Articles
For Sales Managers
Management & Leadership
- Recession Sales Management
- The Three-Legged Sales Hiring Stool
- Should Sales Managers Sell?
- 19 Ways to Lose Top-Performing Salespeople
- Making Sales and Losing Money
- Are Your Salespeople Worth Their Salt?
- Dead Horse Sales Management
- Tough Sales Management for Tough Economic Times
- Sales Managers are Irrelevant
- Truth and Consequences
- Me Inc.
- Are You in Danger of Losing Your Salespeople?
- Monitoring Sales Activities
- The Myth of Team Selling
- Dealing with High-Maintenance Salespeople
- Are Your Salespeople Spinning Their Wheels?
- The Five Deadly Sins of Sales Management
- The Cost of a Sales Call
- SWOT the Competition
- Managing Nomads
- Are Your Salespeople Squandering Sales Leads?
- How Do You Know If You Need a Sales Manager?
- Coping with Sales Management Overload
- Look After Your Salespeople
- Managing Remote Salespeople
- Motivating the Sales Team
- Problem Salespeople
- Set Your People Free (to Sell!)
- Running Effective Sales Meetings
- Selling in the Down Cycle
Hiring & Firing
- The New Hire – Doing it Right
- Onboarding Salespeople for Fun & Profit
- The Boring Part of Onboarding a Salesperson
- An Effective Format for Developing a Salesperson’s Job Description
- Are Your Salespeople Guilty of this Sales Sin?
- Is It Time to Dump Your Duds?
- How to Avoid Hiring a Bad Salesperson
- Determining Who’s Pre-Wired for Sales
- Don’t Hire Sales Refugees
- The Killer Hiring Process
- Digging Up Dirt Before You Hire
- Stop Hiring Poor-Performing Salespeople
- Can Farmers Hunt?
- When to Fire a New Hire
- Don’t Hire Heroes
- Where to Find Good Salespeople
- Luck is Not a Hiring Tool
- Rank and Yank – Fine-Tuning Your Sales Team
- Don’t Try to Teach Pigs to Fly
- Part-Time Salespeople – Winners or Losers?
- Stop Hiring Blind Squirrels
Compensation
- Don’t Let Your Salespeople Get Overdrawn
- Are Your Salespeople Overpaid?
- How to Split Commissions Without Splitting Heads
- Bonus Madness
- Can Your Compensation Plan Pass This Test
- Dollars & Sense for Salespeople
- Beware of Recoverable Draws
Coaching
- Should We Fire the Sales Manager?
- Why Sales Managers Don’t Coach
- How to Avoid the Dull Sales Axe
- Building a Powerful Team, the Sports Coach Way
- Why Sales Managers Are Driven to Drink
- Care & Feeding of Superstars
- How to Curbside Coach
- Managing Older Salespeople
- Save the Salesperson, Not the Sale
- The Pain & Pleasure of Joint Calls
- Fire the Coach
- 9 Keys to Coaching Your Sales Team
- No Pain, No Gain
Sales Training
- Getting the Newbie Up to Speed
- Don’t Be Afraid to Train
- Measuring Sales Training Effectiveness
- Stop Selling on Price
- Protect Your Training Investment
Sales Forecast & Quotas
For Salespeople
Attitude & Motivation
- The Loneliest Job in the World
- Don’t be Your Own Worst Enemy
- Selling in Slow Times
- When Bad Things Happen to Good Salespeople
- The 4-Keys to Sales Survival
- Selling Truths & Sales Secrets
- Are You Running on Empty?
- Stop Shooting Yourself in the Foot
Closing Sales
Cold Calling & Prospecting
- Reverse Prospecting
- Fishing for Referrals
- Building a Personal Business Network
- Get the Crud Out of Your Sales Funnel
- Round Up the Usual Suspects
Sales Strategies
- The Key to Success in Sales
- Avoiding Sales Call Accidents
- The Changing Face of Selling
- Show the World You’re a Sales Professional
- How to Lose a Sale… Before You Get It
- Know When to Quit… But Don’t Quit Too Soon
- How to Get Free Sales Training
- Is There a Sense of Urgency?
- Know Thy Competition
- Is Anyone Listening?
- Words that Sell
Objections & Put-offs
- The Secret to Handling Objections
- I’m Happy with my Current Supplier
- I Want to Think About It
- Handling the Dreaded Price Objection
- Making Price a Non-Critical Issue
- “Can You Do Any Better Than That?”
Organization & Self-Development
Qualifying
- Stop Talking to PWOTS
- Know Who You’re Talking With
- Don’t Talk Turkey with Turkeys
- Talk to the COWMAN
- Stop Watering Dead Plants
- Dealing with Information Seekers
Sales Approach
Sales Presentations
- Fear Sells so Sell Fear
- Remove the Doubt and Make the Sale
- Selling the Sizzle
- Setting Price Expectations
- Dealing with the Long-Distance Buyer
- Predatory Pricing in a Competitive Market
- So What?
Telephone Selling
On Hiring Salespeople
Bonus E-books
Candidate Testing
- How to Find Out if They Can Sell
- Two Critical Tests for Sales Candidates
- How Good are Personality Tests?
- Auditions & Role Playing
Hiring Tips
- Candidates – Over-qualified, Under-qualified, or Just Right?
- Firing the New Hire
- Reference Checks – Why Bother?
- Avoid Hiring These Salespeople
- Hire a Boomerang
- Making the Job Offer
- Stop Being Your Competitor’s Farm Team
- Selling – No Training Required
Hiring Traps
- Beware of Salespeople Who Interview Well
- Know What You’re Looking For
- The “Hi Good Looking” & “Halo Effect” Traps
- Beware When Hiring Extroverts
- They Can Read, but Can They Write?
- Don’t Trust Resumes
Interviewing
- Beware of the Gabber
- Getting Piles from Sorting Resumes
- Hire for Attitude
- The Last Interview Question
- When to Interview the Candidate’s Spouse
- The 2-Minute Sales Interview
- Don’t Lead the Witness
- Interviewing in a Social Environment
- 5 Neat Interviewing Tips
Recruiting
Permission to Reprint
Permission is granted to use any of these copy-written articles provided you include the following attribution:
Brian Jeffrey, (a.k.a., the Sales Wizard) is a former sales management consultant and sales trainer with over 50 years’ experience. He’s the author of The Sales Wizard’s Secrets of Sales Management and The Five-Minute Sales Trainer as well as numerous e-books and articles on sales and sales management which are available at www.TheSalesWizard.ca.