9th of the Top 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions

Guest post by: Dave Kurlan
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Personality Tests, Sales Candidate Selection - How Tests Measure Up - By Dave Kurlan

This is the 9th in the series of articles on my Top 10 Sales Management Functions. #9 - STRATEGY

Strategy comes in several forms and is required in different dosages depending on the position. For example, a line level sales manager may be more concerned with call strategy while a Worldwide VP Sales may be more concerned with market strategy. At the VP level, strategy is far more important than tactics while at the sales manager level, tactics are more important than strategy.

Let's look at the various strategies that we should be discussing:

* Market Strategy

* Growth Strategy

* Pricing Strategy

* Competitive Strategy

* Recruiting Strategy

* Account Strategies

* Call Strategies

* Compensation Strategy

* Development Strategy

* Major Account Strategy

* Lead Generation Strategy

* Training Strategy

* Territory Strategy

In your company there may be more and there are probably less but you get the picture. Strategies are different than plans because strategies are the essence of what will make the plans work. They incorporate:

* goals

* decisions, rules, and/or guidelines

* method of accomplishment

* benefits of this approach

* likely obstacles and how formidable they may be

* how we will overcome the likely obstacles

* measurable milestones and anticipated dates

* contingencies

* steps

* communication of the strategy

* buy-in from those responsible for executing the strategy

* accountability of those responsible for executing the strategy

* periodic reviews

In our discussion of coaching, we identified pre-call strategizing as one of the most important coaching components along with post-call debriefing. So strategizing and coaching can overlap in much the same way the accountability and strategizing will overlap. So it should be obvious that recruiting and strategizing will overlap too.

Let's discuss Development Strategy. Some people are simply more strategic than others. For example, if you aren't naturally as strategic as you should be, you can either develop this discipline, or better align your role with your strengths. We all know that many great salespeople become ineffective sales managers when they aren't able to excel at coaching and accountability, and when they want to be hero closers rather than developers who generate revenue through others. This is a classic example of someone who should return to sales. Titles should define what we do, not who we are.

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Personality Tests, Sales Candidate Selection - How Tests Measure Up - By Dave Kurlan

About the Author: Dave Kurlan

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Dave Kurlan is a best-selling author, top-rated speaker and thought leader on sales development. He is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling (Dan Seidman), Stepping Stones (Deepak Chopra and Brian Tracey) and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2 (David Riklan).
Click here to visit Dave's website.

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