Tag Archives for " Leadership "

The Insanity of Sales Managers

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

Unfortunately, the whole concept of insanity seems to be lost on many sales managers. Salespeople will produce the same mediocre results over and over, but never change a single thing they are doing. In many cases, they resist any kind of change, insisting that what they do actually works! The problem, they say, is a sluggish economy, or a product that lacks key features, or a marketing initiative that falls short, or a set of circumstances that is working against them. Anything, of course, except what they are doing. Over and over and over…

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Customer Service? You’re Kidding Yourself

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

A week doesn’t go by that I don’t encounter bad customer service. I suspect most people could make the same claim since it’s increasingly difficult to find companies that are focused on providing genuinely exceptional service. But, do you know what all those companies with inadequate customer service have in common? Answer: They claim that customer service is one of their priorities or values. In fact, if you asked them about their service they would insist it’s very good. And they are kidding themselves.

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Effective Salespeople: Why Only 23%?

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

I’ve never known a company to accept 60% production efficiency, or 75% data accuracy. In the realm of BIG numbers (think Amazon or UPS), a company can’t afford to accept even 99% as a benchmark for success! Amazon, for example, ships approximately 1.6 million packages per day, which would mean – at 99% accuracy – 16,000 mistakes PER DAY. So, here’s what I want to know: Why do companies routinely accept 1-out-of-4 as the standard for the percentage of effective salespeople?

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Pay Me Now or Pay Me Later

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

In the workplace, managers never have enough time. “I don’t have time” is the most common excuse managers offer up for failing to do the most critical leadership activities – communication, training, development, and planning. It’s not that managers don’t understand they need more time to do those things; they just never seem to have any extra time laying around. However, although managers constantly complain they never have enough of it, it’s amazing to see how poorly they invest what time they do have.

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