Archive for Category: Sales Management

How your title and the organizational structure may impede the sale

Don’t hold your breath for long, hoping to lean on “marketing took up my time” as a reason for explaining the shortfall in numbers. No one will buy it. Here are organizational aspects that may impede the sale. Titles Your title is meant to portray what your employer wants to project of himself through

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Selling Has No Formula-It Is An Art, Not A Science

There is no formula in selling. I was told this by an experienced salesperson who has sold in the financial sector for over a decade. Today he heads over 500 sales managers and sales people countrywide. In a way he was right and this is what I wish to explore today. Let’s consider the sales

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Profit raking salespeople take time and money to build

The unspoken sentiment is that this is no longer a ‘business’ problem but a Sales problem. That profit raking salespeople come automatically. What the business soon realizes is that a sales team is a different kettle of fish “Sara, have Sales do that thing where profits go up.” So the CEO, in a cartoon strip,

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Promoted from salesperson to sales manager?

Now that you have been promoted from being ‘one of the boys’ to being in charge of the ‘boys’, what to do? Many sales leaders struggle with this transition. And understandably so. Suddenly you are pitted against yourself.You probably were the most vocal in your team, influencing the team to, say, leave work early when

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Adapt sales techniques to different buyers

Ignoring different sales techniques for different buyers leads to disrespect by the sales team and limits the most effective of sales techniques Selling isn’t, er, selling. You must adapt your sales techniques to different buyers. Take the salesman who moves from say, selling fast-moving-consumer-goods (FMCG) to, say, selling electrical engineering products. The former includes selling

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Personal drive sells more than years of experience

How sales people’s lack of innate personal commitment affects business and what sales managers can do about it It is difficult to grow as a salesperson if you don’t have personal reason to. Scratch that! It is impossible to learn, mature and expand as a salesperson if you do not have personal purpose to. A

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Effective sales management begins with selling

A sales manager who cannot sell is not respected by his team. Sales management without respect is severely impaired. As has been shared here before, sales is not a desk job. The desk job lends itself to structure, systems, rules, policies and regulation in the corporate pyramid. It is thus comparatively simpler for one to

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What qualities make a good sales manager

The qualities of a good sales manager are different. The person who finds themselves in the position of sales manager more often than not gets shocked by the transition. The qualities of a good sales manager are unusual. A sales manager’s job is not everyone’s cup of tea. Selling isn’t a desk job and management

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Just like hips, sales numbers don’t lie

“Hips Don’t Lie” so says Colombian singer-songwriter Shakira; and in sales numbers don’t lie, either. Indeed, ‘sales is a game of numbers’ isn’t a cliché-it’s a fact. And numbers don’t lie. In fact, I remember a senior human resource manager, while preparing appraisals for the different departments in her organization, wished that she could make

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