sales force capable of effectively selling your products and service. Third, you need to focus them on the right types of customers. And finally, you must provide them with guidance on what types of products to sell. If you meet all of these Sales Objectives, you will have a laser-guided sales force that will destroy your targets as well. And that will put a smile on your face. THE

Sales leaders know that everything I’m describing in this book applies to them, too. The private sector is way ahead of nonprofits in this regard, which makes sense. Their profit model financially motivates them—their CEOs, managers, and salespeople—to crack the code on what truly works and what doesn’t. If they don’t, their investors seek change. In the 21st century, your investors (your donors) will, too.