Strategic Sales Management Program
The following are topics introduced to sales managers participating in the "Strategic Sales Management Program" and reinforced through interactive classroom participation:
Recruiting - The manager will be introduced to the Sandler SEARCH model in order to assist him/her in identifying and hiring the best-fit candidate for the job. S/he will learn how to develop a job template that provides guidance about necessary job functions, specific characteristics of a successful person and and the traits/habits needed for the person to meet the needs of the team. The identified criteria provides the basis for developing interview questions, identifying necessary profiling methods, and organizing the resulting data into a decision making process.
Interviewing - The manager will learn the various stages of an interview process and how to conduct each stage. The training shows how to become a better interviewer by using the SEARCH model and the interviewing techniques, which are based upon basic Sandler principles. This will help the manager improve on the type and accuracy of information gathered. Inventories, profiles, and other measures are introduced as resources to augment the interview process.
Candidate Assessment and Decision Making - The manager will learn to make sound hiring decisions and avoid the costly error of hiring the wrong person. S/he will learn to find and hire the best-fit candidate for any position.
Understanding Your People - Consistent with the Sandler approach to sales, this section provides the manager with basic tools for understanding his/her people. Drawing from the richness of transactional analysis, social psychology (identity/role theory), and trait analysis (DISC assessment).
Communication Skills - This is designed to provide the manager with the single most important tool for anyone whose goal is to manage people, not employees. In addition to the basic skill of "active listening," the manager will learn about the different ways people organize, experience and develop skills for relating to each of those styles. This skill, based on the insights of cognitive psychology, psychotherapy, and neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), greatly enhances the manager's ability to know and work with each person.
Managing Behavior - The manager must have a system for achieving results through other people. A system differs from a technique (giving reward or bonus for performance) or a style (going ballistic when someone makes an error). The training will enable a manager to understand, plan, implement, and evaluate the system with each team member.
Supervising - Supervision draws upon the manager's authority and expertise and will also be able to identify necessary coaching, mentoring, and training needed for each member of the team in order to engage each person in a process of continuous improvement.
Coaching - The coaching function has two independent but related purposes. The primary purpose is to ensure that the team member applies appropriate competencies to the work situation. By fine-tuning the employee's performance to produce long-lasting, concrete results, and by demonstrating the company's commitment to developing staff, coaching also supports the manager's job.
Mentoring - The manager will learn the basics of serving as a mentor for employees and of using the company's mentoring program, if one exists, to facilitate employees' professional development.
Training - Two important types of training are addressed. The first is "jump start" training to bring new employees or an employee in a new position up to speed. The second is continuous improvement training, designed to keep all staff ahead of the curve. The manager will learn to use various forms of continuous improvement training.
Performance Evaluation and Managing Turnover - This is designed to enhance the significance and validity of the evaluation process and to reduce the anxiety associated with it.
Conflict Management - The manager will learn to recognize early signs of conflict and to differentiate between situations with potential for positive outcomes and those more likely to disrupt work and/or damage team morale.
Setting Goals - Setting goals gives the manager the four visioning skills necessary to go from dreaming to doing.
Managing Organizational Change - The manager will learn to distinguish between types of change and to deal with each. S/he will understand that when organizations change, people go through transitions that require leadership on the part of the manager.
Staging Effective Meetings - The manager will learn how to conduct meetings that help him/her learn how to accomplish his/her goals and objectives.
Account Management - This is designed to bring the manager into the modern era of customer-oriented sales and marketing, and to provide the tools for managing territories, developing account plans, and providing account service.
Account Planning - This helps the manager oversee the development of an account plan and set the decision points along the way. The manager will learn to debrief the sales team and compare results to the plan, which turns subjectivity to objectivity.
Account Servicing - The manager's job is to make the staff aware of the value of account servicing and how to add true value to the client.
Sales Templating - Sales templating capitalizes on and teaches the successful strategies to newer people in a way that is multipliable. By documenting the sales process the manager can manage the cost of sales by controlling what is done and when it is done. Resources will also be mapped onto this process.
Managing a Proposal Process - The manager will be trained to oversee the proposal process. This will include the timing, steps involved, and the success of the proposal and presentation efforts. The manager will learn how to prevent rushing the proposal process and how to monitor every aspect of the process.
Debriefing Strategies - The manager is trained to systematically and consistently obtain information about the sales process by debriefing salespeople in relation to the sales template.
Team Selling - The team selling session shows the manager how to pick the right team members to send on an important call and have a systematic approach to team selling. The manager will learn about psychological makeup of the selling and buying teams and how to address it early in the process by picking the right selling team for each buying team.
Selling to Groups - Selling to groups is presented in two sessions. The first addresses the unique aspects of the group selling situation, while the second session is devoted to coaching salespeople through the group selling process.
Partnering - In this section the manager will understand the value of partnering and learn a systematic process for identifying clients and other organizations that would benefit from partnering. The manager will also learn to set up a methodology for partnering.
Customer Relations - The manager will learn how to create the conditions for superior customer service throughout the sales department and the company.
"As a top producer at Nationwide Insurance, I have been exposed to dozens of training programs. The Sandler Selling System® is the most practical and certainly the most effective of all the training material I have used over the years. I have saved thousands of man-hours and increased my income tremendously using the Sandler Selling System."
J. Phillips, Nationwide Insurance