The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

The lone wolf salesperson doing their own marketing, lead generation, closing, and account management has been dying a slow death for years. Specialization, delegation, and outsourcing can help you increase your efficiency, but only if everyone is doing what they do best.

Recently I was having a conversation with a client about what “ROCKSTAR” salespeople do day in and day out. The type of things that really separate them from the rest. As we were talking, I was reminded of all the different versions of the "I am" commercials I have seen over the years and thought it would be fun to do one for salespeople…

You might be surprised to learn that someone who lived in the early 300s BC had something to say about the role that talent plays in productivity, and that someone was none other than the Greek philosopher Plato.
Here is what he said: 

“More will be accomplished, and better, and with more ease, if every man does what he is best fitted to do, and nothing else.” 

One of the best things about spending time in the field coaching my account managers is that I tend to come away with some great lessons myself! With Andrew’s permission, I’d like to share one of my takeaways from an appointment on his in-field day, and that is this: 

Most managers who have been around for a while understand that if salespeople are going to grow their skills they are going to need some coaching. If you think about it, every endeavor that involves performance against a standard, winning or losing, or rising to significance, begins with a talented performer coached by someone who provides accurate feedback and helpful coaching—from athletics, to music, to business. If you watch how real coaching actually happens, you see the coach is always in a position to observe the performer first hand. Athletic coaches coach their people on the field, not in the office. The same goes with any other discipline—except for sales. 

Many sales managers have long led teams of traveling reps, but as technology has destroyed the barriers of communication remote-work situations have become increasingly commonplace. More employees are working home for a variety of different reasons, from cutting commuting costs to attending in-person sales calls on a consistent basis. According to research from Virgin Media Business, approximately 60% of workers in offices will be working remotely by 2022. Savvy managers have to learn how to properly motivate and monitor their off-site colleagues, and make them feel like they are as important to the company as the employees who work only a few feet away.

We hope you've had a great week! It's Friday, and today we're sharing what we've been reading online this week! Here are our "best" from around the web.

1. 3 Effective Ways Sales Managers Can Optimize Their Time — HubSpot

The typical sales manager arrives at the office at 8 a.m. with a prioritized list of tasks for the day. By 8:05 a.m., she’s checked her email and seen two urgent requests from salespeople, a message from the marketing department asking her to attend a 9 a.m. meeting, a note from the engineering team asking for feedback from customers, and a question from Sales Ops about the new incentive plan. The following three techniques will allow you to redirect your time toward the most productive tasks. 

Too often, I see salespeople attempting to mix selling activity with negotiation activity as though customers and prospects seamlessly flow between the two processes. In reality, they don’t. If you want to be successful in sales in the long term do your selling first, and when you have a prospect who is ready to negotiate a deal you should engage in the good negotiation practice knowing it is largely too late to do any significant selling. I see salespeople trying to make last-minute persuasive appeals to buyers in an attempt to show value and preserve their price during the negotiation. There are a number of reasons why that falls flat: 

1. A professional sales process requires a free flow of information throughout.

Needs are identified, the prospect shares views and concerns, and the salesperson shares expertise and solutions. This is as it should be and most times results in a proposal both buyer and seller have crafted. But when it comes time to negotiate price and terms, parties have a tendency to begin holding back information—the buyer trying not to make it seem like they absolutely need your solution and the seller being careful not to reveal information that might give the buyer an advantage in the exchange. Power is the key element in negotiation and neither party wants to hand more of it over to the other during the haggling phase.