Sales Professional.eu

Five years ago, Jim Collins asked the question, "Can a good company become a great company and if so, how?" In Good to Great Collins, the author of Built to Last, concludes that it is possible, but finds there are no silver bullets. Collins and his team of researchers began their quest by sorting through a list of 1,435 companies, looking for those that made substantial improvements in their performance over time. They finally settled on 11--including Fannie Mae, Gillette, Walgreens, and Wells Fargo--and discovered common traits that challenged many of the conventional notions of corporate success. Making the transition from good to great doesn't require a high-profile CEO, the latest technology, innovative change management, or even a fine-tuned business strategy. At the heart of those rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner. Peppered with dozens of stories and examples from the great and not so great, the book offers a well-reasoned road map to excellence that any organization would do well to consider. Like Built to Last, Good to Great is one of those books that managers and CEOs will be reading and rereading for years to come. --Harry C. Edwards

"Fortune teller. Psychologist. Financial analyst. These are just a few of the roles sales managers must play while making sure the sales team has what it needs to close deals. In an economic landscape where business strategies shift almost daily, it’s all a sales manager can do to keep abreast of new developments. The Secrets of Great Sales Management shows sales managers how to work in concert with changing corporate goals without sacrificing the exceptional results they were hired to achieve.

This powerful book gives readers practical strategies to:

* clarify short-, medium-, and long-term goals

* create and communicate team objectives

* establish new performance standards and measurements

* improve development and training initiatives

* build compensation plans that drive stated objectives

* create career development plans for team members

By helping sales managers build stronger connections between front-line strategies and boardroom expectations, The Secrets of Great Sales Management will help readers ensure both organizational and individual success."

Review

Managing salespeople is very hard. Contrary to coventional wisdom, being a successful salesperson has very little to do with being a successful sales manager. Too many organizations put good salespeople in management roles with little preparation, and then they wonder why the failure rate for new sales managers is so high.

"ProActive Sales Management" is an indispensable guide for any professional sales manager, from the newest to the most seasoned. This is a practical, actionable blueprint for building and managing a winning sales organization.

The core of "ProActive Sales Management" is a set of tools that can be immediately applied to a variety of sales management challanges, regardless of size of sales force, type of industry, or even geographic region. Our own organization has successfuly applied these methods in the US, Europe, Asia, Canada and Latin America.

The key strength of this book is its common-sense approach. This is not about dogma or ideology, as so many sales and sales management books are. This is about getting the job done, and doing it well. If you manage salespeople, or if you aspire to being a sales manager, you must read this book!

The commercial world, once the province of locally owned family enterprises, is now dominated by the corporation. This is partly due to the evolving nature of commerce which is now global in orientation, partly from technological advancements in production, distribution, and communication, partly from increasingly sophisticated developments in management skills. That's why "The Art of Mastering Sales Management" by Thomas A. Cook (Adjunct Professor, World Trade Institute of Pace University, New York) is such a timely and appreciated instruction manual in which 'real-world' principles and practices of exemplary and practical salesmanship are laid out. But more than just a 'how to' guide for increasing salesmen effectiveness, "The Art Of Mastering Sales" identifies and analyzes world trends influencing what Cook so accurately describes as the 'art of selling'. Of special note is a proposed daily routine for developing and practicing effective selling habits. Articulate, insightful, practical, and offering a wealth of tips and techniques, "The Art Of Mastering Sales Management" is especially recommended reading for anyone engaged in a commercial enterprise of any kind or category.