YourSalesManagementGuru

July Sales Training Tip: YouTube.com

2013-06-17T02:23:55Z

Your July Sales Training Tip: YouTube.com Normally at this time of the year, I am reminding my clients that it’s time to begin building their 3 rd Quarter sales training plans. Those of you that are regular readers know that Acumen Sales Mangers plan their entire quarter sales training plans at the beginning of each quarter. Each sales meeting schedule is defined by date/time, topics and assignments-as to who is training on what topics. Topics should include: sales skills, product/services knowledge...(read more)

Six Steps to Exceed Your Summer Quota

2013-06-09T20:53:51Z

Exceeding your Summer Quotas Now is the time to act. In this blog I wanted to give you some specific tactics to deploy immediately to assist you during the typical summer slow times, while I always consider that an excuse, there are proven sales leadership actions you can take now that will make a difference in your cash flow this summer. Not only will it pay off this summer, but your third and fourth quarters will amaze you. First: if you have not performed an A, B, C analysis of your...(read more)

Sales On-Boarding Programs

2013-06-03T12:06:27Z

Sales On-Boarding: New Hire Success or Failure It was proven again on Friday. One of the most important tools I have created is a 3 –week New Salesperson On-Boarding Plan , it contains what I believe are the necessary skills/knowledge that any new salesperson needs prior to selling a product/services. We make sure they know how to use the telephone, CRM, Contracts, marketing tools as well training to clearly sell your organization and understand your products/services. Each item must be signed...(read more)

The Renaissance Society

2013-05-27T15:12:25Z

The Renaissance Society How the shift from dream society to the age of individual control will change the way you do business . I had the opportunity to read this book during a long flight to the West Coast, written by Rolf Jensen and Mika Aaltonen and published by McGraw-Hill I was expecting a futuristic perspective on how our society will evolve, this book delivered much more. The authors build their business case for predicting the future by reviewing the past and our existing economic conditions...(read more)

Leadership and Teamwork – Pull the Oars …

2013-05-20T12:16:28Z

Leadership and Teamwork – Pull the Oars … Count the Beats Another guest blog today, from Patti Grimm. Great message on working together for everyone’s benefit. Analogies and stories are powerful ways to communicate a message which people remember. A lot of business writers, professors and business consultants use a number of different analogies to illustrate the value and power of working in High Performance Teams in order to deliver sustainable business results. The most common...(read more)

Important Grammar in Business Presentations

2013-05-14T16:51:54Z

Just How Important Is Proper Grammar When it Comes to Business Presentations? Ken; We have a guest blog this week, a topic that is absolutely key in emails, presentations and meetings. Hope you enjoy! It takes more than just good speaking skills to give a top-notch business presentation. Good writing speaks volumes about the person and company behind the presentation. No matter how strong the content being presented, if it’s littered with grammatical or spelling errors, it will come off as amateurish...(read more)

Programs to Increase Your Professionalism

2013-05-06T23:39:06Z

Programs to Increase Your Professionalism This week I thought I would use this forum to let my readers know of Two Sales Leadership training programs in May that you should plan to attend. The first is Friday May 10 th , Building Predictable Revenue: Sales Management Systems The second is May 28 th , 1pm EST: Creating Sales Compensation Plans for High Performance This is one of 10 Sales Management Training programs from Top Sales Management: read below Building Predictable...(read more)

Old Ways of Doing Business, No Longer Work

2013-04-28T18:37:45Z

Old Ways of Doing Business No Longer Work I am honored to have this week’s blog prepared by Jonathan Farrington, he is a globally recognized business coach, mentor, author and sales thought leader. He is the Senior Partner of Jonathan Farrington & Associates , and CEO of Top Sales World , based in London & Paris. I believe that most of us accept that the old ways of doing business no longer work: the increasingly intense competitive challenges of the world economy, post the recent...(read more)

Earn Your Success, Pay the Price

2013-04-21T21:17:25Z

Earn Your Success Pay the Price A good friend of mine always told me that you “earned success” and you had to accept the fact that their normally was price to pay for that success. When I work with my client’s sales teams I always inquire about their goals, actions and commitments to achieving their objectives-and what doesn’t surprises me anymore is this lack of fully understanding of the “price to pay”. I am not suggesting that our lives are so consumed with achieving success that all other...(read more)

Sales Mgmt: Achieving Balance: Fear vs Respect

2013-04-16T14:47:51Z

Achieving the Balance Between Having Your Sales Team Respect You But Not Fear You Ken: This week we have a guest blog. The topic is extremely important for all levels of sales leadership, especially in challenging situations/times. Every good sales team manager knows that a delicate balance must be maintained between having your team respect [...]...(read more)

Sales Leadership: Learning by Observing

2013-04-08T12:07:13Z

Learning by Observing This past week I had the opportunity to participate in what is called a Speakers Showcase, 10 professional speakers had an opportunity to stand up in front of 100+ Association managers and give a 15 minute program based upon your desired topic. I used the topic: Gourmet Living: Building a Menu for [...]...(read more)

Sales Mgmt: Mowing Your Lawn

2013-04-01T14:33:48Z

Sales Management and Mowing Your Lawn The first quarter is over and sales leaders are capturing forecasts for the next two months and hopefully celebrating the achievement of their first quarter results. I am sure not everything has been smooth, after the last 90 days of working with a variety of clients and speaking at [...]...(read more)

Sales Mgmt: Training; Learn from Disney U

2013-03-24T17:19:28Z

Sales Leadership: What is your training plan? Learn from “Disney U” As a sales manager one of your responsibilities is to develop the professionalism of your sales team. After reading “Disney U”, How the Disney University Develops the World’s Most Engaged, Loyal, and Customer Centric Employees, you will come aware with a notebook filled with [...]...(read more)

Sales Leadership: Has your team watched Pawn Stars?

2013-03-17T23:19:16Z

Sales Leaders: Has Your Team Watched Pawn Stars? Recently during several coaching calls I heard a common theme and the trend of hearing these comments always occurs during the last month of each quarter. What were those comments? Either the prospective client was asking for some kind of discount or the salespeople were asking for [...]...(read more)

Sales Mgmt: Do your team know how to prospect?

2013-03-09T14:43:17Z

Sales Managers: Does Your Team Know How to Prospect? It seems that every client I have worked with over the past 14 years has had a challenge in creating enough leads driven through their sales teams. Does that sound familiar? Last week I was fortunate to read: The Sales Winner’s Handbook by Wendy Weiss, “The [...]...(read more)

Sales Management: Understanding “Setting the Hook”

2013-03-04T01:38:45Z

Sales Mgmt: Understanding “Setting the Hook” One of the main jobs of sales management is to help their salespeople see where they are in the sales opportunity. Are they early? Do they know what they need to know? Do they have an excellent strategy to close? I like to think that a salesperson is a [...]...(read more)

Salespeople: Expand Your Reach and Your Income

2013-02-26T13:07:28Z

Increasing Your Reach and Your Income Last Tuesday I presented a web cast to a number of people on the topic of how to partner or how to work with other organizations that are “non-competitive but sell in to your existing market”. I call these Business-EcoSystem partners. It is a philosophy and tactic that Executives [...]...(read more)

Sales Management: Make Monday Sales Meetings Easy

2013-02-11T01:42:32Z

Making Monday Morning Sales Meetings Easy for Remote Teams For this Making Monday’s better post I wanted to talk about what is often the most common and mundane part of the Monday routine and that is the sales team conference call. It’s hard to imagine a way to shake up what is seen as a rite of passage into a week of sales activity, but I came across a product that in a very simple way, does just that and as would be expected in this blog – also illustrates a point in sales and sales...(read more)

2013-02-06T13:37:50Z

Sales Leadership: Getting Refreshed Last week on Thursday in Ft Lauderdale, Fl I provided a closing Keynote program for an international association annual conference, the program was based on a topic that has proven to be very popular: Gourmet Living: building a menu for life. D uring the same week I spoke to a group in NY at their 2013 kick off meeting, that topic was: Changing Environment Means Changing; a plan for success! In both cases, with different programs and certainly different audiences...(read more)

2013-01-29T14:07:53Z

Sales Management: Keeping Your Team On Top On Sunday I was reflecting on what might be a good topic for this week’s sales management blog, when the idea was right there in front of me! On Friday afternoon, one of my client’s two new salespeople called me individually to practice making a telephone sales call and performing a sales discovery call. We wanted to make sure they knew what questions to ask a prospective customer and if they could role play effectively. They have been going through...(read more)

Sales Leadership: Bringing a Sharp Focus to Your Sales Meetings

2013-01-22T01:26:47Z

Sales Leadership: Bringing a Sharp Focus to Your Sales Meetings During the past few months I have been consulting with several clients on a variety of issues and coaching others via our new “Acumen Project”. (more on that later), in both environments I have begun to revert to a similar sales management technique to achieve the desired results. For this week, I thought I should share this fundamental concept with you. If you are attempting to bring an increase focus on weekly sales and activity...(read more)

Sales Management: Taking Smart Risks

2013-01-14T15:39:45Z

Sales Management: Taking Smart Risks How Sharp Leaders WIN When Stakes are High The opening chapter had me right away, whether you are a: 1. Entrepreneur wannbe 2. Small business owner 3. New manager in a complex organization 4. Corporate executive this book must be read and used as a textbook within your firm. In challenging times or in potential growth opportunities this book will improve your odds of success. I would recommend that you have each of...(read more)

Open 4 Doors to Sales

2013-01-06T23:29:35Z

Four Open Doors We offer you a Guest Blog this week:Great idea’s to open 2013: Ken Thoreson For all the confidence and poise they possess, sales reps can be paranoid individuals. Nearly every rep I’ve ever met is constantly worried that they aren’t doing enough for their customers, and that the competition is looming just around the corner, waiting to pounce at the first sign of dissatisfaction. I wish I could say that fear is an overreaction, that your accounts are probably safer...(read more)

Rural Wisconsin and the Passion of Impact

2012-12-28T14:07:54Z

Holiday Reflections and the Passion of Impact I woke up in rural Wisconsin on Christmas morning, when I peeked out the window of my mother in-law’s home it was -7 degrees on the thermometer. I grew up in rural Wisconsin-that is how it is supposed to be on Christmas morning. What do I mean by rural? Well driving the last 7 miles on a twisting county road during a blizzard means no plowing, drifting snow and no idea actually where the road was-thankfully I had rented a 4-wheel drive Ford Escape...(read more)

Merry Christmas: Find a Cause

2012-12-14T20:32:14Z

Merry Christmas: Find a Cause During most of my keynote programs I discuss my three rules to Create a Gourmet Life , in most of my client engagements I also discuss the elements for creating a culture of high performance. In both situations I like to reinforce that there is a need to align the soul of your team to goals of the organization. This emotional bond of focusing on the soul is critical for creating an environment that drives success. Certainly building emotion is a major objective in...(read more)