{"id":1606,"date":"2008-06-06T14:27:59","date_gmt":"2008-06-06T19:27:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/06\/managing-through-distractions\/"},"modified":"2008-06-06T14:25:27","modified_gmt":"2008-06-06T19:25:27","slug":"managing-through-distractions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/06\/managing-through-distractions\/","title":{"rendered":"Managing Through Distractions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.omghub.com\/salesdevelopmentblog\/tabid\/5809\/bid\/5483\/Another-of-My-Keys-to-Sales-Success.aspx#Comments\">Dave Kurlan has a post<\/a> that struck a chord with me.\u00a0 The topic is distractions and how they affect salespeople (my editing):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Distractions can take many forms, from the call that takes them off their game, to the illness or death of a loved one that stops their game cold.\u00a0 Distractions can last a few minutes or they can linger for months.\u00a0 You can even understand why some, especially the really bad distractions, can interfere for so long.<\/p>\n<p>You know they&#8217;ll have distractions so it&#8217;s your job to know your salespeople well enough to recognize when they are being affected.\u00a0 Helpd (<em>sic<\/em>) help them cope, focus and work through them in order to get from each as close to 12 months worth of effectiveness as you can.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That is a great point he makes for sales managers.\u00a0 It is important that you help your salespeople through these distractions to keep\/get them on track.\u00a0 Of course, this assumes that you <em>are<\/em> managing them.\u00a0 Calls, coaching, forecasts, activities, territories, etc&#8230;.you have to know these things first in order to help them through the distraction.<\/p>\n<p>We placed a strong salesperson at one of our customers and he was selling well above quota for 2 years and then I received a call.\u00a0 He no longer on his game.\u00a0 He was missing calls, putting together incomplete proposals and not closing business.\u00a0 Our customer, the VP of Sales, told me the salesperson was going through a difficult divorce (is there ever an easy one?).<\/p>\n<p>We put together a plan for him and coached the sales manager on how to handle him.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the salesperson never recovered and they eventually fired him.\u00a0 I suspect that may have been what he was hoping for &#8211; a new start somewhere else.<\/p>\n<p>Well, that was a dramatic example of a distraction.\u00a0 The daily, insignificant distractions are the ones for which to zero in as a sales manager.\u00a0 A small improvement here can have a compound return later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dave Kurlan has a post that struck a chord with me.\u00a0 The topic is distractions and how they affect salespeople (my editing): Distractions can take many forms, from the call that takes them off their game, to the illness or death of a loved one that stops their game cold.\u00a0 Distractions can last a few minutes or they can linger for months.\u00a0 You can even understand why some, especially the really bad distractions, can interfere for so long. You know they&#8217;ll have distractions so it&#8217;s your job to know your salespeople well enough to recognize when they are being affected.\u00a0 Helpd (sic) help them cope, focus and work through them&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/06\/managing-through-distractions\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31,4],"tags":[741,624,1750,742,743],"class_list":["post-1606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-sales-management","tag-managing-distractions","tag-managing-salespeople","tag-sales-management","tag-sales-manager-approach","tag-sales-manager-technique"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-pU","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1715,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/08\/technology-has-destroyed-time-and-space-boundaries\/","url_meta":{"origin":1606,"position":0},"title":"&#8220;Technology has destroyed time and space boundaries.&#8221;","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"August 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Wall Street Journal offers up an interesting read about work\/life balance from Dr. Henry Cloud.\u00a0 Every time I receive a call from one of our customers at 8:30pm I think of this topic.\u00a0 Here is the full text of the quote referenced in the title: I think the first\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Techniques&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Techniques","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-techniques\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1347,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/12\/managing-a-remote-salesforce\/","url_meta":{"origin":1606,"position":1},"title":"Managing A Remote Salesforce","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We talk about this topic at length because it is more than a trend.\u00a0 ManageSmarter.com's Long-Distance Teambuilding addresses this topic in a real-world manner: \"Sellers by nature like to be in a team environment\u2014they want a high-five and a talk around the water cooler,\" says Cowitt, vice president of national\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1554,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/05\/managing-remote-relationships\/","url_meta":{"origin":1606,"position":2},"title":"Managing Remote Relationships","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 6, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The management landscape is changing drastically as more salespeople move to remote\/home offices within their territory.\u00a0 Yet, many aspects of sales seems to be moving more towards relationship-based sales.\u00a0 Yes, relationships have always been a key part of selling, but it seems to be the greater piece today.\u00a0 Information flows\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1576,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/05\/pushing-the-sales-cycle\/","url_meta":{"origin":1606,"position":3},"title":"Pushing The Sales Cycle","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Salespeople are finely-tuned into the economy since it can have a direct impact on their wallet.\u00a0 The fact is many salespeople who falter during an economic downturn get let go.\u00a0 That is a lot of pressure to handle even for strong salespeople. ManageSmarter.com offers up this article - Chronicles of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Economy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1490,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/03\/the-essence-of-sales-management\/","url_meta":{"origin":1606,"position":4},"title":"The Essence of Sales Management","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a tough topic because there isn't a cookie-cutter sales manager template that fits for all companies.\u00a0 Our experience has been that smaller-sized companies tend to expect the sales manager to carry a significant quota while larger companies expect the sales manager to manage without carrying a personal quota.\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Onramping&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Onramping","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/onramping\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2478,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2011\/03\/conventional-wisdom-about-sales-managers\/","url_meta":{"origin":1606,"position":5},"title":"Conventional Wisdom About Sales Managers","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is an article from Eye on Sales that addresses a common sales management topic \u2013 should you promote your top salesperson into the sales manager role?\u00a0 I would argue that the conventional wisdom is to avoid making this mistake. From the article: Sales management mistake #1: Promoting top performers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Assessing&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Assessing","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/assessing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. The path to wp-cache-phase1.php in wp-content/advanced-cache.php must be fixed! -->