How to become a successful sales manager?

Successful Sales Manager

The main tool that I use to develop the sales staff of my clients is regular training in relation to one or another stage of the sales process.

A feature of this training is its format and content - the action is more like a meeting of the book club, but it has a practically oriented direction. As a result of the event, each of the participants makes several ideas for implementation - clearly stating the timing of the introduction of the idea and the expected results for the business.

For the first time I encountered a similar format in 2005, as a participant. And this acquaintance is not pleasant - at first there was enthusiasm, but then everything turned into a binding and work for KPI.

Therefore, I constantly work to improve the format of events, based on feedback from participants and their own (plus stolen from others) finds. These changes to a lesser extent affect the sequence of stages and the list of skills developed. But the internal content of events and a list of books I update regularly.

And today I share the list of books that lie at the base of my training program and can be useful to the sales manager for self-education. I note that the recommendations will be more useful to sales managers working in the B2B area.

The list, like the recommendations, turned out to be very subjective. Because I tested the ideas and concepts from these books in my own practice and achieved results, and therefore I can safely recommend it. And to slightly reduce the degree of subjectivity, asked a number of experts who also read these books and got practical benefit from the read, share their recommendations.

Reading the list, remember that knowledge without practice is a useless load. And the best practice is your work with the client. Successful sales!

Yes, this is far from the most complete book on sales. Yes, it's not about sales (if it's accurate, then it's about sales without sales). If you need to get information about certain sales methods, it is better to look for another book. The value of the book "Man is peculiar to sell" from Daniel Pink in another - it builds a certain system of landmarks (which are very well complemented by the reader's own observations), based on which you can build a dialogue about sales and come to an understanding of the general principles (or lack thereof)

Let's imagine the following situation. You are a new sales manager, and just starting work in the company. Yes, there was a lot of talk about internal training at the interview. However, it ended so suddenly, and you still have so many questions about the product, the market, the customer and the specifics of the work. The difficulty lies not in finding answers, but in asking which questions to ask and how to organize this process with maximum impact.

Presented? Did you feel all this confusion of the initial stage? Now open Gil Conrat's book on page 43 and go straight to the action. It will not be easy, but there will be a structure of your self-education and there will be clarity in actions. Well, the whole future story now entirely depends on you (however, in the book "Flexible Sales" from Gil Conrat you can find many more useful tools for traffic to achieve results in sales without sales)

The seller - become a marketer! In addition to jokes - I constantly remind my sales managers that without marketing thinking they will not achieve regular results in sales. With the advent of the book "The seller of modern times" I have a whole program of actions, and adapted specifically to the practice of sales, which I can safely recommend to those who are ready to listen to my advice.