Seven Steps to Success for Sales Managers

Description

DEVELOP AND SUSTAIN HIGH-PERFORMANCE SALES TEAMS!
The Complete Sales Management Plan That Works!

How to:

• Lead, Not Mislead
• Inspire, Not Intimidate
• Invigorate, Not Deflate
• Achieve Breakthrough Performance, Again and Again

“Old school” sales management won’t cut it anymore. Now, award-winning sales leader Max Cates helps you unleash the full energy of your salespeople through empowerment, development, and continuous improvement. You’ll discover how to supercharge performance and bring joy back to selling. Get great bottom-line results and become the leader people remember for a lifetime.

Drawing on 36+ years of sales and sales management experience, Cates guides you in developing your own mental toughness, emotional intelligence, and strategic thinking; providing the right structure, challenges, respect, involvement, and support; hiring great salespeople and building great teams; keeping people on target without micro-managing them; and sustaining success, morale, and performance through good times and bad.

These are the skills you need to get the most out of your people and teams…to drive sales with maximal focus and minimal wasted effort…to win!

If you want outstanding sales performance, you need sales professionals who are prepared, passionate, and collaborative. As a sales leader, your #1 question is: How do I get people and teams like that?

There’s a clear, evidence-based answer: you hire right, and then you focus relentlessly on developing, empowering, and supporting your salespeople.

Do that, and performance follows.

Do that, and managing becomes a much happier experience.

But how? Get this book. Max Cates will show you.

Cates identifies seven steps proven to work in sales organizations of all types and sizes, across decades. He’s distilled each step into quick bulleted actions you can absorb fast and use now.

Selling is a profoundly human activity, and Cates focuses on key human drivers of high-performance sales: from understanding individual motivations to balancing competitiveness with teamwork, providing the right support to enforce the right accountability.

These are the elements of great sales leadership, explained clearly and made actionable. Use them. They’ll make your sales management career far more rewarding–in every way.

Seven Steps: Practical, realistic, detailed, and actionable
1. Manage Yourself
2. Begin with Hiring
3. Build a Winning Team
4. Become a Successful Servant Leader
5. Empower Sales, Starting with Ownership
6. Measure Performance to Success
7. Use Continuous Improvement to Maintain High Performance

Build and lead an outstanding sales team: hire the best people, and empower them 

• Breakthrough sales management tactics — in a “bulletized” format that’s easy to read and use
• Develop yourself as a sales manager: build mental toughness, emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, and promotability
• Become a true servant leader in sales: provide the right structure, challenges, respect, involvement, and support
• Measure individual and team performance, promote continual improvement, and sustain high-performance selling
• Reflects recent university research findings on crucial trends in sales management
• Packed with realistic examples drawn from the author’s 36 years of experience in the trenches as a salesperson and sales manager

Max Cates received a bachelor of science from Missouri State University and a master of arts from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He began his professional career with United Telecommunications (America’s third-largest telecommunications company at the time) as Advertising Coordinator. After three years, he joined AT&T and served for 10 years in progressively responsible corporate leadership positions in advertising, corporate communications, and marketing management.

Cates’s next leadership position was with Associated Electric Cooperative, a $2 billion electric power utility. After two promotions there, he became the youngest Division Director in its history, reporting to the CEO. His responsibilities included leading marketing, advertising, and corporate communications, as well as directing consumer sales strategy. During his tenure at Associated, he also completed Executive Development at the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania.

After 11 years with Associated and a number of national awards, Cates returned to AT&T, serving in sales and sales management positions, progressing from Internet Sales Manager to Telemarketing Sales Manager, to Area Sales Manager. Following an award-winning career with AT&T, which included the prestigious CEO Club Award, Cates joined Access Media, where he managed the sales force. He also served as a sales management professor at Webster University.

Master today’s breakthrough strategy for developing and sustaining high-performance sales teams! Long-time sales team leader Max Cates shows how to go far beyond “old school,” “command and control” sales management, unleashing the full power and energy of your salespeople through a participatory management approach that works. Drawing on 36+ years of sales and sales management experience, Cates presents proven tactics for:

• Developing your own mental toughness, emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, and promotability
• Becoming a true servant leader in sales: providing the right structure, challenges, respect, involvement, and support
• Hiring more effective and productive salespeople – including expert tips for interviewing, recruiting, reading body language, using data, and choosing amongst candidates
• Building winning teams that meet sales objectives and delight customers
• Empowering sales reps and teams in decision-making that increases sales productivity
• Measuring individual and team performance towards objectives
• Keeping people on target without micro-managing them
• Promoting team growth and continual improvement
• Leveraging Six Sigma and the Deming Cycle to sustain success, morale, and performance
• And much more

Seven Steps to Success for Sales Managers presents proven sales management tactics in a “bulletized” format that’s easy to read – and just as easy to use. Cates combines decades of in-the-trenches experience with cutting-edge research on the latest sales trends and tactics. Whether you’re a working sales manager, VP of sales, account team leader, executive MBA program participant, or aspiring sales manager, this guide will help you build an outstanding team, empower it, and lead it to sustained success.

Introduction     1
Chapter 1  First Step: Manage Yourself     9
Chapter 2  Second Step: High-Performance Teams Begin with Hiring     69
Chapter 3  Third Step: Building a Winning Team     121
Chapter 4  Fourth Step: Becoming a Successful Servant Leader     213
Chapter 5  Fifth Step: Sales Empowerment, Beginning with Ownership     229
Chapter 6  Sixth Step: Success Through Performance Measurement     257
Chapter 7  Seventh Step: Continuous Improvement, Maintaining Success     277
Conclusion     289
References     293
Index     303

Build and lead an outstanding sales team: hire the best people, and empower them 

• Breakthrough sales management tactics – in a “bulletized” format that’s easy to read and use
• Develop yourself as a sales manager: build mental toughness, emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, and promotability
• Become a true servant leader in sales: provide the right structure, challenges, respect, involvement, and support
• Measure individual and team performance, promote continual improvement, and sustain high-performance selling
• Reflects recent university research findings on crucial trends in sales management
• Packed with realistic examples drawn from the author’s 36 years of experience in the trenches as a salesperson and sales manager

Seven Steps to Success for Sales Managers gives you a breakthrough strategy for developing and sustaining high-performance sales teams.

Long-time sales team leader Max Cates shows how Total Quality Management (TQM) practices can significantly improve sales productivity. Going far beyond “old school,” “command and control” sales management, Cates helps you unleash the full power and energy of your salespeople through a participatory management approach that works. Drawing on 36+ years of sales and sales management experience, Cates presents proven tactics for: 

• Developing your own mental toughness, emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, and promotability
• Hiring more effective and productive salespeople – including expert tips for interviewing, recruiting, reading body language, using data, and choosing amongst candidates
• Building winning teams that meet sales objectives and delight customers
• Becoming a true servant leader in a sales environment
• Empowering sales reps and teams in decision-making that increases sales productivity
• Measuring individual and team performance towards objectives
• Keeping people on target without micro-managing them
• Promoting team growth and continual improvement
• Leveraging Six Sigma and the Deming Cycle to sustain success, morale, and performance
• And much more

Additional information