Earlier this year a MANA member reaffirmed the long-held belief of this association that reps continually seek the training needed to succeed when he said, “As the rep considers the task being assigned, the hope is that you have really good principals in those situations where you don’t necessarily have the skill set to perform the function. Your message to the manufacturer should be that ‘We really believe in this but we need your help in terms of training.’ The training in question could be provided through your principal’s internal personnel. The best situation would be that your principals would

As detailed in the 1992 film A League of Their Own, when men were shipped overseas to do battle during World War II a number of the jobs that were left vacant because of their absence were filled by women. Hardly exempt from that predicament was the world of baseball. In the 1940s the owners of baseball teams, not wanting the sport to be dormant indefinitely, decided to form teams with women. As a result, scouts were sent across the country to recruit women athletes to populate a four-team league.

A bit of a recollection of that time took place … Read the rest

Do you invest in the stock market?

If so, you’re probably aware of the constant waxing and waning that characterizes the life cycle of the stock market. What goes up eventually goes down and what goes down eventually goes up.

If you’re a long-term investor, you tend to wait out the market cycles and instead count on the long-term growth that has always happened in the market over extended periods of time. If you’re a short-term investor, you may be playing the cycle, hoping to buy or sell at precisely the right time.

Either way, the stock market goes up … Read the rest

How to get prospects to find you.

Twenty years ago, salespeople were expected to get in front of prospects. Today, those doors are sealed shut. Voice mail and e-mail messages are ignored. If all that isn’t enough, few customers are willing to stick their neck out and make referrals.

All of which makes prospecting frustrating and, unfortunately, bordering on useless. No wonder salespeople across the board plead for leads and, hoping to get lucky, keep their fingers crossed.

If you’re looking for an easy, quick way to find prospects, forget it. No matter what anyone may say, it doesn’t exist. … Read the rest

Avoid Sales Gimmicks

Over the past week I’ve been inundated with e-mails for webinars, classes and courses telling me that sales and business building is easy. They claim that you don’t have to work hard, just listen to the webinar and you’ll get the magic bullet to working a fraction of the hours you’re currently working while closing 90 percent of the people you talk to. Oh, and don’t worry about the fear and discomfort that usually stop you; with their secret formula those will magically disappear. It will be all sunshine and rainbows.

Unfortunately people still fall for schemes … Read the rest

During the summer they dig up streets, repave roads, and repair bridges. That leads to epic traffic jams, long commutes and tremendous amounts of frustration. And you’re late! I’ve been doing my best impression of the digging, without the paving and repairing. Several of my recent articles have been based on Objective Management Group’s (OMG) data from the evaluations of 1.8-million sales professionals, and like the road work, we’re gonna continue to dig!

In this article, we will look to determine whether there is a correlation between sales percentile, sales pipeline, and sales performance.

OMG includes a pipeline analysis as … Read the rest

In most organizations, sales managers are the essential bridge between the company’s sales goals and the realization of those goals. The gritty day-to-day interactions between the salespeople and their customers are frequently filtered through the perspective of a sales manager on their way up the ladder. The aspirations and strategies of the company’s management must be imprinted by the realism of the sales manager as they come down from above. Sales managers are the conductors who carefully orchestrate the tentative entanglement of the salespeople with their management.

It’s an incredibly important and difficult job. Unfortunately, it is often the most … Read the rest

This is the second in a number of articles serializing The Sales Force — Working With Reps by Charles Cohon, MANA’s president and CEO. The entire book may be found in the member area of MANA’s website.

Jim had hoped that Buchanan’s enthusiasm for his call-forwarding idea would catapult him into contention for Edgeworth’s old job, but if that was Buchanan’s intent, he was keeping his cards pretty close to his vest. The only hint Jim got that Buchanan was thinking of him as a manager was when Buchanan tapped him to stand in for Edgeworth at a meeting of

First let me clarify the value of quality service. I believe that great service retains the customers you already have, attracts more customers, and develops a reputation that encourages customers to do business with you in the future.

Are You Guilty of the Following Customer Service Crimes?

• Telephone torture

Too many firms worship at the altar of IVR: Push two for English, four for Spanish, push six if you want etc. and push eight to go to be ignored. For years I have been saying this is the most expensive piece of technology you will ever buy and you will … Read the rest