Your Sales Management Guru

JULY 12, 2017

The Sales Manager’s Guide to Greatness. -a book review-. I recently read Kevin Davis’s book, The Sales Manager’s Guide to Greatness , 10 essential strategies for leading your team to the top, published by GreenLeaf books. This book hits the mark when it comes to setting the standard for successful sales management. What I enjoyed about the book is Kevin’s writing style along with the very important topics he covers in each chapter and the many tools he provides.

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Your Sales Management Guru

JUNE 26, 2017

First Half of the Year is Over! Steps to take to Ensure Success. It’s a wrap. But everything must continue to move forward with increased levels of urgency. In many situations cash flow is tighter, pipelines have been impacted and sales cycles have grown longer. That’s the reality, but as sales leaders and executives we need to take this week to reflect on the first half: “ what went better than expected, what things didn’t work?

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Your Sales Management Guru

JUNE 6, 2017

A Sales Manager’s Recipe: What’s Cooking in 2017? Last week after presenting a keynote program called Gourmet Living, an attendee came up to me afterwards and discussed her challenges as a sales manager. The last three years have been tough and she was looking for new ideas for 2017 to excite her team and also to simply change up the routine.

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Your Sales Management Guru

JUNE 13, 2017

Sales EQ-a book review . Twenty six page corners turned over! Without checking that might be an all-time high, for my frequent readers you know that is how I judge the quality of the book I am reading—(how many page corners I turn over while reading any new book). Keeping it simple: if you want to “up your sales game”, buy this book today. Jeb Blount’s latest book Sales EQ is a MUST READ book if you are in sales, especially if you have a desire to succeed at higher levels.

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Your Sales Management Guru

JUNE 21, 2017

Five Tools Every Sales Manager Should Use. During a recent podcast interview I was asked what I thought were the top five “systems or tools” that a Sales Manager needs to be successful. After thinking about all the possibilities and responsibilities that any sales leader faces I answered the question with the list below. They are not listed in any order of priority.

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Your Sales Management Guru

MAY 24, 2017

What Separates Average Organizations from High Performing Organizations? . Yesterday I was interviewed by Keith Lubner from ChannelEQ ( www.Channeleq.co ) on his Pod Cast Channel, while the theme of our conversation was focused on the IT Channel and Partner community as well as the Vendor environment, one of Keith’s insightful questions was: What separates the average or failing organizations from the high performing firms?

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Your Sales Management Guru

MAY 15, 2017

Building Belief for Sales Success. NOTE: This past Friday, we started another Sales Management Boot Camp,( they run 8 weeks in a live interactive Peer Group setting along with a series of self-paced video learning and templates), the first session is on Building Sales Culture, Leadership and Management Styles. This topic of Building Belief becomes a cornerstone element.

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Your Sales Management Guru

MAY 1, 2017

No Challenge, No Change. After spending a day working with a client and their sales team, we normally set up three follow up web based sessions to ensure our recommendations are acted upon and their sales team actually changes. After the second web based training it is my opinion that the organization most likely will not change. Not because our program and recommendation were inappropriate but Sales Management is failing to coach and challenge their team.

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Your Sales Management Guru

APRIL 20, 2017

Sales Management Thought Leadership: efficient effectiveness. As an Eagle Scout I can discuss the topic of “Be Prepared” easily and based upon my upcoming vacation next week it could lend more credibility. Last year I had to catch two planes and a ferry to end up on an island in the Caribbean, while that sounds somewhat easy, it took planning and preparation.

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Your Sales Management Guru

APRIL 3, 2017

Be an Optimized Sales Leader. In every business cycle new ideas are built and strategies-tactics attempted to create a positive impact on the organization. For example, the role of quality control, Lean and Kaizen Management have been implemented in many areas of business to improve performance. In most cases each of these “re-engineering” type programs have had positive impacts; from just in time inventory, to ISO policies.

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Your Sales Management Guru

MARCH 20, 2017

The Four Levels of Sales Intelligence. By Jeb Blount, Author of Sales EQ: How Ultra High Performers Leverage Sales-Specific Emotional Intelligence to Close the Complex Deal. The speed and complexity of the modern marketplace is the domain of intellectual agility. Ultra-high sales performers possess four types of intelligence that are tightly intertwined, each connecting, affecting, and amplifying the others.

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Your Sales Management Guru

MARCH 13, 2017

The Perfect Close. -a book review-. 21 page corners turned over! For those past readers of this blog and my book reviews you know that is an excellent rating. For those of you that are new, whenever I read a new book, I read it with a pen in hand and I fold over the corners of those pages with high value. Believe me James Muir’s book, The Perfect Close is a great add to any sales library.

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Your Sales Management Guru

FEBRUARY 6, 2017

It’s time to Recruit-not necessarily to hire. A Super Bowl Lesson. After 8 days and 6 different cities I hope to make sure this message is clear-it’s been a busy week! I missed last week’s blog because of some of that travel but I also wanted to make sure everyone had time to consider the blog on sales compensation planning for 2017-it’s a critical component for building a high performance and self managed sales team.

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Your Sales Management Guru

JANUARY 24, 2017

More Sales/Less Time. -A book review-. If want to exceed your sales goals this year-read this book…. I am not sure how some people do it? Jill Konrath has written three other sales related books and now she hits the mark again with More Sales/Less Time published by Penguin books. This book sets a different tone from her past books, Selling to Big Companies, SNAP Selling and Agile Selling.

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Your Sales Management Guru

JANUARY 9, 2017

KEN: Normally I do not use this blog to promote, but I have had many readers inquire about out training programs and I wanted to let everyone know about this special opportunity. Slammed! The New Sales Manager Boot Camp. We hear these comments all the time: Revenues are flat. We have too much to do, we don’t have time to build a sales organization. I am frustrated with my sales team, do I have the right team?

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Your Sales Management Guru

JANUARY 2, 2017

Life Enrichment: Why 2017 Can Be Your Best Year Ever! Individually, at parties and in the news, questions of New Year’s Resolutions are one of the major topics, recently I posted the following notes on my Facebook page, the post received many “likes and comments’ from a variety of connected friends: May everyone and I mean everyone, enjoy the new year, enjoy your friends, make new ones, enjoy your experiences, create new and different ones, and as I was trained as a Boy Scout, always leave the

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Your Sales Management Guru

DECEMBER 20, 2016

First Quarter 2017. Are You Set Up for Success? Ken, are you crazy? I have not finished the fourth quarter yet! But as budget planning begins and business strategies begin to be set, it is your responsibility to be ready for 2017. What do you need to have on your to-do list for the next 60 days? I have listed the top 10; let me know what I have missed or what is on your list?

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Your Sales Management Guru

DECEMBER 12, 2016

Ten 2017 Sales Kick-off Meeting Ideas. . While working with a client last week it became obvious that we are moving into the time to finalize 2017 budgets, compensation plans and something most sales managers don’t take enough in developing their 2017 Sales Kick Off meeting. Already many larger organizations are booking their sales conferences for the first quarter where they will invite their sales teams, vendors, resellers/partners to hear plans to make 2017 the “best year ever”.

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Your Sales Management Guru

NOVEMBER 28, 2016

Creating a Sales Compensation Plan for 2017. When it comes to how businesses pay their salespeople, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. That’s especially true for many companies with diverse products and services that include: a mix of products and services. Some pay commission based on sales, while others only pay on margin; still others blend both with incentives and special bonus plans.

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Your Sales Management Guru

NOVEMBER 7, 2016

Sales Management End of Year Checklist. . While I was working on ideas for the next few blogs it occurred to prepare a series based upon the end of the year and the start to 2017. Depending upon the person and the conditions in their sales organization each article may or may not be pertinent. I decided to start with a Sales Management End of Year Checklist.

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Your Sales Management Guru

OCTOBER 24, 2016

Sprint to the Finish—–It’s that time of year… by Ken Thoreson. An upcoming election. Roller-coaster days on Wall Street. Middle East issues. Competitors taking what appears to be drastic measures. There are many distractions. With that economic domino effect affecting us all as 2016 begins to wind down, ending the year on a high note will be more challenging than ever.

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Your Sales Management Guru

OCTOBER 3, 2016

Three Secrets to Success from John Wooden. . Last week I was in Chicago keynoting an international association’s sales conference, in preparation I had been making notes and clipping interesting ideas from a variety of sources, one of them was Success magazine. The specific article covered a young coach, Dale Brown meeting with John Wooden, the Hall of Fame UCLA basketball.

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Your Sales Management Guru

SEPTEMBER 26, 2016

The Perfect Close. -A book review-. The quality of new sales related books coming out is amazing and The Perfect Close by James Muir is another high quality book to add to your library. James writing style along with his content makes his book contemporary and a complete book to take an average performer to the next level. You can find it on Amazon.

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Your Sales Management Guru

SEPTEMBER 6, 2016

High–Profit Prospecting. -book review-. It seems like new sales books are coming out every week but I can promise you this; this is one that must be in your sales library. It has made the Acumen Sales Book Club list. High-Profit Prospecting b y Mark Hunter, published by AMA (American Management Association) has laid out solutions to one of the top sales problems facing every sales organization.

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Your Sales Management Guru

AUGUST 25, 2016

The 4 Letter Word in Success. How successful can I really be ? People ask me that all the time, my normal response is: Do you know what it takes? I have worked with thousands of individuals over the many years at Acumen Management Group; a wide variety of salespeople, managers, entrepreneurs and corporate teams. With all of those contacts you can imagine I have seen many levels of successful and unsuccessful individuals.

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Your Sales Management Guru

AUGUST 18, 2016

Three Magic Questions a Sales Manager Must Know. One of the main roles of a Sales Manager is to help train your salespeople on how to stay on track during a sales cycle. During any sales opportunity coaching sessions consider asking these three questions with any sales opportunity: Why do anything? Why now? Why with us? Let’s explore these, acknowledging the answers can’t all be known at the beginning of a sales opportunity but focusing on answering them is critical to maintain focus and winning

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Your Sales Management Guru

AUGUST 10, 2016

Channel Strategy: Building a Sustaining Partner Community. -A Case Study-. After working in a VAR partner organization for 8 years as a Sales Manager, leading an entire channel focused company for 8 years as a VP of Sales and spending the last 19 years consulting with vendors, distributors and VARs, dealers, resellers, partners all focused on channel based strategies, I believe I can say: I have seen it all.

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Your Sales Management Guru

AUGUST 3, 2016

Life Enrichment: Using Your Talent to Make a Difference. As Sales Leaders or as anyone, creating a positive life for yourself begins by focusing on others; in my keynote programs I describe how during my work on improving the professionalism of sales managers, we actually began to focus impacting their personal lives as well. This balance of personal and professional life actually ended up being the real difference in the overall levels of success of the individuals we have worked with during

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Your Sales Management Guru

JULY 6, 2016

July is Sales Leadership Month. As a sales leader you must always have a vision and action plans for a rolling six months, this is why July is the perfect month for anyone that has sales management responsibility—so why not name it Sales Leadership Month ! Ok, it is not an act of government and it is only Acumen’s opinion, but let’s explore why I feel that way.

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Your Sales Management Guru

JUNE 27, 2016

Selling to the Point. – a book review-. This book should be scheduled for your next Acumen Sales Book Club. Selling to the Point by Jeffrey Lipsius is a unique sales training book and I have read many. What makes this book valuable is the author uses a story to drive home his key learning points. The story revolves around the quest to cut the costs of selling by dropping the in-house sales trainer, the CFO uncovers what is separating their company from the competition is the unique sa

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Your Sales Management Guru

JUNE 14, 2016

When are Sales Won or Lost? A notable function a sales manager must master is understanding why sales are won or lost. This is particularly true for large, complex sales opportunities where there may never be another opportunity or, if so, it may be years in the future. In all likelihood this opportunity had a high profile within the company and there will be more than passing curiosity about why the company lost or why the company won!

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Your Sales Management Guru

JUNE 6, 2016

How to Get a Meeting with Anyone. _a book review-. This book had 32 page fold overs! If you are a regular reader of my book reviews you know that when I find something of value, I will turn the corner of the page after underlining the key learning point. 32 is one of the highest number of page turners I have ever done! This book, How to Get a Meeting with Anyone , by Stu Heinecke, is a must read for Executives, Sales and Marketing people on your team.

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Your Sales Management Guru

MAY 31, 2016

Why product managers and salespeople should be friends. In most companies, the product/service managers have limited interaction with the sale’s team except for the introduction of a new offering or at an annual customer summit. At Acumen Management, we believe that is unfortunate as there a great opportunity being missed. Generally, the product/service manager (PM) is responsible for determining what the future offering should have from a feature/function capability.

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Your Sales Management Guru

MAY 16, 2016

7 Steps to Success for Sales Managers. -A book review-. After being a VP of Sales, consulting on sales management for 19 years and after writing four books on sales management, Max Cates, author of 7 Steps caught my attention in the first five pages. Those of you that have read my reviews before know that I score a book by the number of pages that I fold over the corners that include something I found of value; this book scored 24 folded pages!

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Your Sales Management Guru

MAY 3, 2016

Sales Management Shouldn’t be a Horse Race. First of all I don’t enjoy gambling and second, I really don’t know how to read a horse racing program. When it comes to betting on a horse race I tend to look at the color of the Jockey’s silks or the name of the horse. Last weekend a group of East Tennessee friends and I attended Keenland horse racing track near Lexington KY for an afternoon “at the races”.

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Your Sales Management Guru

APRIL 26, 2016

Life Enrichment: Is your campsite in better shape than before you arrived? . If you are not familiar with the question posed above it’s a mantra from my Boy Scout days and training. Whether you are a Sales Manager that regularly reads this blog or any other job role I wanted to raise this topic as I see this as a major question in our world today. During my keynote programs I sometimes use this question to make a point and if there are Boy Scouts in the audience they get it immediately.

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Your Sales Management Guru

APRIL 20, 2016

What is all this talk about a Sales Process? It occurs almost every time I speak at an event or every initial client visit. Whether your organization is using CRM or not I find that most organizations have not taken the time to define, write out and train their sales team on how to use prescriptive a sales process. Why is this important enough to write about?

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