Category: Uncategorized

Recently, a college football program went from having a Heisman Trophy winner and a reputation as an exciting, winning program to a 2 & 10 train wreck. How could a dynamic, successful program fall so far, so fast? How could a team so loaded with talent manage to allow opposing teams to score more points than 128 other college teams – while having one of the most anemic offenses in the country? The obvious answer is that their superstar quarterback had moved on to the NFL and the team was in a rebuilding mode. But upon closer inspection it becomes clear that there is much more to the story – and this story is very relevant to sales organizations who[…]

If you happen to be somewhere between 22 and 37 years of age, you fall into the dubious and sometimes reviled category of “Millennial”. Now we are all aware that social media has raised Millennial-bashing to an art form, and in the spirit of full disclosure, I have been guilty of it from time to time myself. But recently, I have had experiences that have reminded me of the danger (and insensitivity) of painting with too broad a brush when drawing conclusions about generational characteristics. In my line of work, I interview, coach and mentor individuals from all age groups and recently I interacted with two young men who fall squarely into the category of Millennial. Both were candidates for[…]

“You can’t lose what you ain’t never had” – Muddy Waters We hear it all the time, “The guy we hired never showed up for the first day of work!”, or, “She only lasted a few weeks, then turned in her resignation”. Even worse, “Our last hire quit to take another job after four months!”. So, what happened – bad hire? You got played? Bad candidate? Bad luck? Maybe… But hiring managers are often quick to point the finger of blame at everyone but themselves when a new hire doesn’t work out. Comments like these are common: “I’m glad she quit now rather than a year from now, better to find out early that she couldn’t hack it.” “The recruiter[…]

If I checked your wrist or belt or pocket right now there’s a pretty good chance I would find either a fitness tracking device or an app on your smartphone that performs the same function. More than 12% of Americans currently use wearable fitness trackers – and that doesn’t include individuals who use their smartphones for this function. By 2021 an estimated 75 million people will be using some type of wearable fitness device. Why the craze for this technology? What does it have to do with sales? Let’s work through those    questions. First, why the craze? Well, we are living in an age of fitness consciousness. That doesn’t mean we’re all fit – or even getting there –[…]

In sales (and sales management) we tend to fall into the habit of measuring our successes based on what has already happened – closed sales. After all, that is what generates the commissions (or keeps management off our backs!). It’s not that we don’t understand what it took to get those deals closed, we just find ourselves getting to a point where we feel confident that all of the early work is going to get done, so we concentrate on our booked business in order to track the money we can expect to collect in the coming weeks or months – it’s human nature. When we focus on reports or spreadsheets that tell us what has already happened we are[…]

The title of this article is an old baseball axiom that has been adopted as a widely used metaphor in both business and personal endeavors.  I’m going to use it in the context of sales management to illustrate the problems of functioning as a top performing sales rep while attempting to lead a team.  This practice of selling (keeping a foot on first) while attempting to squeeze in time to manage others (trying to steal second) creates a series of predictable and unfortunate results. The role of the Sales Manager is to plan sales strategies, implement those strategies by engaging the sales team members and control revenue generation through monitoring, coaching and course corrections as needed.  The problem most Sales[…]

All too often, hiring managers look for the wrong qualifications in candidates.  At a minimum, too much emphasis may be placed on things that simply don’t translate into sales success.  The two most obvious examples of this flawed approach are “related sales experience” and “four year degree required”. Right about now many of you reading these words are convinced that Mike has finally lost his mind.  How can a desire for related sales experience be a recruiting flaw?  How can high tech businesses not require well educated sales professionals?  The answers to those questions lie in the evidence provided by the real world (that’s the one we live and work in everyday – and the only one that counts!).  My[…]