Customer Reviews

ISBN-13:

9780814432846

Publisher: AMACOM
Publication date: 07/10/2013
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 272
File size: 5 MB

JOSIANE CHRIQUI FEIGON is President and Founder of TeleSmart Communications and a leading expert on inside sales management. She is the author of the popular book, Smart Selling on the Phone and Online.

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

MANAGING INSIDE

SALES IN A 2.0 WORLD

You have a $75 million sales quota for the quarter, and you are responsible

for managing and driving revenues for your team of 14 direct

reports. You’ve got a full team of lead development, inside sales,

and renewals reps. You manage a unique, complex system of CRM,

tools, processes, talent, and technology that powers the organization.

Your job is to make sure that your people are running on all cylinders

and at maximum capacity—charging forward, making tons of calls

every day, and closing all the deals in their pipeline. It should be a

snap, right? But . . . that’s not exactly the case, and you’re not exactly

sure where to start to fix that.

If you’re like most managers today, you were promoted because

of your skills as an individual contributor and thrown into your job

with little or no management training. It would be so easy if you could

just grab your reps’ customer calls and show them how it’s done. But

your young team is impatient—the members just want answers. Now.

Meanwhile, 25 percent of your deals don’t close because of “no decision,”

only 40 percent of your team is actually making quota, and

win rates are under 50 percent due to significant discounting. New

prospects won’t pick up the phone, your loyal customers are canceling

appointments left and right, and that phone buzz you love to hear has

been replaced with the punctuated silence of clicking keyboards.

So far, your survival strategy is to just keep moving ahead while

looking in your rear-view mirror on the theory that what was done

in the past has to work sometimes. But managing a high-performing

inside sales team in the dynamic Sales 2.0 ecosystem—a digital, diverse,

connected world where customers do their own research and

talent expects work to be F-U-N—requires you to have all the answers,

in a Siri sort of way.

MANAGING IN THE SALES 2.0 ECOSYSTEM

Inside sales has burst through the cubicle walls with seemingly unstoppable

momentum. In fact, it’s on course to overtake and, even,

replace field sales by 2015. The need for more inside sales managers

usually means that top sales reps are being promoted—but as with so

many promotions, many managers are in way over their heads. They

know sales, but they don’t know managing sales. The pressure from

above for these managers to produce numbers can be crushing—and

the training provided is minimal to none.

As social selling, digital communications, and innovative visual

content take the place of simple cold calling, the new inside sales organization

has become a large, complex, and delicate operation that

needs skilled management to make it run effectively, efficiently, and

profitably. Everything is different in this new world: New customers

who want to self-educate and who buy on their own sales cycle, not

yours. New tech-savvy talent who hate the phone and want it all now.

New tools that seem to proliferate faster than you can keep track of

them, let alone learn them. And, new prospecting rules and even metrics

that turn everything you know upside down.

Managing these organizations and these young diverse teams is

increasingly more complicated. The old rules absolutely do not apply.

A whopping 90 percent of managers used to be individual contributors,

but the skills that got them there aren’t the ones they will use in

their leadership roles. So they are scrambling to figure out the best

way to effectively manage and drive revenues with their teams.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION Managing Inside Sales in a 2.0 World

Managing in the Sales 2.0 Ecosystem

A Book Written Just for You

PART ONE

THE NEW NORMAL: MANAGING THE SALES 2.0 ECOSYSTEM

CHAPTER 1 Customer 2.0 Is Mad as Hell: Understanding the

New Independent Buyer

Meet the New Customer 2.0

Decoding Customer 2.0

The Team Meeting: Take Two

Management Tips

CHAPTER 2 Talent 2.0: Why Millennials Make a Winning Team of

Disruptive Inside Sales Superheroes 23

Meet Talent 2.0

Decoding Talent 2.0

The Kickoff Meeting: Take Two

Management Tips

CHAPTER 3 Tool Power 2.0: Sales 2.0 at Work

The Power of Tools

Tool Fuel Powers the Entire Sales Cycle

How Tools Help Make Sales

Tools: Take Two

Management Tips

CHAPTER 4 Prospecting 2.0: Inside Sales Superheroes in Action

Building an Intelligent Prospecting 2.0 Strategy

Outbound Call Campaigns and Blitzing

Lead Generation and Content Nurturing

Sales Skills Alignment

Managing Your Team for Prospecting 2.0

Prospecting Superheroes: Take Two

Management Tips

PART TWO

THE COMPASSIONATE MANAGER 2.0: YOUR PLAYBOOK FOR BUILDING

AN EFFECTIVE HIRING, TRAINING, AND COACHIING ECOSYSTEM

CHAPTER 5 Hiring Superheroes: The Talent Building Blocks of

an Inside Sales Organization

Why Hiring Is So Difficult

Nine Essentials to Developing an ?Always-Be-Recruiting?

Ecosystem

The Recruitment: Take Two

Management Tips

Chapter 6 Training the Talent: Making Training Stick and

Giving It Legs

Why Training Is Low on the Priority List

Building a Sustainable Training Infrastructure

Determining the Appropriate Sales Training Curriculum for

Your Team

Choosing a Vendor Whose Primary Service Offering Is

Inside Sales Training

Selecting a Vendor That Incorporates the Sales 2.0

Ecosystem into Training

Why Managers Need to Attend Team Trainings

The Training Session: Take Two

Management Tips

CHAPTER 7 Ready, Set, Coach! Building an Integrated

Coaching Program

Structuring an Integrated Coaching Program

Creating a Trust-Based Coaching Culture

Calibrating Calls

Compassionate Coaching Three Ways: In-Cube, Group, and

Remote

Who Gets Coaching: Stack-Ranking Your Team

Ready, Set . . . Build Your Coaching Plan

The Coaching Dilemma: Take Two

Management Tips

CHAPTER 8 You?re the Coach: Listening, Learning, and

Giving Feedback

Your Team in the Four Zones of Listening and Learning

Coaching in the Four Zones

Poorly Delivered Feedback Does Not Get Heard

Coaching the Classic Inside Sales Personalities

Coaching Feedback: Take Two

Management Tips

CHAPTER 9 Metrics 2.0: Call Activity Gets a Makeover

When Sales Metrics Go Bad

A Metrics Makeover for the New Normal

All-Hands Team Meeting: Take Two

Management Tips

PART THREE

MOTIVATE FAST! SMART SALES MANAGER 2.0

CHAPTER 10 Flex Your Influence! Smart Strategies for Team Meetings

Start Strong, Stay Strong

Use the Whole Meeting Space

Watch Your Body Language

Let Your Tone Set the Mood

Make It All About the Meeting Agenda

Create Cohesive Team Dynamics

Ask Compelling Questions

Listen from the Observation Deck

Set Late Penalties That Sting

Invite Compelling Speakers

Close with Energy

Management Tips

CHAPTER 11 Total Transparency: Smart Strategies for 1:1 Forecast

Reviews

Managers Strive for Total Forecast Accuracy

Conduct a Pipeline Inspection Based on the TeleSmart 10

Skills

Are You Feeling the Siri Effect?

Management Tips

CHAPTER 12 Contests, Spiffs, and Texts: Smart Strategies for

Motivational Makeovers

What Drives Motivation?

What Motivates Your A-B-C Performers?

Designing Contests and Spiffs

Motivational Texting 1-2-3

Team Outings

Spreading the Word = Public Displays of Fun

Management Tips

CHAPTER 13 Tough Talks: Smart Strategies and Interventions for

Low Performers and Problem Personalities

Tough Talks with Low Performers

Interventions for Problem Personalities

Put Problem Salespeople on a Performance Improvement Plan

Who Stays and Who Goes?

Management Tips

Notes

Index

Smart Sales Manager

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Customer Reviews

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Table of Contents

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