The Accidental Sales Manager: A Survival Guide for CEO's, Owners, and Presidents Who Find Themselves Managing Salespeople

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The Accidental Sales Manager: A Survival Guide for CEO's, Owners, and Presidents Who Find Themselves Managing Salespeople Pub. Date: 10/6/2010 Publisher: Entrepreneur Press

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Overview

Award-Winning Finalist in the Business: Leadership & Management category of the "Best Books 2010" Awards, sponsored by USA Book News

TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR SALESFORCE!

Do you tackle several different roles within your business including sales manager?
Does managing the sales team feel awkward?
Do you want to achieve better sales results?

If you answered YES then you’re facing the same struggle as many other small business owners and entrepreneurs—you can successfully manage the rest of the company, but when it comes to the sales team, you feel like your efforts are coming up short. Suzanne Paling, sales management consultant, urges you to stop struggling, and teaches you what you need to know to start succeeding.

“Suzanne Paling offers concrete, practical and realistic guidance to all of us entrepreneurs who become sales managers by default. We are not trained for this role and need to do it well to be successful entrepreneurs. This book is chock full of useful suggestions and has helped me as I strive to be the most successful sales manager possible. Thank you Suzanne!”

—Elizabeth W. Brown, President, Softeach, Inc.

“Suzanne Paling’s easy-to-read style, step-by-step guidance, and numerous checklists, templates, worksheets, and sample letters makes it easy to implement her suggestions in a real world environment. As a CEO who still finds himself an 'Accidental Sales Manager' from time to time, this book really helps when I need to step in and provide some corrective guidance.”

—John Eller, President and CEO, InSight USA

“I would recommend this book to any CEO that is having a difficult time understanding why sales are down or falling short of expectations regardless of organizational size. It is an intriguing look into the dynamic and sometimes perplexing personality of successful salespeople from a CEOs viewpoint.”

—Michael Woronka, Chief Executive Officer, Action Ambulance Service, Inc.

I love this book. The stories seem true to life and it contains clear actionable examples and forms that we could use. I wish this book had been around when I started Two Step and will recommend it to friends who are hiring their first few sales reps. Thanks Suzanne."
—Gary D. Levine, CEO Two Step Software, Inc.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781599183985
Publisher: Entrepreneur Press
Publication date: 10/6/2010
Edition number: 1
Pages: 240
Sales rank: 565,314
Product dimensions: 9.20 (w) x 11.80 (h) x 0.63 (d)

Meet the Author

Suzanne Paling is the principal consultant of Sales Management Services, founded in 1998. She has more than 20 years of experience in sales, sales management, and sales consulting. Working with both field and inside sales organizations, she has helped clients in a vast number of industries including software, construction, medical, telecommunications, manufacturing, delivery, and recruiting.

Part 1 Preparing for the New Hire 1

1 Understanding Sales Management in Small Companies 3

The Company President 6

The Sales Buddy 7

The Human Resources Professional 8

The Sales Manager 8

The Politics of Orientation 10

2 Organizing the Sales Department 11

Welcoming the New Hire 14

Completing and Presenting the Compensation Plan 14

Establishing New Hire Orientation 15

Creating a Sales Toolkit 16

Assembling Marketing Collateral 16

Setting Realistic Goals 17

Calling on the Largest Accounts 18

Providing Sales Skills Training 18

Tracking Progress and Performance 19

Sponsoring Motivating Sales Contests 20

Conducting Performance Reviews: The 30-Day Review 20

Conducting Performance Reviews: The 60-Day Review 21

Conducting Performance Reviews: The 90-Day Review 22

Offering the New Hire a Full-Time Position 22

Completing Orientation and Moving on to the Next Phase 23

3 Welcoming the New Hire 25

The Orientation Package 26

The Work Area 28

Dollars and "Sense" 30

The Virtual Sales Representative 30

4 Completing and Presenting the Compensation Plan 33

Be Realistic, Not Optimistic 34

The Compensation Plan 37

Getting Feedback 40

Be Prepared to Negotiate 42

Include the Current Staff 42

Creating a Compensation Plan 43

5 Establishing a New Hire Orientation Program 45

Getting Buy-In 47

Money Talks 48

Include Sales Representatives 49

Orientation 50

Engineering 50

Accounting 51

Your Orientation Program 52

Importance of Goals 57

Lunch 58

Be Flexible 58

Detractors 59

Small Companies 60

The Mistake-Free Orientation 60

Part 2 Setting Expectations for the New Hire 63

6 Creating a Sales Toolkit 65

History 68

Getting Started 69

The Introduction 71

Correspondence Templates 73

Qualifying Questions 75

Interview Questions 76

Customer Objections and Responses 77

Closing 78

Trial Close 80

Buying Signals 81

Formally Ask for the Business 81

Overall Benefit 82

7 Assembling Collateral Material 85

Product Knowledge 86

Competitive Data 89

Competitive Fact Sheets 91

Frequently Asked Questions 92

The Proposal 95

Writing the Proposal 96

The Importance of the Cost-Benefit Section 101

Final Thoughts on the Proposal 103

Company History 103

Completing the Toolkit 106

8 Setting Realistic Goals 109

Finding the Right Number 110

Getting Started 110

Setting Productivity Goals 111

Lack of Data 114

No Staff 115

Under- /Over-Performing 115

Ironies in Sales 116

9 Calling on the Largest Accounts 117

Competitors 118

Account Information 119

Revenue History 120

Speaking to the Relevant Players 123

Handling of the Account 123

Introducing the Sales Representative 125

The First Sales Call 126

The List of Questions 127

A Sales Pitch 129

10 Providing Sales Skills Training 131

History of Sales Training and Assessments 133

The Sales Personality 134

The Assessments 135

Sales Training 139

Organizational Fit 140

11 Tracking Progress and Performance 143

The Daily Call Report 145

The Productivity Report 147

The Pipeline 149

The Sales Forecast 156

The Long-Range Sales Forecast 160

The New Hire 163

Additional Reports 164

12 Sponsor Motivating Sales Contests 165

Negative Attitudes 168

Money vs. Gift Certificates 169

Long vs. Short 170

It's Not Just Money 171

Additional Benefits 173

Prove Out the ROI 174

Part 3 Evaluating the New Hire 177

13 Conducting Performance Reviews: The 30-Day Review 181

Reviewing the Salesperson 181

Inflated Opinions 182

Criticism Only 183

Unsure of Where They Stand 183

Lack of Experience 184

Importance of Performance Reviews 186

The 30-Day Review 187

Conducting a Review 194

Final Thoughts 196

14 Conducting Performance Reviews: The 60-Day Review 197

Performance Criteria 204

The Salesperson at 60 Days 206

15 Conducting Performance Reviews: The 90-Day Review 209

Long Sales Cycle 214

The 90-Day New Hire 214

Then vs. Now 215

Part 4 The Next Phase 217

16 Offering the New Hire a Full-Time Position 219

Making an Offer 220

Mark the Occasion 221

Termination 222

On the Fence 223

Set Expectations 225

Candidate's Opinion 226

Make a Bet 227

17 Completing Orientation and Moving Forward 229

Changing Relationships 231

A Different Relationship with the New Hire 232

Future Initiatives 233

The Current Staff 236

Reality Check 237

One Step at a Time 237

Involving Everyone 242

18 Creating a Sales Culture 243

Sales Culture 244

Negative Sales Culture 244

Positive Sales Culture 244

Office Environment 245

Sales Personnel 245

Business Executive 246

Other Departments 246

In Conclusion 247

Glossary 249

Index 255

Customer Reviews

Average Rating 5

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M_Hayes

Posted December 6, 2010

Highly Recommend

This book is not just a survival guide for CEOs managing their salespeople, but also a "must have" for new sales managers developing successful sales teams. I should know; as a sales manager growing my team, I recently hired a new account manager. I followed Suzanne Paling's detailed recommendations for "onboarding" my sales person... resulting in this person becoming quickly productive. Her guidance in this book has proven to be invaluable, providing concrete suggestions for every stage in the development of a winning sales team.
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Estelle_McKee

Posted October 26, 2010

Great practical advice for managing salespeople

This book is targeted at leaders of small businesses who end up managing one or more salespeople but who lack any experience in sales themselves. The preface starts out with the following paragraph: "Perhaps someone recommended this book so you bought it. Maybe a colleague lent you his copy. Was the book placed on your desk anonymously? Regardless, you now have the book and you really don't want to read it." This paragraph completely disarmed me, and it set the tone for the rest of the book: far from being a slog through technical sales jargon, it was a brisk read that provided the most practical education I've ever had about how to bring out the best when managing a sales force (or even a single salesperson). The book is laid out as follows:

First, it starts each chapter with a short story or case history that highlights a common problem in managing salespeople. I recognized many situations I've seen at different workplaces (even those that did not involve salespeople).

Second, the book focuses in on the problem itself, the causes of the problem, what managers usually do in their attempts to fix it, and finally, what really works. The book's advice is very practical and very specific, but still broad enough to cover any type of business. The book also describes the author's own experiences as a sales management consultant, sales manager, and salesperson herself, which illustrate and lend further credence to the book's advice.

Third, the book provides templates and samples for everything from a new hire's orientation program, to sales contest goals, performance reviews, and sales forecasts. I appreciated actual documents that I would be able to work from and the discussions explaining them.

The ideas in this book were both thought provoking and informative. For example, the idea of starting orientation during a potential employee's interview process - I never would have thought of an interview in that way, but it made perfect sense. And, the concrete suggestions provided actually make it possible to put that idea into action.

The book is organized so that it can be read straight through or used as a reference book. Either way, I would highly recommend it to any business leader or supervisor looking for guidance in managing salespeople.
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The Accidental Sales Manager: A Survival Guide for CEO's, Owners, and Presidents Who Find Themselves Managing Salespeople

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More About This Book

Overview

Product Details

Meet the Author

Table of Contents

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Highly Recommend

Great practical advice for managing salespeople