Category: Leadership

Business Model, Leadership, Sales

The Challenger Sales model & its relevance in the selling models of the future..

I recently read the book – The Challenger Sale and would like to share my impressions from the book. My personal opinion on the relevance of this model: In order to succeed this model requires a change in the culture of the sales organization (from top to bottom), which we have observed is a very very difficult thing to achieve. Very few organizations have leaders who are capable of driving such a change initiative to success.  As this book is based on the research on reps that were successful in selling when everyone else was failing, this assumes that what […]

Leadership, Sales

Great resources to create sticky presentations

Each and every one of us in the profession of selling, end up presenting (either about the products or solutions that we are selling, or about the company we represent or to showcase ourselves). And most of us still struggle even after years of delivering presentations for a living. Hence, the term, death-by-powerpoints. This is a key skill and something that we need to continuously  work upon. In Stephen Covey’s words  -“Sharpen the saw”! After having gone through a lot of reading, listening and presenting, I have realized the following: I deliver great presentations if I don’t use the standard slides […]

Leadership

Leadership lessons from everyday acts (part 1)

Leadership is like riding. – you need to know where you want to go. – you need a fair idea of how to reach there. – you re-route yourself if you face a traffic jam or any other situation which might stop you from reaching your destination. – you decide on the route based on the type of vehicle that you are driving. The routes that you can take while driving a bike is very different from the one that you can take while driving a car, which could be very different from the one that you can take if […]

Leadership, Sales

3 qualities of a great sales manager

The three things that makes great sales manager are ability to Coach Absorb pressure Build a team I got this insight when I ran into an old friend late last evening. He currently works for a sales organization and was completely stressed out. When i asked for the reason for his stress, he indicated that the sales pressure being exerted on him by his manager is actually freaking him out. When I dug deep, he indicated that their organization follows the Jan – Dec sales cycle, which meant that they are in the last fortnight of the year and there is […]

Leadership, Sales

Role of culture in a sales team.

Culture is what transforms any team to greatness or failure! Sales teams are no exceptions to this. There is a specific culture in each and every sales team, doesn’t matter if someone has carefully instilled it there or it just got there by accident. So, what is the culture like in your team and why is it so important? I met a sales manager recently. He indicated that he wanted to have a high performance culture in his team. When I prodded him to explain what he meant by high performance, he said that he wants everyone in his team […]