Derek from our comments section pointed me towards www.salesopedia.com. It is a completely sales-focused site with a great glossary too. Check it out when you have the time.

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All sales managers must coach their salespeople. Many do so in a cursory manner, but that is typically not the most effective solution. I’m catching up on Selling Power articles today and kicked up this one – Coach Early and O.F.T.E.N. I’m typically not a fan of acrostics, but anything to remind sales managers of effective coaching has some value.

The author provides solid advice for effectively coaching salespeople:

F is for Focus
Coaching interactions should be focused, specifically on one or two tasks or activities. Too often, however, coaches allow themselves to be distracted and get off track. Give too much feedback that’s all over the board and employees may not know what you want from them. Typically they will only be able to take positive action on one or two suggestions, so avoid tangents while getting your key point or points across.

I couldn’t agree more with that approach. Unfortunately, the author does not explain how a sales manager is supposed to know what “one or two tasks” should be targeted. Understand, some salespeople are poor at rapport-building, but they will never be good at it. A sales manager could waste many hours trying to coach this ability into their salesperson who just doesn’t have the ability.

Apply a force multiplier – use our sales development plan to identify the top coaching areas for the sales manager to target.

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Salespeople will leave your company – it is an undeniable truth. Selling Power offers this short article – Recruitment Planning 101 – that covers the basic points that all sales managers should be aware of.

A couple of strong points:

Keep your pipeline full of qualified candidates. Determine the skill sets for each sales position and keep your search open for candidates with these special qualifications. However, remember that top candidates aren’t usually available for long and you need to be upfront with them about what you’re doing. “Let them know that you are building a candidate pipeline composed of individuals that your company may have an interest in hiring if or when appropriate requisitions open up,” says Pritchard. “You may also want to consider creating a position to take advantage of a great candidate.”

Maintain a network of contacts. Talk to your clients, competitors, and qualified candidates who may know other possible candidates. Join associations and network. Go to career fairs.

The window for top sales candidates, in this market, is limited and fast closing. Anyone searching for a salesperson recently has realize this fact. Part of our business is to know the pulse of the market and the approaches that are working best.

It is always difficult for companies (especially smaller ones) for jump into the sales hiring market when they have not had to search for some time. The modern market moves quickly and new channels open overnight while others close in almost the same time. One of the items we point out to sales managers is that successful sales recruiting cannot be accomplished in the margins of their day.

Far better to hire a company that solely specializes in sales recruiting.

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