As a national sales consultant and trainer, Gil Cargill has worked with over 5,000 different organizations.

Based on his 30+ years of experience, Cargill insists there are six common pitfalls sales managers fall victim to, time and time again. Here’s a list of those six pitfalls, along with some proven strategies for trumping each of them:

1. No rigid process. More than 70% of world-class organizations require sales pros to participate in continuous training and development, much of it based on sharpening fundamentals. There should be consequences in place for sales pros who consistently cut corners, rather than following the agreed-upon process.
2. Lack of lead management. Do you conduct annual audits of your sales to determine which prospects have the highest probability of agreeing to do business? Do you proactively sort your leads, to maximize contact rates and ensure salespeople aren’t wasting time trying to reach recycled leads?
3. Lack of preemptive action. A lot of managers hold off on taking action because they assume they need approval from upper-management before they can proceed. The most proactive way to avoid this is by meeting with C-level execs regularly, working to develop an understanding where company brass trust you to make the right moves without needing to consult them first.
4. Poor recruiting/promotion. It’s important to remember the best players aren’t necessarily the best coaches. Promoting/hiring reps based on numbers alone is bad for you, them, and the entire department.
5. Bogged down with too many admin tasks. Delegate. Delegate. Delegate. And, if possible, hire a part-time admin or intern.

Source: “Six Reasons Why Sales Managers Fail,” by Gil Cargill, EyesOnSales.com

1. Biology: There are nearly 2 million Bio majors out there, and 6.7% of them are in the top 1% of earners in the country. In terms of what portion of the entire 1% of earners Bio majors account for, they lead the pack at 6.6% (See chart below).
2. Economics: A lot of Econ majors go into Finance, which is why it should come as no surprise that more than 8% of them are in the top 1% of gross earners in the country. Overall, Econ majors account for more than 5% of the top earners in the U.S.
3. Biochemical Sciences: This is a highly specialized degree program, a fact which is reflected by the fact there are less than 200,000 BioChem majors in the workforce right now. Yet, those who graduate with a degree in BioChem are on the fast track, as more than 7% of those with an undergrad or advanced degree in this field are in the top 1% of earners.
4. Zooology: Who would’ve thought, right? But, again, this is a specialized field where high-level professionals are in demand, and well-compensated for their skill set. Of the 160,000 Zoology majors out there, nearly 7% of them are in the top 1% of U.S. employees.
5. Health/Medical: Anyone who studies to go into Health or Medicine (e.g., Doctors, Nurses, etc.) is in very exclusive company. According to the New York Times, nearly 12% of medical professionals are in the top 1% of earners, accounting for nearly 1% of the overall 1%  (Say that 5X fast).

(For the full breakdown of 1%ers, see the chart below)

In his book Profits Aren’t Everything (They’re the Only Thing), business expert George Cloutier reinforces one basic premise time and time again –  the bottom line speaks the loudest.  Cloutier, a consultant who BusinessWeek once dubbed the “Turnaround Ace,” offers these five rules for turning excuses into profits:

1. Live and die by an “official plan”: Have a set of precise goals and a step-by-step plan for achieving each of those goals. Constantly gauge employees’ progress (as well as your own) and adjust to meet each goal on time.
2. Develop a performance-based compensation plan: Update your comp so employees are amply rewarded (or penalized) based on how much value they bring to the organization. Offering generous base salaries based solely on experience or past achievement gives staffers an excuse to rest on their laurels. It also breeds resentment among the ranks. When employees are paid more based on performance, they become highly motivated to achieve their goals.
3. Delegate, delegate, delegate: Make a list of responsibilities you can delegate and pass them on to senior members of your team. Giving employees more responsibility empowers them, and it frees you up to deal with big-picture issues.
4. Measure success by profit margins: Ultimately, managers have one objective – help the company increase its profitability. If you’re not accomplishing that, no other metric really matters.
5. Take full accountability: Whether it’s the economy, price or competition, great leaders pinpoint the problem, develop a solution, and rally their troops onward to victory.

You can have the whole package — one that screams success — and still drop the ball.  So says Sydney Finkelstein, a Dartmouth College management researcher who looked into the failure of several companies and published the results in a report titled “Why Smart Executives Fail.” Finklelstein listed five major flaws of the smart managers who failed:

1. They see themselves and their companies as dominating their environment.  Domination and control can be good in business. What’s bad is the illusion of domination and control. That is, some managers falsely believe they can control circumstances all the time. That belief usually is based on some degree of early success — which leads to the seeming certainty that more control and success will follow. Stuff happens, however, and the better managers know it.
2. They identify so completely with work and the company that there’s no clear boundary between personal interests and business interests. Commitment is good. Believing that a company or work is your private empire is bad. Failed executives tend to see everything in the company as an extension of themselves. Remember, you’re a manager, not a king.
3. They think they have all the answers — right away. Some managers are captivated by the  image of a dynamic leader making a dozen decisions a minute, dealing with many crises simultaneously, and taking only seconds to size up situations that have stumped everyone else for days. That person doesn’t exist in real life. It takes time and sometimes help from others to come up with good decisions.
4. They think you’re either with me or against me. This isn’t about gaining buy-in from others. It’s about demanding buy-in from others. And woe to those who don’t get on board immediately with this manager’s plan.  The approach is good for avoiding problems or flaws. It’s a bad way to fix problems or uncover flaws.
5. They rely too heavily on what worked for them in the past. Sometimes, the tried-and-true does work. But it doesn’t work all the time. Even the smartest manager will on occasion fall back on what worked in the past, even though times and circumstances have changed drastically. They disguise a lack of innovation as “sticking with the  basics,” which they ride straight to the bottom.

1. They no longer confide in you. When personal issues or office politics are having a negative impact on a salesperson’s ability to do his/her job, management is generally the first place a rep will turn for help. If you notice reps are no longer darkening your doorstep, or perhaps even avoiding you at all costs, it’s a clear sign either they have something to hide, or they have very little faith in your ability to help them overcome the problem.
2. They show blatant disrespect for office policy. It seems like the better salespeople are at their job the more prone they are to feel an unspoken sense of entitlement. Regardless, rules apply to everyone, and managers who go soft on A-players not only send a negative message to the rest of the team, they lose considerable respect in the process.
3. They ignore warnings. Salespeople will only test managers when they don’t fear any real consequences for their actions. If salespeople ignore your warnings about negative behavior, follow up swiftly, and follow through on whatever you said you were going to do. They may throw a fit in the short-term. But long-term, they’ll know you mean business.
4. They skip meetings. Sometimes you need the meeting, sometimes the meeting needs you. Salespeople who want to support management show their solidarity by showing up to all department meetings and functions, if for no better reason than they know skipping those meetings is a poor example to set for rookie salespeople.
5. They go over your head. Generally speaking, salespeople only bypass their manager entirely if: A) They want to file a complaint about the manager, or B) they have absolutely no faith in the manager’s ability to resolve issues effectively. Either way, it’s not a good sign, and the manager needs to take control of the situation and prove to salespeople he/she is an advocate with their best interests at heart.

These are adapted from a piece by comedian Constantine Von Hoffman in Inc. magazine:

1. Recruit aggressively. To build up the North Korea film industry, in 1978, Kim kidnapped a leading South Korea director and his actress wife. They produced seven films in North Korea before escaping, er, uh, transferring back to South Korea.
2. Communicate selectively, and only for the purpose of praise. Kim made one national broadcast during his 21-year reign in which the only words he said were “Glory to the heroic soldiers of the Korean People’s Army!” And he didn’t even use Powerpoint.
3. Have your own style. The hair, the leisure suit, the oversize sunglasses — well, just about everything was oversize for the 5-foot-1 Kim.
4. Stay busy and productive. Despite a schedule packed with trying to figure out how to annihilate his enemies and any countrymen who wanted a square meal, Kim found time to write at least 1,500 books, compose six operas, and direct several movies. According to his official biography, he once managed to squeeze in a round of golf in which he shot 38 under par and bagged 11 holes in one.
5. Work your way up from the bottom. It took a full 10 years from the time Kim joined the Workers’ Party to his ascension as the nation’s leader, shortly after the death of his father.
6. Go to any lengths to satisfy customers. Kim allegedly forced waitresses at restaurants frequented by foreigners to have cosmetic surgery in order to appear more “western.”
7. Work hard, play hard. The Dear Leader had live lobsters airlifted daily to his train when traveling, and his annual cognac bill was $700,000.
8. Don’t hesitate to break a few eggs when making a management omelette. A reported two million North Koreans died of famine during Kim’s tenure.

Let’s start with the layoff. During the economic downturn, NetApps shed 5% of its workforce. The big news wasn’t what the company did, however, but how the company did it.

The company implemented the layoff by having a top manager meet with each employee who was being let go. The manager’s job was to explain the company’s situation and that it became necessary to trim the workforce. On top of that, the CEO made a brief video in which he reiterated the explanation and also apologized.

During and after the layoff, the CEO made it a point to personally call employees who had achieved outstanding performance in their overall jobs or a special project. In doing so — and in tough times — the boss underscored the idea that he was paying attention to something more than just the bottom line.

The result: NetApps made the top five in the list of Great Places to Work. The others: Microsoft, SAS, Google and FedEx.

The common facets in which the companies received high scores from their employees:

• trust in management
• pride in the product
• camaraderie among employees
• good benefits

Note: Top pay was not named as one of the reasons for a high rating.

According to Gladwell, time and again, great entrepreneurs have separated themselves by their willingness to take tremendous risks early on … to bank everything on a calculated, yet unproven, business venture.

Gladwell goes on to explain that there is usually a watershed moment that catapults the would-be entrepreneur from respected capitalist to corporate magnate. This is the moment where years of risk and investment give way to tremendous return and growth.

Example: Early on in his career, Time Warner entrepreneur Ted Turner was willing to bank his family’s entire war chest on a small UHF channel in Atlanta. His family had built its wealth via a southern billboard business. Most of the advisers Turner turned to told him the move was insane. They insisted he wouldn’t only lose his investment, delving into an industry he knew little about, he’d also ruin the family’s billboard business in the process.

Oddly enough, Turner’s ace in the hole turned out to be the family billboard business. After investing in the TV station, he used every vacant billboard his family’s company had to advertise and promote the station. So rather than losing money on excess resources, he was gaining tremendous publicity for his new business venture – a move that eventually helped the station boost ratings, advertising rates and profits.

This was one of several watershed moments for Turner, based on his willingness to take risks that may have seemed insane to the casual observer, but were actually based on a brilliant business strategy.

Gladwell also shares the story of John Paulson – a Wall Street investor who spent several months and countless resources researching the housing market. Most assumed Paulson was wasting his time, trying to pinpoint when and how the market would go bust rather than simply investing as the bubble continue to grow. Meanwhile, one of Paulson’s researchers identified the high risk of tens of thousands of subprime mortgage loans being doled out by major financial institutions.

Armed with that info – info no one besides Paulson really had the numbers to double down on – Paulson began investing in credit default swaps, allowing him to collect the insurance on home loans investors defaulted on.

Result: As a result of his willingness to take what seemed like an insane risk, based on solid numbers, Paulson turned an investment of millions into tens of billions of dollars.

The key difference between the success stories and those would-be entrepreneurs who eventually went on to make their mark and those fell by the wayside:

• The ability and ambition to do the research, understand the numbers and identify a correlation or anomaly and exploit it, and
• Having the capital reserves to fail every now and again between major successes. Not every new venture is a winner. But if you can pile up a few major successes along the way, then the unfortunate failures wind up paying for themselves.

Source: “How Entrepreneurs Really Succeed,” by Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker.

To start off, the biggest mistake is to think you won’t be a target.

Fact: Fraud is on the rise across the board.

And yet in most organizations, the two main groups charged with preventing and catching any financial funny business – management and internal audit – have two very different ideas on everything from what’s causing it to how prepared they are to spot it.

Those are the eye-opening findings of a recent survey by Vonya Global. A disconnect like that could cost your company a bundle.

But it doesn’t have to. Check out three potentially costly perception gaps.

Could they exist in your company?

Perception Gap #1: How real the threat to you actually is

When it comes to the problem of corporate fraud, perhaps the most troublesome disagreement is just how real a threat it actually poses.

The vast majority of internal auditors believe the risk of fraud has increased in the past 24 months. And a quarter of them believe it will rise further. However, a third of executive management team members think their fraud risk has either dropped or stayed the same.

If other top execs don’t believe your cash is at risk, you might face resistance to putting more controls and protections in place.

Perception Gap #2: What the top threats are now

Even if you can get the most important people to agree on the fact that fraud is a real and present threat, you may face another critical disconnect in the specific type of threats. Here both groups have very strong feelings about the greatest fraud risk – too bad it isn’t the same one! According to the Vonya research:

• Managers are most worried about asset misappropriation on the supplier side, specifically in the
  form of billing schemes, while
• Internal Audit is most concerned about employees’ taking liberties with their expense reports at your company’s expense.

While your company certainly doesn’t want to let its guard down anywhere, it’s vital that you reach agreement on the greatest threats so you can hone your efforts.

Perception Gap #3: How prepared you are to catch it

Regardless of what the threat is, how confident are you that your company could spot it before any (or too much) damage is done? Once again, it depends on whom you ask in your company. Your top execs are quite confident in this area. Your internal auditors? Not so much.

More than 80% of management team members believe their companies have an effective fraud prevention program. While barely half of internal auditors are equally as confident.

One of the largest disconnects that’s worth addressing in your own anti-fraud efforts: how proactive vs. reactive your plan is. Talk to your CFO about this. Yes, you’ll need some of each, but be sure the balance hasn’t shifted too far to the reactive side.

To download a PDF of the report on fraud risk management, go here.

Related story: Fraud! Why you’re not as safe as you think.

1. Map out an agenda: Over time, it becomes easy to assume you can just walk into a meeting and play it by ear. But the reality is, that’s a surefire way to steer the meeting off-track. Take some time before the meeting to determine what your specific goals are, how you’ll incorporate the central message in a meaningful way, and what — if anything — you expect employees to do differently as a result of the meeting.
2. Set a strict time limit: One of the reasons employees become frustrated with long meetings is that they’re tiresome, and they tend to take them away from what they need to be doing. With that in mind, let it be known meetings will never go past a certain time limit and bring a stop watch or timer with you to ensure the meeting doesn’t exceed that limit.
3. Be sure to begin and end the meeting with praise: It sets a positive tone as they enter and exit the conference room.
4. Make sure everyone has a role to play: It’s not necessary for everyone in the room to make a speech or rise to the pulpit, but it is essential to find a way to engage them, whether that means asking good questions or encouraging them to participate in some other way. The bottom line is that the more engaged staffers are, the more the message tends to resonate.
5. Use incentives to maximize attendance: The most popular incentive is food. A lot of managers give their weekly meetings catchy names like the Monday morning bagel breakfast or lunch-n-learn. The key is to ensure employees show up for the meeting on time by telling them they can only cash in on the free food if they show up for the meeting before a certain time. You can also tease the meeting by telling employees you’ll be making a major announcement, or telling them they can leave a half hour early on Friday provided they’re on time for the weekly/monthly meeting.
6. Use visuals to reinforce the point: PowerPoint is a great resource for departmental meetings, as are charts and graphs that reinforce what you’re saying. If you can incorporate videos as an additional training resource, it’ll provide yet another medium for getting your point across.
7. Rotate moderators/Invite a guest speaker: Employees tire of hearing the same buzzwords and catch phrases from the same department head. Mix things up by having a different exec or employee lead each meeting. You may even want to bring in a loyal customer, or perhaps even a well-known name in the industry to provide a fresh perspective on an age-old topic.
8. Include a call to action: Give employees a mission to accomplish after they leave the meeting. Let them know when and how you plan to follow up. It gives them ample reason to listen to what’s being said and increases the chance they’ll take the central message to heart long after the meeting is over.
9. Have someone take minutes of the meeting and email them to all attendees: This way they have a series of bullet points that break down key takeways, which they can either print out or reference any time they like.
10. Ask for honest feedback after the fact: This is one way to determine whether the meeting was valuable from an employee’s perspective. 

That would be email. Lots and lots of email.

There’s no shortage of productivity-killing distractions online. But among the biggest time wasters is one that’s ostensibly at least somewhat work-related.

When employees were asked which online activity caused the most disruptions in their workday, the majority (57%) said reading and sending emails, according to findings in a recent BLR poll.

Searching the web ranked a distant second, with 17% of employees listing it as their top workplace distraction.

Other choices were:

• Visiting social media sites (14%)
• Instant messaging (4%).

Even though email remains the preferred method of communication in the workplace, constantly checking your inbox can really get in the way of accomplishing more-pressing tasks. It might be a good idea for your HR and IT teams to suggest some basic email management skills to your employees.

Example: Check you inbox first thing in the morning, lunch, mid-afternoon and right before you shut down for the day.

Come to think of it, this might not be bad advice for the busy, multi-tasking exec as well.

The study also revealed in the public sector the average gap in salary between men and women is only 11%.

That difference alone accounts for higher levels of unity, less finger pointing, better overall performance, less turnover and fewer gender-based lawsuits in the public sector.

The question most managers should be asking themselves is: Why is the salary gap so much smaller in the public sector?

Answer: Transparency.

Government organizations are required to make salaries a matter of public record, given the fact taxpayers foot the bill for those salaries.

Given these findings, it may be worth considering whether it’s time to stop reprimanding employees for discussing salary and opt for more transparency going forward.

In addition to all the aforementioned benefits, making salaries a matter of public record keeps management honest during salary negotiations, which could save the company considerable revenue..

Now, it’s next to impossible to get to the decision-maker. Even if you break through all the existing barriers, the decision making process is so long that getting the order may take forever.

Today, if they want to succeed, your reps have to forget about what they want to sell and focus on what the customer wants to buy.

The objective is to create a customer who’s convinced that it’s smart to do business with your company.

Here are seven strategies that’ll give your reps a selling advantage in today’s changing world:

1. Let your customers and prospects know they need what you know. Today’s customers need sound advice on how to reduce costs, operate more efficiently, increase productivity, and service customers better. The people who buy from you need what you know, not just what you sell. Look for what you bring to your customers that tips the scales in your favor.
2. Be more accessible. Prospects and customers work longer hours today to deal with a tight economy and intense competition. Maximum accessibility is the new reality and it counts for more and more in business. It’s not when you want to contact the customer that counts; it’s when the customer wants to contact you that’s critical.
3. Don’t waste the customer’s time. In today’s tight market, saving time is the customer’s highest priority — and a salesperson’s most valuable asset. Show customers and prospects you understand their situation by being highly efficient.
4. Improve your sales cycle management. Improved productivity is the key to increasing your sales. This requires careful and continuous follow-up with an increasing number of prospects and customers.
5. Ask more questions. This is the most effective way to reveal the extent of your knowledge and interest in the customer’s business. Thoughtful questions demonstrate that you know your stuff.
6. Create a buying environment. Try not to go into an appointment preoccupied with what you want to sell. Focus your attention totally on the customer and what you can learn. Customers usually pick up on salespeople who are only thinking of making the sale. When the customer feels secure and in control, the business is probably yours.
7. Fight for your credibility. Closing the sale is no longer just a matter of being on great terms with the customer or overcoming objections. More than ever, it’s a matter of trust. Accurately weighing the pros and cons of your product or service for the customer creates confidence. Not trying to hide limitations — and refusing to overstate benefits — sends the message that a salesperson can be trusted.

Source: John R. Graham, President, Graham & Associates, Quincy, MA.

The U.S. is nearing the “crisis” level of July 2008, when gas prices peaked at $4.11 a gallon. Yet, there doesn’t seem to be the same level of mass concern regarding gas prices, at least not yet. Whether that has to do with consumer optimism, or the fact that we’ve been here once before, rising gas prices now have the potential to impact productivity, morale and expenses.

The average gas price right now is $3.77 a gallon (according to the Oil Price Information Service), with most analysts predicting it will once again topple the $4 mark at some point during the summer.

Assuming that’s true, upper management may need to consider the following measures:

• temporarily adjusting the mileage rate to take some of the burden off of employees who do a great deal of traveling for the company
• monitoring and/or capping the amount of gas mileage employees can expense on a regular basis
• offering gas cards as regular incentives
• developing car pool options for employees who live in the same area
• suggesting sales reps schedule meetings in one specific region each day of the week, to cut down on back and forth travel, and/or
• allowing employees to work from home at least one day a week to ease the burden of gas expenses.

If your company has a fleet of corporate vehicles, it may be helpful to consider how fuel efficient they are, and whether the company could be saving a significant amount on costs by going with more fuel efficient models in the future.

Source: “Gas Prices Rise, and Economists Seek Tipping Point,” by Christine Hauser, New York Times, 4/11/11.

1. Engage customers as often as possible: Social media sites, message boards and consumer info sites are great places to network with prospects on a regular basis. Responding to questions and providing valuable info promotes your brand, but it also offers an opportunity to provide a link to your company’s website. The more prospects value your expertise, the more likely they’ll be to trust your site (and do business with your company).
2. Become an advocate for other industry sites: Use your company’s website, blog or social media feeds to promote to trumpet other industry sites, companies or blogs, then contact a representative from those sites via email to let them know you’ve mentioned them. It’s a great way to open a dialogue, and this way, you can pass along pertinent press releases, product info and company news that those sites will be much more likely to repost themselves.
3. Submit your own posts to some of the most popular sites in your industry: This not only increases your online visibility, it bolsters your company’s credibility considerably. If you’ve got a certain area of expertise, contact the administrator for a popular industry blog or site and offer to write a “guest post” about a topic or hot button that interests that audience. In the post itself, be sure to include several embedded links to pages on your company’s website (embedded links in copy have been proven to increase web traffic as much as 93%).
4. Maximize your use of valuable keywords: Use analytic tools and other online resources to determine what the most popular search terms in your industry are. Use those terms as often as possible in product descriptions, blog posts, landing pages and headings. StumbleUpon is particularly valuable in terms of identifying which keywords have the highest rating on search engines.
5. Add a “search by keyword” function: The search function has been proven to significantly increase the amount of repeat traffic a site gets, as well as the amount of time an average visitor spends on the site. Ninety percent of marketers claim adding a “search” function increases online conversions, according to a recent eConsultancy study.

1. Integrity. Ninety-six percent of customers say that the No. 1 thing they look for in salespeople is integrity. People want to do business with those whom they trust.
2. Empathy. This is a salesperson’s ability to view life from the customer’s point of view. There isn’t a problem that aggressiveness could get you into that an equally strong measure of empathy won’t keep get you out of.
3. Initiative. This is the tendency to be proactive. It’s requires doing something without having someone tell you to do it.
4. Knowledge. Most customers report that what they want in a supplier is to deal with salespeople who are knowledgeable. If knowledge is power, then what you don’t know holds great power over you.
5. Courage. This is not the absence of fear — it’s the management of fear. Value-added salespeople feel the fear and do what they know they must do to overcome it.

Value and price

Value-added salespeople are skilled at directing the conversation towards value, not price. They uncover the customer’s need, analyze the costs associated with that need, and translate features of their product into what it will do for the customer.

Two dimensions of value

There are two dimensions of what customers value:

• Need for relationship. Customers with a high need for relationship place a high value on the salesperson’s ability to understand them, their needs, strategy and challenges, and their future plans. Buyers who are less experienced with the product they are buying will place a high value on this type of relationship.
• Need for information. Salespeople who are able to provide easy access to information save their customers time and effort, and make it easier to do business with them.

Customer interaction preferences

The first step in value-added selling is to find out what your customers value. Each customer has his or her own perspective on value, usually falling into one of the following categories:

• The transactional buy. Customers here have low needs for a relationship and low needs for information. They just want the right product at the right time at the lowest price.
• The relationship buy. These customers have a high need for a relationship. They need salespeople who have an in-depth understanding of their situation.
• The information buy. Customers have a high need for information and a low need for a relationship. They know what they want, and want to be informed and educated.
• The partnership buy. These customers have a high relationship need and a high information need. They want a salesperson who understands their company and their needs.

A well-known business specialist breaks down the most common pitfalls today’s sales organizations face. 

In a recent article, sales consultant Michael Treace pointed out five common “afflictions” that hurt sales teams. According to Treace, he’s noticed these specific problems time and again throughout his career.

Below are the five “afflictions” on Treace’s list, along with our own commentary on each.

The question today’s sales managers need to ask themselves as they read through this list: “Which of these five am I guilty of … And what can I do to rectify that?”

1. Poor use of salespeople’s time. Time management is a major concern for sales managers, especially in cases where salespeople waste a great deal of their time trying to close stalling prospects or dealing with low-priority tasks that, while important, aren’t urgent. Perhaps the best solution is to make a list of the critical tasks salespeople are expected to complete each week.
2. Poor use of sales meetings. It’s amazing how many sales organizations continue to have regularly-scheduled meetings with no real agenda or outcome. Sales meetings can be incredibly beneficial, provided the manager (or moderator) knows what he/she expects salespeople to do differently as a result of the meeting and salespeople are given a clear goal to shoot for. The best question to ask yourself before each meeting: “What do I expect salespeople to do differently, and how will I gauge their effectiveness in that area?”
3. Poor strategy. How long has your current sales strategy been in place? How effective has the organization been at meeting each of its goals? You may want to take the most effective aspects of your overall strategy and combine them with some new tactics, provided you have specific metrics in place to gauge the overall effectiveness of new initiatives. A lot of sales managers naturally assume it’s the sales team that’s coming up short, when the real problem lies in the fact that salespeople don’t have the infrastructure they need to succeed.
4. Capping or killing bonuses. Nothing is more disparaging to a salesperson than finding out he/she’s no longer entitled to a bonus or commission he/she was in the past. Perhaps second to that is closing the deal of a lifetime only to find out the company has a nonsensical ceiling on commissions that forbids salespeople from getting the percentage they truly deserve. It’s worth going back to look at your comp structure to determine if there are ways to make it more effective in terms of maximizing revenue (and motivating salespeople to do so).
5. Playing favorites. It’s easy to get behind your sales superstar or the salesperson who follows every one of the company’s policies. But part of the job of being a manager is to remain objective and treat every salesperson with the same degree of respect. When/if salespeople feel there’s favoritism being shown, you won’t only have a morale problem on your hands, you may also have — in extreme cases — a full-blown mutiny on your hands.

Source: “Five Common Afflictions of Sales Teams,” by John R. Treace, author of the book Nuts & Bolts of Sales Management.

“Organizations that create multiple, flexible pathways to success will keep their best people, keep them engaged, and keep them longer.”

So says Harvard Business Review’s Susan David.

As Co-Director for the Harvard Institute of Coaching, David’s gained a great deal of expertise regarding how to train and develop employees into senior positions.

In a recent interview with one of the Harvard Business Review‘s bloggers, David shared these three tips for determining which employees should be promoted into management, and which ones are better left right where they are (we’ve provided our own commentary along with each one):

1. Gather feedback from multiple sources: You may believe a specific employee has true leadership potential. But it’s not you that person will be responsible for leading. That’s why it’s essential to gather honest feedback from key staffers regarding your potential candidate. If it’s clear most employees won’t accept (or respect) that person’s leadership, you may need to reconsider your choice.
2. Seek out candidates who WANT to take on more: Some employees would prefer to simply go about their business without any need for promotions or other distractions. Take note of which employees are constantly volunteering to take on more, as well as who’s least likely to put up a fight whenever it becomes necessary to implement change.
3. Make sure the candidate endorses the company’s mission and values: Seek out employees who not only share the company’s vision, but yours as well. The last thing you want is a subversive manager who’s undermining your authority at every turn. Avoid promoting top perfomers unless they have the ability and desire to move into management. Otherwise, you could wind up losing some of your best employees shortly after you’ve promoted them into management.

Source: “When to Reward Employees with More Responsibility & Money,” by Amy Gallo, Harvard Business Review Blog.

The retired CEO of Hanover Insurance has seen every business mistake. Here are some of the worst.

The observations come from former CEO Bill O’Brien and others in a new book, The Dance of Change:

1. Everyone should live by your values (except for a few prima donnas who bring in a lot of the revenue). Yes, everyone should have basic values — honesty, integrity and all the others you’ve heard throughout your life. That’s a given. But expecting people to live according to your special set of values is demeaning. And if you set rules for everyone except the chosen few who can behave any way they want as long as they bring in cash, that’s doubly-demeaning.

2. Act as if great companies are built to last. Despite the name of the popular book, a lot of great companies haven’t lasted. That’s because they were once great but didn’t change and adjust. They thought greatness would breed more greatness.

3. When times are tough, cut out training and development. If you say you’re committed to training and developing your people, what does it say about company culture if training and developing are the first to go when money’s tight. Yes, your first obligation is to make payroll. And yes, you may have to do a bit less in the development area — as you might have to do a bit less in all areas. Still, it’s a mistake to cut employee development altogether.

4. Make turning a profit your only goal. Hey, no one stays in business without staying in the black, right? Right. But if that’s all you’re interested in — at the expense of employees, family, community — you’re going to be disappointed, and maybe not even profitable.

5. Assume that tight management is the key to high performance. This one’s simple: Leadership is the key, not management. Can you lead people to change, to make tough choices, to sacrifice? Management doesn’t do any of that, and management alone is just about chasing numbers.

6. Just incentivize people to boost performance. Isn’t that true for salespeople? Actually, it generally is, because of the their values and culture. But not everyone is in sales, and not everyone responds the way salespeople do.

7. Create a new strategy, and empower employees to implement it. So you’re going to dictate strategy and then “empower” employees to do what they’re told to do? The best strategies usually come as a result of a collaborative effort within the company. And if you say your employees don’t have the know-how or understanding of the market to help develop a strategy, then you probably have the wrong employees.

The annual study by Right Management, which involves polling more than 1,400 workers, revealed 60% of employees said they’d be job-shopping in 2009 — and that number jumped to 84% in 2010.

The people who planned to stay in their current jobs dropped from 13% in 2009 to 5% in 2010.

Some reasons workers are ready to ditch their employers:

• Employee dissatisfaction and discontent
• Lack of confidence in company leaders
• Low trust in management, and
• Lagging commitment to the job.

What can you do as a sales manager to keep your staff intact?

• Talk to star performers now about their career goals and needs
• Provide feedback to workers on what they’re doing well, and
• Create opportunities for more one-on-one interactions between you and your sales reps.

What is your company planning to do to retain its Sales superstars? Share your plans in the Comments Box below.