The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

All great sales managers will tell you that training and development are the cornerstones for building an exceptional sales team. The sales industry constantly changes and evolves as prospects learn and alter tactics to deal with enthusiastic salespeople. And, every salesperson needs to learn how to adapt to these changes and continue to grow in their field of knowledge.

This is why sales managers and salespeople share common ground when it comes to learning and developing new skills, but as the 2019 Media Sales Report found, there’s still room for improvement when it comes to performance.

From prospecting clients to making the pitch, it’s the sales team that brings your business profits. When you work in a profession where quarterly quotas and revenue goals need to be met, you can’t afford a high turnover rate.

When meeting with clients, how often are they experiencing sales problems that are often due to extreme turnover on their sales team? There are multiple reasons behind sales rep turnover, one of the biggest being ineffective sales managers. Other reasons range from poor company culture and inadequate pay to lack of training.

A modest amount of turnover is expected. Plus, it’s good to bring on new people with different perspectives, ideas, and capabilities. However, turnover rates near 35% can be costly and reflect poorly on your organization in more ways than one.

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"Everyone lives by selling something."

-Robert Louis Stevenson

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Highly-talented salespeople are more in-demand than ever. In fact, of the top ten emerging high-growth jobs listed by LinkedIn, five of them are some form of sales role. One significant result from our recently published 2019 Media Sales Report is that salespeople in these roles (and other sales positions) don’t want to be paid on 100% salary. 

Salespeople have repeatedly told us they want the opportunity to make as much as they can. Research supported this with over 57% of the salespeople saying that they prefer a salary plus commission structure with 30% to 40% of their total compensation coming from salary.

Rethinking the sales organization is a big topic in the media industry. Knowing how to compensate is just scratching the surface of what we uncovered in this year’s Media Sales Report. While compensation is one way to motivate salespeople and bring them to your organization, non-financial elements also play a significant role when it comes to hiring, coaching, and development.

Whether they realize it or not, consumers travel through a series of steps before purchasing an item. For the consumer, this journey is not something they think about; they’re simply trying to make a decision.

The process consumers follow to purchase a product or service has changed significantly over the years. To truly understand the consumer journey today, we must look at the past relationship between the brand and the consumer and how it has evolved over time.

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"The measure of intelligence is the ability to change."

-Albert Einstein

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If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my axe.

-Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln's productivity secret was to work smarter rather than work harder by simply using sharper tools to get the job done more efficiently. Inefficient tools waste your time and energy, and simply knowing what to do is never enough. It’s the matter of actually doing it that makes all the difference.

Great leaders grow themselves and their organizations by deliberately managing the present, letting go of old beliefs and behaviors, and purposefully creating a future by adopting new practices.

What image comes to mind when you hear the words “burnout?”

Burnout is defined as an individual’s response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors within the workplace. It doesn’t simply happen from being bored or from working too many hours.

Studies increasingly indicate other factors are behind this work epidemic and employee burnout has reached record levels. It’s so common that people in all industries and in all positions are susceptible to burnout.

Being able to spot employee burnout and prevent it is essential if you want to maintain a positive work environment and keep the best talent on your team.

- MOTIVATION -

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."

-Mark Twain

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