Many entrepreneurs in small business America today find themselves managing the sales force – the lifeblood of business success - and are ill-equipped to do so. Longtime sales consultant, Suzanne Paling, provides these busy leaders with the encouragement, advice and tools to successfully hire sales producers and create a high-functioning sales department.
“Suzanne Paling’s easy-to-read style, step-by-step guidance, and numerous checklists, templates, worksheets, and sample letters make it easy to implement her suggestions in a real world environment. As a CEO who still finds himself an 'Accidental Sales Manager' from time to time, this book really helps when I need to step in and provide some corrective guidance.”
—John Eller, President and CEO, InSight USA
About the Book
As principal of Sales Management Services, Suzanne Paling has closely observed interactions between small business owners and their sales forces. Basic management principles rarely work with sales reps and more often than not, business owners have:
- Insufficient knowledge about the basic sales process
- Confusion regarding the right way to manage salespeople
- Resentment of demands from the sales staff
- Anger stemming from disappointing sales results
- Little understanding of the unique needs of a new sales hire
Each chapter in the book begins with a vignette that comes directly from the author’s interactions with clients, and takes a sympathetic but realistic aim at the fears, misunderstandings and frustrations that occur in sales environments. Typical sales management dilemmas are demystified through easy to understand examples, charts and worksheets.
Features
- This book focuses on increasing revenues through sales management: hiring the right salespeople and organizing the sales process, as opposed to sales training which focuses on improving sales skills set
- Simplifies the sales management process for the non-career sales manager
- Highlights the most common management mistakes
- Explains why managing a salesperson is different from managing other employees
- Discusses the benefits to the entire organization of effectively managing sales
- Points out the downsides of not properly supporting the sales staff
- Provides and in-depth road map for orienting a new hire
- Offers easy to understand charts, graphs, checklists, tables, letters, and reports
- Holds the entrepreneur accountable, no matter how busy.
Benefit to the Customer
- Provides step-by-step instructions for increasing sales revenue by helping non-sales managers hire the right salespeople and organize their sales process
- Focuses on sales management not sales training
- Vignettes illustrate concepts using real-life examples and techniques for easy implementation
- Provides a practical, easy-to-follow reading experience