A Sales Compass – A Blog by B2B Sales Connections

Great question!  In fact, this subject has been debated among sales managers for years, and will continue to be for many years to come.  The reason is that there are as many ways to distribute B2B sales assignments as there are sales managers!

The best way to distribute your b2b sales assignments is situation specific.  It really depends on the products or services that your company sells, the geography that you cover, the type of customer base you have, and the job description of your sales representatives. (more…)

Ever wonder if you could get inside a sales candidate’s head to find out what they actually think about themselves? It truly would be one of the best reference checks you could do before hiring them.

There are a few things you can do to get a glimpse of how a candidate thinks. The first is to enter the candidate’s name into a few search engines like Google. In this case, no news is good news. You can also search the online social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. If your potential sales candidate is registered, their online profiles can be very revealing.

The bottom line is, although you may not find anything online about your potential sales candidate, it can be well worth the few minutes it took you to check.

For more proven candidate pre-screening techniques including more interview questions to assess past performance, download Action Plan For Sales Management Success. As a business associate recently said, “Your content, delivery and practical examples provided the students an excellent foundation to understand the complex topic of sales recruitment and socialization”.

By popular demand, Action Plan For Sales Management Success is now available in a print version as well as these fine retailers: Amazon.com, Amazon International, Barnes & Noble, Apple iStore, Kobo, Diesel, Sony, and Smashwords.com

To download a free copy of our white paper How To Recruit The Best Sales Professionals which includes “11 Telephone Interview Questions to Find Top Performers”, visit our Sales Download Centre.

I was recently asked by task.fm to answer a question received by one of their website visitors.  The question was:  Can eliminating sales quotas increase profits?  It’s an excellent question, so I thought I would share my answer here.

Can eliminating sales quotas increase profits? 

Absolutely not!   It simply won’t work in a performance based career.  In fact, eliminating quotas would have the exact opposite effect on profits, in much the same way that guaranteeing a sales person a job for life without asking them to produce any sales would be.      (more…)

Successful sales managers understand they will be more successful when they work through and with other people, namely their sales team. They are confident with their personal selling abilities, but they also know that they will be more successful if they teach their team to sell and make them feel good about themselves while doing so. 

In order to do this, as the sales manager, you need to check your ego at the door. You have to put your own need for recognition aside, and spend your efforts building up you team instead. (more…)

Whether you are dealing with customers or managing a sales team, if you keep saying yes to exceptions, they will become expectations.

Aim Higher!

Susan A. Enns, B2B Sales Coach from B2B Sales Connections

www.linkedin.com/in/susanenns, www.facebook.com/B2BSalesConnections, or www.twitter.com/SusanEnns

When it comes to sales contests, it is important to communicate a sales representative’s progress towards winning. The more excitement you can generate, the better. In fact, many managers believe that the communication about the contest is more important than the prize itself. (more…)

Have you ever been in an internal meeting and asked “why do we do that?”, only to receive the response “because we have always done it that way”?  Have you ever heard a prospect say the same thing in response to one of your fact find questions?  In my opinion, this is a very dangerous response.  More importantly, it often presents a great opportunity for improvement and could result in an excellent sales opportunity.  Here’s is a story to illustrate why:  (more…)

Most would say that the best test of a sales manager’s abilities is what happens if he or she is no longer there. In other words, if you were to leave the organization tomorrow, could your sales team carry on and still produce at the sales level they are now?

To help you answer that question, think back to your first day at work after your last vacation. Did you return to the office to find that everything came to a grinding halt while were away, or did they barely miss you while you were gone? I am asking about the last time you took a real vacation; one where you set your auto-reply email, changed your voice mail message and left the Blackberry at the office. (more…)

In sales, rejection is just something your sales team deals with every day.  Even your top performers hear “no” many more times than they hear “yes”.  When they let it get them down, it shows to everyone they meet, including their customers and their colleagues.  As such, as a sales manager, you must do everything you can to help them stay in a positive frame of mind. 

Sometimes it the simplest of things we do as managers that can put a negative spin on things in a sales rep’s mind.  For example, many sales managers always ask the question “How did it go?” after a sales call.  Unless they signed the contract, most sales representatives will give you a negative answer like “I screwed up part of the presentation”, “I didn’t get the sale” or “not as well as I hoped it would.” (more…)

I know it seems a little early to talk about the summer months, but as a sales manager you have to look that far ahead.  Business can really slow down in the summer, and if your sales team does not have enough prospects in their funnel today, it can be a very difficult to make your sales goals once July and August rolls around.   

A great way for your team to generate many new prospects in a very short period of time is a blitz day.  A blitz day is essentially when everyone on the sales team sets aside time to prospect all at the same time, either on the telephone or face to face prospecting.  (more…)