This book is written as a celebration. What are we celebrating? We’re taking some time to acknowledge, appreciate, and honor the amazing accomplishments and hard work that have placed you in a position of sales team leadership for your organization. Long hours and, at times, frustrating work have finally led to your being responsible not only for the success of your sales professionals, but for the success of the organization. If your team doesn’t sell, those across the organizational value chain have nothing to gather raw input for, add value to, distribute out, or service. Without you and your team, the equipment will be turned off, the doors shuttered, and the employee base unemployed. Feeling the pressure yet?
When I was a very young boy, growing toward adolescence in Alhambra, California, I had the opportunity to spend some time ‘‘hanging out’’ in my father’s printing business. I felt as if I were working, but the reality is that I was probably just adding gray hair to my father’s head. As is typical of most small businesses, my father and his associates spent the normal working hours selling and the after hours producing what would be sold the next day. Sometimes I had the chance to ride around with my dad as he made sales calls. People always seemed to be glad to see him, and we often got to have lighthearted lunch breaks. The impression left on a little boy was that selling was calling on friends and having chili dogs. Can you think of a better way to spend a career?
During that youthful period of my life, I encountered an event that changed my life forever. I know that the important cast of actors in this event probably don’t recall it, but I have never forgotten it.
On the street where I was raised, there was one giant avocado tree behind a vacant house. Anyone who knows the southern California state of mind knows how this unique produce is valued for a multitude of tasteful uses. Even though the house was vacant, the aged tree kept producing wonderful, thick-skinned delicacies. The neighbors would occasionally go into the backyard and see if there were any avocados that were ready to pick from a low-hanging branch or that had recently fallen to the ground. In either case, there would be wonderful additions to someone’s dinner table that night.
All this came to a halt one day when a family bought the house and moved in. Fortunately for me, the family had a young boy of my age who became a close friend for many years. One day, as we were out fooling around in the backyard, I noticed his mother casually picking up the fallen avocados and unceremoniously tossing them into the trash can. ‘‘How could she do that?’’ I asked my friend and got an answer that shocked me. With a facial expression to emphasize the point, he informed me that his family hated them. Once enough time had passed for his response to sink in, a thought popped into my head. As the son of a salesman, I suggested we sell them to the neighbors.
That’s when I got my first lesson in sales. Dennis, my friend, said in no uncertain terms that he had no intention of trying to sell to the neighbors. I can’t recall exactly what he said, but I recognized terror when I heard it. He could not visualize himself going up to doors and talking semistrangers into giving him money for something that grew in his own backyard. What I found out, at a very early age, was that selling was not for everyone! Some people just don’t feel comfortable with the whole process. If I had agreed, there would be no story to tell. But, being the son of a salesperson, I overcame this objection with an idea. We would load up my friend’s wagon with avocados, and I would sell them to the neighbors. In essence, Dennis would pull the wagon and I would go door-to-door. Since we would split the proceeds, Dennis thought he was getting the better part of the deal, and I thought I was.
All day we became a sales channel for a desired product. As the sun set on our first day, we had sold every avocado we could get our hands on. The funny thing is that I can’t remember what I did with my share of the proceeds. I probably spent it on soft drinks and comic books. It turned out, interestingly enough, that the sales activity was the highlight of the day for me. That evening, I returned home and proudly detailed the activity to my dad. I was excited that my first selling effort had been a success and that I had actually created the sales job. My father was great. He listened patiently to my story, and then added a single statement that left an impact on me for the rest of my life. He said, ‘‘Son, if you can sell, there will always be someone to pull the wagon.’’
Wow! Of course, as a youngster, it took some time for that to sink in. He didn’t say it was my wagon. He said the wagon. He was referring to all those talented people who design, engineer, purchase, receive, inventory, advertise, manufacture, assemble, package, ship, and service a company’s offerings. Because you have strong selling capabilities, they enthusiastically load up the wagon with wonderful, and much needed, products and services if you and your team will just go out and knock on the doors of strangers who will give the organization money for its creativity and hard work.
So up to here, this story makes it sound as if the world of commerce has a nice division of labor. But alas, all is not that easy in the world of sellers and wagon pullers. As the pace of business continues to speed up, the consequences of what a sales organization does—or does not—do carries an increasing level of importance. In the past, a sales strategy or focus could be delineated and adhered to for a measurable period of time, such as a calendar or fiscal year. If the program failed to meet organizational objectives, it could be refined the following year. No longer! You must deploy plans in a range of ‘‘rightness’’ or your organization may never have the opportunity to correct its course. In the past, creativity, a necessary characteristic of sales success, was sufficient to allow you to operate in a world of ‘‘smoke and mirrors.’’ You were never called upon to explain specifically what you did to close a successful sale or what you failed to do when a sale was lost. As long as the activities and results were perceived as being right, you were left alone.
No longer! Those wagon pullers want to know what you plan on doing to be successful, why you are doing it, and when you plan on doing it. The rest of the organization has too much riding on your success not to be obsessively curious.
This book is being written to meet the needs of both the new sales manager and the experienced sales manager who has been in the position long enough to know the gravity of the function. It is based on the concept that the sales management role is not that of a superstar salesperson, but one of an integral member of the organizational leadership team. As such, you must now think like a manager, plan like a manager, prepare like a manager, and produce like a manager.
The sections of this book deal with the three essential tasks of great sales managers. The first part centers on the concept and associated activities of planning. In our urgency to meet objectives, we often fail to plan effectively. As Socrates revealed to us, never accept what is believed as absolute fact. Question long-held beliefs and try to understand what you really know, need to know more about, and don’t know at all. It is no longer enough to go out and spend more time in the field coaching your sales team members.
You must first have a plan that links and integrates well with the rest of the organization.
The second part of the book centers on preparing for success. This is not just a state of mind. It is defining and gathering the resources (people, time, tools, and money) necessary to implement your plan. In today’s heavily siloed world of organizational design and measurement, the cross-organizational functionality needed for sales success may be completely dependent on how well you prepare the rest of the organization for participation in your plan.
The last section concentrates on producing. This is the world that most sales managers feel comfortable in because it utilizes their past sales experience. They therefore often spend a disproportionate amount of time concentrating solely on this aspect of the role, and the result is that their management role suffers. But now that you have a plan, and all the necessary resources are in place to deliver on the plan, you must ask yourself if you have the skills to deploy, measure, and adjust your plan to meet organizational objectives for today and tomorrow.
Although this book is comprehensive, it is by no means the final knowledge you need to be successful. Always be curious about what is over the next hill, and always search for new knowledge that will make you a great sales manager.
When I was a very young boy, growing toward adolescence in Alhambra, California, I had the opportunity to spend some time ‘‘hanging out’’ in my father’s printing business. I felt as if I were working, but the reality is that I was probably just adding gray hair to my father’s head. As is typical of most small businesses, my father and his associates spent the normal working hours selling and the after hours producing what would be sold the next day. Sometimes I had the chance to ride around with my dad as he made sales calls. People always seemed to be glad to see him, and we often got to have lighthearted lunch breaks. The impression left on a little boy was that selling was calling on friends and having chili dogs. Can you think of a better way to spend a career?
During that youthful period of my life, I encountered an event that changed my life forever. I know that the important cast of actors in this event probably don’t recall it, but I have never forgotten it.
On the street where I was raised, there was one giant avocado tree behind a vacant house. Anyone who knows the southern California state of mind knows how this unique produce is valued for a multitude of tasteful uses. Even though the house was vacant, the aged tree kept producing wonderful, thick-skinned delicacies. The neighbors would occasionally go into the backyard and see if there were any avocados that were ready to pick from a low-hanging branch or that had recently fallen to the ground. In either case, there would be wonderful additions to someone’s dinner table that night.
All this came to a halt one day when a family bought the house and moved in. Fortunately for me, the family had a young boy of my age who became a close friend for many years. One day, as we were out fooling around in the backyard, I noticed his mother casually picking up the fallen avocados and unceremoniously tossing them into the trash can. ‘‘How could she do that?’’ I asked my friend and got an answer that shocked me. With a facial expression to emphasize the point, he informed me that his family hated them. Once enough time had passed for his response to sink in, a thought popped into my head. As the son of a salesman, I suggested we sell them to the neighbors.
That’s when I got my first lesson in sales. Dennis, my friend, said in no uncertain terms that he had no intention of trying to sell to the neighbors. I can’t recall exactly what he said, but I recognized terror when I heard it. He could not visualize himself going up to doors and talking semistrangers into giving him money for something that grew in his own backyard. What I found out, at a very early age, was that selling was not for everyone! Some people just don’t feel comfortable with the whole process. If I had agreed, there would be no story to tell. But, being the son of a salesperson, I overcame this objection with an idea. We would load up my friend’s wagon with avocados, and I would sell them to the neighbors. In essence, Dennis would pull the wagon and I would go door-to-door. Since we would split the proceeds, Dennis thought he was getting the better part of the deal, and I thought I was.
All day we became a sales channel for a desired product. As the sun set on our first day, we had sold every avocado we could get our hands on. The funny thing is that I can’t remember what I did with my share of the proceeds. I probably spent it on soft drinks and comic books. It turned out, interestingly enough, that the sales activity was the highlight of the day for me. That evening, I returned home and proudly detailed the activity to my dad. I was excited that my first selling effort had been a success and that I had actually created the sales job. My father was great. He listened patiently to my story, and then added a single statement that left an impact on me for the rest of my life. He said, ‘‘Son, if you can sell, there will always be someone to pull the wagon.’’
Wow! Of course, as a youngster, it took some time for that to sink in. He didn’t say it was my wagon. He said the wagon. He was referring to all those talented people who design, engineer, purchase, receive, inventory, advertise, manufacture, assemble, package, ship, and service a company’s offerings. Because you have strong selling capabilities, they enthusiastically load up the wagon with wonderful, and much needed, products and services if you and your team will just go out and knock on the doors of strangers who will give the organization money for its creativity and hard work.
So up to here, this story makes it sound as if the world of commerce has a nice division of labor. But alas, all is not that easy in the world of sellers and wagon pullers. As the pace of business continues to speed up, the consequences of what a sales organization does—or does not—do carries an increasing level of importance. In the past, a sales strategy or focus could be delineated and adhered to for a measurable period of time, such as a calendar or fiscal year. If the program failed to meet organizational objectives, it could be refined the following year. No longer! You must deploy plans in a range of ‘‘rightness’’ or your organization may never have the opportunity to correct its course. In the past, creativity, a necessary characteristic of sales success, was sufficient to allow you to operate in a world of ‘‘smoke and mirrors.’’ You were never called upon to explain specifically what you did to close a successful sale or what you failed to do when a sale was lost. As long as the activities and results were perceived as being right, you were left alone.
No longer! Those wagon pullers want to know what you plan on doing to be successful, why you are doing it, and when you plan on doing it. The rest of the organization has too much riding on your success not to be obsessively curious.
This book is being written to meet the needs of both the new sales manager and the experienced sales manager who has been in the position long enough to know the gravity of the function. It is based on the concept that the sales management role is not that of a superstar salesperson, but one of an integral member of the organizational leadership team. As such, you must now think like a manager, plan like a manager, prepare like a manager, and produce like a manager.
The sections of this book deal with the three essential tasks of great sales managers. The first part centers on the concept and associated activities of planning. In our urgency to meet objectives, we often fail to plan effectively. As Socrates revealed to us, never accept what is believed as absolute fact. Question long-held beliefs and try to understand what you really know, need to know more about, and don’t know at all. It is no longer enough to go out and spend more time in the field coaching your sales team members.
You must first have a plan that links and integrates well with the rest of the organization.
The second part of the book centers on preparing for success. This is not just a state of mind. It is defining and gathering the resources (people, time, tools, and money) necessary to implement your plan. In today’s heavily siloed world of organizational design and measurement, the cross-organizational functionality needed for sales success may be completely dependent on how well you prepare the rest of the organization for participation in your plan.
The last section concentrates on producing. This is the world that most sales managers feel comfortable in because it utilizes their past sales experience. They therefore often spend a disproportionate amount of time concentrating solely on this aspect of the role, and the result is that their management role suffers. But now that you have a plan, and all the necessary resources are in place to deliver on the plan, you must ask yourself if you have the skills to deploy, measure, and adjust your plan to meet organizational objectives for today and tomorrow.
Although this book is comprehensive, it is by no means the final knowledge you need to be successful. Always be curious about what is over the next hill, and always search for new knowledge that will make you a great sales manager.
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