Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

JOHN KLYMSHYN has been a professional speaker for more than eighteen years. He is the founder and President of The Business Generator, Inc., a management, sales, and communications training and coaching firm.

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Praise for The Ultimate Sales Managers' Guide

"Klymshyn not only understands this great profession, he relates the passion and fun of managing sales people in this wonderful guide. We have waited for this for some time."
―Rand Sperry, cofounder, Sperry Van Ness, Commercial Real Estate Advisors

"This book reminds us that we can never invest enough time and effort to reward and recognize the sales effort of our team. I think the importance of this is shared in this book and, if followed, can only lead to a strong and successful sales culture in any organization."
―Jim Keenan, President and CEO, Spherion (Canadian Operations)

"In thirty-two years of selling and managing the sales process, I found The Ultimate Sales Managers' Guide to be the most complete collection of sales truths. It goes beyond the simple clichés to the heart of the issue, which is what drives and motivates the successful sales mind."
―Andy Anderson, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Destination Hotels & Resorts

"Klymshyn not only throws the challenge out there to sales managers to be the 'ultimate sales manager,' he shows us how to get there, step by step."
―Paula Kutka, Editor in Chief, staffdigest magazine

"Outstanding! This book is a bible for sales managers. It provides a foundation for anyone to build a winning team."
―Tim Pulte, Executive Managing Director, GVA Smith Mack

Aus dem Klappentext

Managing salespeople has been compared to herding cats, but it just might be the most important function in any company. Getting it right can mean the difference between astounding success and abject failure. For too long, sales managers have been flying blind without the guidance and resources they need to succeed.

Thankfully, The Ultimate Sales Managers' Guide addresses all of the most important issues and concerns facing sales managers today. It presents practical, real-world solutions to everyday challenges and covers virtually every aspect of the job. It's a comprehensive resource dedicated to helping every sales manager at every level of experience lead their sales teams to consistent success.

Contrary to popular opinion, exceptional sales management is a skill you can learn, and here you'll find all the newest and most effective management techniques and strategies. But your success doesn't rely solely on your ability to motivate your people; it's based on your other behaviors as well from the way you speak and carry yourself to the way you display leadership in the office. This one-of-a-kind guide will change the way you manage your teams from top to bottom by first changing the way you manage yourself.

In addition to the newest and latest tactics, you'll also get firsthand accounts, fresh ideas, and proven wisdom from senior-level executives and sales managers in industries from commercial real estate to advertising to staffing to hospitality. Their real-world guidance will show you what truly works and help you tailor your style to match the needs of your particular business.

Look inside and learn how to:

• Recruit, hire, train, and develop motivated, dedicated people
• Keep individual salespeople on track and motivated
• Turn boring sales meetings into creative, constructive forums
• Build a team that focuses on corporate, team, and personal goals
• Master the vital management skills of leadership, training, and discipline
• Discover the best practices and tactics of top sales managers
• Manage your time so you can work more efficiently
• Communicate expectations and goals clearly and often
• Achieve consistent success and constant improvement

If you want to achieve the very highest level of sales success and become "The Ultimate Sales Manager," this book offers the tools, skills, and step-by-step guidance to get you there.

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The Ultimate Sales Managers' Guide

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

Vision Precedes Everything -John Klymshyn

I recently coached a salesperson over the phone, and I wanted her to understand the importance of knowing where she wanted to take her business. This is relevant to you, The Ultimate Sales Manager, because you buy and sell all day. You buy the corporate vision, and then repackage and sell it to your immediate reports.

You must start everything with a specific vision, and that must be in place and clear before you think about hiring. Do not look to fill out your head count.

Clarify and commit to a vision of your group, and hire to fulfill that vision. In this chapter and throughout this section, we talk about the employment cycle that people will have with you and your company. What do you want people to think of or speak about when they describe the environment you create on the sales floor or throughout the office? You create and significantly contribute to this environment: Know where you want the car to go before you start driving.

Some sales managers are interested in fostering healthy competition. Others want a fast-paced environment. Others are looking for their folks to show and offer mutual respect. You may think that all of these either characterize what you want or specifically describe what you have.

In my travels (I visit about 40 different corporations per year), I have developed an ability to sense the mood, environment, and culture of an office within 15 minutes of my arrival. I can tell if people are on edge, or if they are cocky. I can tell if people work together, or if they create and maintain fiefdoms.

Many of the contributors to this book have some of the best-run operations I have seen or experienced. You walk into their office, and from the first person you encounter, you know that the office is prepared, professional, and productive. Not only that, but the manager's personality is stamped on each person. People like to work for someone who knows where he or she is going.

Attribute 1: The Ultimate Sales Manager understands, and communicates consistently, that vision precedes everything.

THE THREE Ps

Strong performers must exhibit these three characteristics consistently, they must be:

1. Prepared

2. Professional

3. Productive

The three Ps establish a foundation for how you, The Ultimate Sales Manager, will run your team. This concept will appear several times throughout this book. When the three Ps are arranged in any order, they communicate great advice, and they set you and your team up for consistent success.

I am more interested in your team being consistent over time than I am in you having a great first quarter, and then falling apart for the second. This concept, this group of words, is a way to lead and, as a result, manage salespeople. I am excited to share it with you.

Now, what really excites me (and you, and anyone with whom you share this three-word concept) is that the three-P formula is like an Escher lithograph. You can rearrange the components of the formula in any way you choose, and it will always make sense. (It is so amazing and inspiring to me that Escher created things and experiences that were impossible in the physical world but not in his mind or art.) The formula's varied results are what make it intriguing and powerful:

Productivity + Professionalism = Preparation Preparation + Productivity = Professionalism

With that in mind, let's talk about how you get to that wonderful place of having the team and environment that you want:

* Professional

* Prepared

* Productive

The great thing about this formula is that it allows for your personality and unique insight, and it requires those things to make the formula work.

I'd much rather have an empty seat than an empty suit. -Thad Seligman

Translation: Don't keep people on board who are not fulfilling their commitments and quota. And when you hire, do not let an empty chair motivate you into hiring someone against your gut, or out of the profile that you will develop by the end of this chapter.

The startling truth is that empty chairs are costly. Every commercial real estate sales manager I have ever spoken to knew exactly what his "desk cost" was. This is a number that is in his budget that he must somehow earn and cover to make the office profitable. It is especially relevant to commercial real estate people because they look at everything on a "use of square footage" basis. Retail store owners can tell you what a square foot on their merchandise floor must generate per hour.

You should identify what it costs you to have an empty seat, and weigh that drain on the profitability of your team against the cost of leaving it empty. If each space in your office costs X dollars, you divide that among the production your team is creating, and you know what that dollar cost is.

There is another drain that is hard to put into a numerical expression:

Time + Effort = ???

If you retain people who are not working out, everyone on your team (including the guilty party) knows that they are not working out. If there is a drain on the team, it is your job to get rid of that person.

But let's think about more fun and exciting things, like the path an employee takes with you and your company.

* * *

THE EMPLOYMENT CYCLE

You, The Ultimate Sales Manager, must have the vision and foresight to know if someone is going to be a good addition to your team, if an individual is already a great contributor, or if an individual needs to be removed and allowed to pursue a career goal elsewhere.

The employment cycle for salespeople starts before they join you and ends after they have been hired somewhere else. In today's competitive society, you will lose people to direct competitors, and you may find yourself being asked for an employment reference for someone who did not perform for you but who wants you to tell another employer how great an employee she was for you.

A positive aspect is that some employee's employment cycle can be as long as your tenure in your sales management position.

I have had the opportunity to read books, attend seminars, and speak directly with a lot of people about sales management. One thing that I find distracting is that I have been told many times that there are things I need to do "all the time" to be a successful sales manager. Let's agree that as a sales manager there are many things that I need to put effort into completely and consistently, but to ask me to do anything beyond breathing and thinking "all the time" is a bit ridiculous.

Now that we have that established, let's view the employment cycle that salespeople might have in your organization. In particular, let's talk about things that are going to be on your mind regularly-recruiting, interviewing, developing, coaching, measuring, rewarding, correcting, encouraging, measuring, warning, and firing.

It is tough and a bit cold to boil down the tenure of an employee to this list, but this list can save your professional life. Where are each of your folks on this list? What...