Your Sales Management Guru

If you think you did great in January, or that there’s no more work to do, ask yourself: “What else could I have done? Why didn’t I exceed my sales? Did I have enough top talent in place?” While short-term success is critical and must be your focus, a larger lesson needs to be considered.

In coaching our clients, we’re more interested in looking at September’s sales goals than January’s. If your revenue curve for 2010 ramps up during the second half of the year, then you must actively recruit and hire now to ensure you have the necessary salespeople in place to achieve your objectives. Many sales leaders get caught in the trap of having to achieve increased levels of sales dollars with either not enough salespeople on the team or with increased expectations for the existing sales team’s productivity levels (which might be below-par to begin with).

Sales management training will tell you to plan on unexpected sales force attrition. If, as a sales leader, you have set sales standards for your sales team, there may be “planned” reductions by way of you letting go of underperforming sales representatives. If it takes you 90 days to recruit a top performer and 90 to 120 days for those individuals to contribute at acceptable or quota levels, your organization could be short of overall quota attainment, putting the sales leader behind on a year-to-date basis.

Specifically, if you begin recruiting in February, using the hypothetical timeline above means an April hire and July/August sales production (consider summer month seasonality). Of course, this all assumes that you hire a top performer, that you train them properly, and that they become successful.

Though recruiting is 20 percent of the job focus for sales managers, it should be a consistent focus. Why? The top performers may not be looking when you believe you have opportunities open. Consider actively promoting your organization every 60 days using a variety of media.

For more guidance on this, consider joining other sales leaders at our one-and-a-half-day training workshop. Listen, learn and actively participate in our Sales Leadership Summit, which takes place Feb. 16 and 17 at Charlotte, N.C. Get all the details here.

Ken Thoreson, president of Acumen Management Group Ltd., “operationalizes” sales management systems and processes that pull revenue out of the doldrums into the fresh zone. During the past 12 years, our consulting, advisory and platform services have illuminated, motivated and rejuvenated the sales efforts for partners throughout North America. Move up and move ahead! Acumen Management provides keynotes, consulting services and products designed to improve business performance. 3f4qb8v9ge

Posted in sales leadership, Sales Leadership Training, Sales Management, Sales Management Consulting, Sales Management Planning, Sales Management Systems, Sales Motivation, Sales Training | Comments Off

New Year, New Goals

Every holiday for the past 20-plus years, I have sat down with my wife to discuss the previous year and think about the upcoming year. We consider what we’ve accomplished and what we want to accomplish during the coming 12 months. Certainly, we’ve experienced difficult economic swings along with the positives. And always, there are new challenges.

We’ve saved these as written documents, and whenever I reread our goals from years past, it makes me appreciate life more fully. However, the most important thing to learn from this exercise is that there are no unrealistic goals — only unrealistic timeframes.

As Acumen Management moves into our 13th year (yikes!), I thought I might share the various categories we use to focus ourselves. It’s my hope that if you haven’t created a formal one-, five- or 15-year plan, you’ll consider it. Start with 2010 and build from there.

• Social: What will we do to have a full social life with friends? Dinner parties?
• Personal: What do I want to do this year? Travel?
• Physical: How will we continue to be healthy? Run two miles a day?
• Professional: What are my career goals? Gain a promotion?
• Financial: What are my objectives as they relate to money? Pay off the mortgage?
• House: What are our major projects? Build a backyard patio?
• Societal: How will I give back to society to make it a better place? Work in food banks?

One of the major issues to not only make the objectives or achievements about just you. In one of my keynotes, “The Passion of Impact,” I address the need for personal and professional life balance. The real success lies in the ability to positively impact the lives of others, and how YOUR life will grow because of the feeling you get from helping someone else. Make this a better place or help someone make their lives more livable. Make that a part of your yearly plan, as well.

All the best in 2010, and think positive, take action!

Ken Thoreson, president of Acumen Management Group Ltd., “operationalizes” sales management systems and processes that pull revenue out of the doldrums into the fresh zone. During the past 12 years, our consulting, advisory and platform services have illuminated, motivated and rejuvenated the sales efforts for partners throughout North America. Move up and move ahead! Acumen Management provides keynotes, consulting services and products designed to improve business performance. 3f4qb8v9ge

Posted in Keynote Programs, Sales Kick Off Meeting, sales leadership, Sales Leadership Training, Sales Management, Sales Management Consulting, Sales Management Planning, Sales Management Systems, Sales Management Training, Sales Training, Uncategorized | Comments Off