Dave Brock poses a very interesting question on his blog “Do Great Sales People Make Good Sales Managers?” In this excellent post, Dave identifies and talks about some of the core leadership skills that are required in making the transition to sales management.

There is no easy answer to this question, or as Dave points out “Great sales people are sometimes the worst sales managers. Likewise, some mediocre sales people end up being stellar sales managers”

I think Dave would agree with me however, that the reality is that most sales managers were at first, top sales people.

Companies continue to consider:

Achievement in sales to be the most deserving route into sales management and thus by default;It has in turn become the natural route.

Perhaps, this is not such a good thing. On reading Dave’s post, I found myself asking.

Should sales management opportunities continue to be tied so closely with sales performance?

Do we run the risk of devaluing the role of sales manager to the point that it is merely another form of bonus?

Will top sales performance always translate into effective sales management?

I don’t believe it always will. Many of the skills that served us well as salespeople are actually counter-productive when applied to sales management. I would suggest that sales management actually requires an altogether different skill set than what is required to be a top sales person.

If you also factor that top salespeople come from a background of continued over-performance, where as managers they will spend the majority of their time dealing with issues related to under-performance. This too must make for a difficult adjustment.

It this why then when faced with challenges, newly promoted sales managers often revert to what worked when they were selling. And if this approach fails, they may continue to persevere, seeing no reason to change and choosing instead to blame the skill levels or activities of the team.

I am not saying here, that top sales people don’t make good sales managers, of course they do. Rather that, we have to be very careful to promote based on management potential and skills rather than solely on the person’s track record in sales.

Companies can be guilty of devaluing the sales manager’s role by using it to reward sales performance rather than hiring the best person for the job. Of course there may be risks, such as upsetting an expectant big hitter, even to the point where he or she may leave to join the competition. That being said, the role of manager should be treated with enough significance, that these are risks worth taking?

Published by Niall Devitt, Btb Business Training

Perspective is the difference between good decisions and bad decisions.

It is our faculty of seeing all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship. It includes our ability to rationalise, to see through and to solve problems,and is the driving force behind our entire decision making process.

How developed is yours?

Psychological studies show that our ability to form perspective is in fact not that developed at all. Experiments demonstrate that introducing only a few factors considerably weakens our decision making abilities.

This means that simple computer programmes outperform their human competition across various selection processes.You could even argue that this flaw in our grey matter and has been directly responsible for much human suffering, including wars, disasters and our current environmental mess.

So how can we learn to combat our weak perspective and in turn improve our decision making ability?

Here are some pointers:

• Commit all the factors to paper.
• Give each individual factor a rating.
• Look for evidence both for and against.
• Pay particular attention to evidence against.
• Get the opinions of others.
• Seek out people who will actively disagree and listen to them.
• Realise final decisions are dangerous decisions.
• Once a decision has been made, continue to look for evidence and evaluate.
• Realise that good decision making often means going back on decisions.

Published by Niall Devitt, Btb Business Training

Mark your calendars for Friday 27th March to attend our Sales Expo ‘09.

An event enabling sales professionals and business managers stay up to speed on all things sales as well as NETWORK.

There will be a selection of expert speakers along with sales product / services stands for sales professionals to connect with. Stand participants will be any company in the “Business of sales”

Attending will be sales trainers & coaches, Telesales / Sales Lead Generation Companies, CRM software providers, Sales Recruiters and much more…

Topics covered in seminar talks

Selling in Tough Economic Times - Yes We Can! – Sean Weafer, SeanWeafer.com

Selling Yourself in a Sales Interview – Frank Rock, Harvest Training

Selling Even When Your Competitor Drops Their Prices - Niall Devitt, Beyond the Boardroom

Selling as a Great Career -Stories from the Front - Redmond O’Leary, Oracle

Selling with the Latest Technologies - Sales V 2.0 - Anthony Quigley, DigitalMarketingInstitute.ie

Moving from One Sales Industry to Another - Samantha Judge, Rightfit

The talks will be held from 4.30pm and held at regular half hourly intervals. Expo attendees will have the option to attend talks of interest and/or browse trade stands.

Parties interested in participating at the event with a trade stand call Niall @ 01 236 6636.

Individuals interested in attending the Sales Expo ‘09

Booking details:

Date: 27th March

Time: 4pm - 8pm

Venue: Ballsbridge Court hotel (Formally known as Berekely Court)

Cost:        €20.00

Contact Denise/Lisa with credit card /laser:
01 236 6636 or email denise@SalesJobs.ie

Looking forward to Seeing You There!

Some clients have asked me about other Irish blogs, offering advice around business development related topics.

So I thought I would try and start to put a list together for them. If I haven’t mentioned your blog or one you know, Don’t be cross, just send me a mail or comment and I will be sure to add it right away. Remember, it’s got to have a Biz development angle.

Here goes, sure I may as well start with the competition.

Paul Lanigan

Paul’s blog is not only considered to be a top Irish sales blog, but recognised internationally as a great sales resource. Considered a friend by people like Dave Stein, his blog should be a must read for any Irish sales executive.

Great Expectations Coaching

The blog of Maitiu MacCabe and Maggie Gibbons, while maybe not updated for a bit, is still worth checking out.

3R Sales and Marketing

This is the blog from Peter and the team at 3R covering a range of topics from biz development, sales, marketing and SEO.

FrankFullard

Frank’s well known blog about entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs and the businesses they start.

Interactions

The blog of Annette Clancy, who is an organisational consultant, coach and psychotherapist who facilities organisational change.

Allagi Consulting

Ann Greene of Allagi Consulting talks about her organisation development work.

You’ve Been Noticed

Paul Sweeney explores how customer interaction can be managed more effectively to reduce costs and increase profit.

Better Business Results

Better Business results with offices in UK and Ireland is a consultancy specialising in small and medium business systemisation, marketing and time management.

Cybercom

Cybercom, The Digital Marketing People, is a leading “full service” digital marketing and advertising agency.

Krishna De’s Biz Growth News

No Irish list would be complete without Krishna’s Blog.  Described as one of Europe’s leading Employer Branding, Personal Branding and Social Media Strategists by the media and clients alike, Krishna De is an award winning brand communications and leadership development mentor, executive coach, broadcaster, writer, professional speaker and social media strategist.

First Partners

Paul Browne’s blog about people and technology, and the bits in-between.

Tom Rafferty

This is the blog of Tom Rafferty, where he talks about his work as a social media consultant, speaker, blogger and podcaster.

Red Cardinal

Richard Hearne’s blog about Search Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), website Findability, website Usability and general Internet Online Marketing Strategy in Ireland.

Brightspark Consulting

Brightspark web design and marketing services blog.

Blacknight

Blog offering news, tips and reviews from one of Ireland’s leading hosting companies.

IQ Content

The team at IQ advise on how to create great websites.

Derek Organ

This blog is written by Derek Organ, the Managing Director of 1time. It’s his commentary on the new phenomenon that is web 2.0 and running a business

Argolon

The blog of Irish Technology Consultants, Argolon.

Keith Bohanna

A selection of thoughts from Keith Bohanna, Internet Consultant and co-founder of dbTwang.com

SpoiltChild

Blog of independent creative design studio, Spoiltchild design.

BH Consulting

Brian Honan is recognised as an industry expert on information security.

Piaras Kelly

The blog of Piaras Kelly, Communications Consultant with Edelman.

SOHO Solo West Cork

SOHOSolo West Cork is a unique small business network tailored to the needs of the Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) enterprise.

Published by Niall Devitt, Btb Business Training

Jonathan Farrington wrote an excellent post, on why smaller companies are well positioned to do well in the year ahead. In it, Jonathan describes the factors that give a smaller company an edge including:

Not being weighted down by unnecessary bureaucracy

An ability to make decisions quickly

Being more capable of building stronger, sustainable relationships with customers

Jonathan goes on to talk about why 2009 will be the year of “Customer Focus” describing what is meant by the term, and why it creates competitive advantage.

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Published by Niall Devitt, Btb Business Training

I thought for my first post of 2009, Id start with a hypothetical situation about two imaginary competing companies contemplating what 2009 will have in store.

While these companies are of a similar size and operate in the same space, their philosophy as to how best deal with the situation is entirely different.

So why not name them after their individual philosophies.

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Published by Niall Devitt, Btb Business Training

The following is based on a recent bad customer experience I had with an organisation (who should know better), here in Ireland. They problem arose, because they ended up making promises, which unfortunately they were unable to keep. I now know, that this was not entirely their fault, and that circumstances, beyond their control conspired to create a situation where they had to leave some people down. I happened to be one of those people.

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Review

“Our conversion rate of prospects doubled from 20% to 40% and the average time-to-convert shrunk from 6 to 3 months. Netting it out — sales benchmarking has single-handedly improved our revenue by 5% this year alone.”

That’s what Geoff Smart; CEO of ghSMART has to say about “Making The Number” a new book by Greg Alexander, Aaron Bartels and Mike Drapeau of Sales Benchmark Index.

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Published by Niall Devitt, Btb Business Training

This post is the result a conversation I had with one of my clients who is very nervous in terms of what the future holds for her business. Siobhan, this is for you.

Firstly, Lets get real here, this is by no means the first, worst or last recession. In fact, many businesses do better during recession than during boom times.

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Published by Niall Devitt, Btb Business Training

Having a child follow in your footsteps was once a source of pride for Ireland’s parents. Not any more according to a a recent survey by recruitment consultants Hudson Sales & Marketing who asked 1000 UK and Ireland based sales and marketing professionals.

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Published by Niall Devitt, Btb Business Training

A client of mine called me the other day looking for some advice. He owns and operates a small distribution business and as he put it is considering investing in CRM technology, with the aim of helping his business through automating his sales and customer reporting.

The catalyst event for this call was that one member of his sales team had recently left the company taking with him a long list of contacts, and presumably with time customers.

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Published by Niall Devitt, Btb Business Training

I got talking to a senior salesperson recently, and was literally gob smacked when he told me about the amount of admin work that he is expected to produce on top of his sales target. He was having to spend roughly half his working week doing paperwork.

It got me to thinking that when you consider other unavoidable tasks such as travelling to and from sales meetings , the amount of time that he could possibly be spending in front of prospective clients actually selling must be tiny.

Wanting to see if there was any available information on the web, I came across an international productivity study from Proudfoot Consulting, which made for quite astonishing reading.

This 2002 study revealed that sales people on average spend just seven percent of their time actively selling.

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