Visionary Sales Leadership: How Senior Executives Can Erase Status Quo Myths and Build Superior Sales Organizations

Visionary Sales Leadership is a no-holds-barred look at 10 of the most common myths, also called mistakes, about sales organizations as viewed by executives. It provides insight into how they may be corrected through a pragmatic examination of what can go wrong in a sales organization, and how to be proactive in resolving issues before they arise. Each chapter spotlights the myth being perpetuated in several companies regardless of size or product offering. Beyond just highlighting these mistakes, there are at least one or two alternatives for overcoming each myth and enabling senior executives to modify or correct them before they negatively affect the success of a sales group. This is a glimpse into mistaken thinking and a chance to reshape it. This book is written specifically for presidents, CEOs, COOs and senior executives who are responsible for making final decisions about their sales organization. While their scope of work is far wider than sales alone, these final decisions are influenced by all of the following: sales culture, hard - and soft - skills requirements of their sales management team, as well as the sales representatives themselves. Specific standards include compensation, sales plan creation, territory and market segment differentiation, key account coverage, interviewing, selection and hiring, staff performance evaluation, training and orientation. No candy coating or pretensions here. To many this is going to be a controversial look at sales organizations. If you are looking for reading about selling and how to lead a sales organization that energizes your soul, you can find tons of material on positive thinking. You won't find hyped sales messages or sales tips and what to do's about selling, bookshelves are filled with books on those subjects. Pollyanna beliefs and mentality are not here. What is here is a pragmatic look at the reality of successfully leading a sales organization. This book may be one of a very few specifically addressing the sales management role and its influence on a company. It is a practical guide to leading a top-notch sales force. . Being objective and recasting a sales organization which is well-tuned and delivers the promise of the enterprise objectives takes real courage. Moving from prevailing opinion to reinvention of the sales organization, especially if your sales processes, policies, programs, procedures and practices are stale, can be one of the toughest turn-around initiatives executives tackle. The author stipulates that closing a sale depends on successfully implementing the 7 P's - policies, practices, procedures, programs, processes, prices and products of your company. His skills in sales and sales management were learned through experience not from books. While many of the finest books on selling and management exist today, he failed to identify one with a focus on why a sales group succeeds or that guides management to ponder and establish as guiding principles and execute for sustained sale increases. If after reading Visionary Sales Leadership the reader is motivated to evaluate his sales team or conduct an audit, then the purpose of this book was served. It's highly likely this review will expose deficiencies but also reveal opportunities to make the sales organization even stronger than it is today. Quite likely as the reader plans long-term strategy, the sales team strategy will be required to adjust as the company positions itself for the future. Overall this book will define how any sales department can be supervised and held accountable to achieve tangible and meaningful results that correlate with overall company goals and ADDS VALUE to the enterprise.