One of the major success drivers of sales performance can be measured by the amount of ownership salespeople have for their targets. The logic is inescapable; if salespeople really own their numbers then they will work tirelessly to achieve them. The opposite is also true, if they don’t own the numbers they will spend all… Read More »
Clothing and appearance choices have always been a contentious point between generations, here, a CEO who wishes to remain anonymous, but who was sporting a short back and sides, a smooth chin and a lounge suit explains: Dress The younger you are the more appearance will contribute to your credibility (or not). The older you… Read More »
Every business would like to improve its sales performance. That being the case, why do most sales organisations struggle to do anything more than just exhort their sales people to do better? The fundamental problem lies with a lack of rigour and understanding around the relationship of cause and effect. What are the inputs that… Read More »
Most people want feedback. The people who don’t want feedback often really need feedback. “How am I getting on?” “Am I good at my job?” “What do my colleagues think of me?” “Do my customers rate me?” “What does my boss think of me?” “Do my employees respect me?” “How can I improve?” They’re all… Read More »
How much do your managers add-value as managers and how much do they try to add value by doing work that others should be doing? Recently this question was asked unrhetorically in a customer organisation and the answers were very revealing: Many managers were spending between 20% and 30% of their time checking, chasing, covering… Read More »
Any sales organisation worth its salt soon wrestles with the problem of key account management (KAM). Many invest money in KAM training, which is often little more than “advanced sales training”. As long as KAM training is seen only as ‘development’ for senior sales people, it is likely to fail. Five important dynamics contribute to… Read More »
Time management is a perennial personal development need. Here in a couple of lines is the training remedy distilled; the difference between urgent and important, reactive from pro-active tasks, things to do lists, delegation and work–life balance. We’ve recently been doing some work with a group of high-performing salespeople who seem to manage their time… Read More »
Every business would like to improve its sales performance. That being the case, why do most sales organisations struggle to do anything more than just exhort their sales people to do better? The fundamental problem lies with a lack of rigour and understanding around the relationship of cause and effect. What are the inputs that… Read More »
Take a minute to consider how many of the following pain points relate to your management population: Managers are promoted on their technical rather than managerial ability Some managers become irrelevant with people working around rather than through them Some are great people managers, some really deliver results, but few managers actually do both, consistently… Read More »
Managing Performance forms part of the CIPD’s suite of guides to core human resources activity. As such it’s backed by academic research, and written from a United Kingdom perspective. Based on findings from a seven year study of what works and what doesn’t, Managing Performance covers a lot of ground, and highlights the key areas… Read More »
If you are recruiting you will need to think about inducting/onboarding your highly motivated, keen to learn, potential sales stars of the future. However, within three months your new recruits will have become institutionalised, demonstrating the standard distribution of performance – 20% doing really well, 20% doing really badly and 60% contributing to the existing… Read More »
Ownership is mind-set determined – see how many of the following you recognise: Yes I agree with you , you’re right I need to change – soon These numbers are not good enough, they will improve – soon I’m going to sign up for an MBA, its time for me to improve my business education… Read More »
We are seeing an interesting people issue emerging as we move into a post-recession environment. A strand of the workforce that survived the redundancy programmes but was only just competent in their roles. They were happy to keep their heads down and the employer having cut the overhead dug in for the reminder of 2009.… Read More »
Best Practice used as a development tool is one of the most powerful ways to improve performance. In this article we give an overview that covers how to go about embedding its use into your sales organisation. Management must understand its significance and define their terms. Our working definition of best practice is: The conscious… Read More »
Businesses are all looking for the perfect performance management systems, either looking for the ultimate process, the ideal software or the most elegant paperwork. Unfortunately, developing each of those takes time, and can result in a constant loop of careful refining and redesigning, resulting in a very nearly perfect approach which never gets released in… Read More »