Sales Leadership Challenges to Having a World Class Sales Force

Dave Kurlan is a top-rated keynote speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and expert on all things sales and selling.

World-Class Sales Organization.

We hear those words a lot.  Some companies aspire to it.  Others claim to be there already.  You are more likely to hear claims like those from a large enterprise, but you have better odds of actually finding it in a small-to-midsize company.

World-Class Sales Organization.

Some would say it’s a description of a company’s people.  Others would suggest it has more to do with results.  Many would say it’s about the size of the sales force.  And a few would point to sales leadership and discipline.

World-Class Sales Organization.

The top team of sales strategists at my sales leadership consulting and training firm, Kurlan & Associates, set out to define what a world-class sales organization is and we developed this model.

World Class Sales Force

There is an important distinction to be made here.  At a large company, there could be one or more individuals responsible for each category in the model.  In a small business, one person (and sometimes fewer than that) may be responsible for all categories.  And in many companies, some of those categories are placed under the direction of people who aren’t qualified  to lead them.  In other companies, there are huge gaps where some (or all) of one or more categories are missing.

Let’s discuss the challenges of this model in a smaller company where there may be a half dozen salespeople reporting to one sales manager.  How is one person supposed to handle:

  • Sales Leadership
  • Sales Architecture
  • Sales Infrastructure
  • Sales Talent Management
  • Sales Enablement
  • Sales Human Capital

Some of the help, which we provide in small and mid-market companies, occurs when some (or all) of these pieces are missing altogether, or when they have been undefined or improperly executed.

We are nearly halfway through 2013, so this is a good time to determine where the gaps exist in your sales organization and then deal with them.  It’s not as important that you get it right, as it is that you have the above in place.  You can get them right over time.

Speaking of time, we’re on the cusp of summer which begins on June 21 and it can’t come quickly enough for me!  Nancy Bleak, author of Conversations That Sell, has published her 3rd Annual List of sales books you can bring to the beach.  We are proud and thankful that Nancy has chosen to include my best-seller, Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball on her list.  We also encourage you to include Frank Belzer’s terrific book, Sales Shift, on your summer reading list.

Here are some articles on the subject of sales leadership that you might find helpful:

Top 4 Sales Leadership Articles

Why I think We Should Blow Up the Business Development Rep (BDR) Role

How to use Buckets to Improve Sales Performance and Coaching

Why Sales Transformation Yields Better Results Than Sales Training Alone 

New Movie Has 3 Great Lessons for Salespeople and Sales Managers

Are Sales Managers Coaching More Frequently Than Before the Pandemic? 

10 Critical Best Practices for Your Sales Force in This Crisis 

How Companies Choose Sales Training Companies is Backwards

The Definitive Playbook to Lead a Sales Organization Out of a Crisis

Why Reopening the Economy Won’t be Enough to Turn Things Around

Why the Future of Selling Won’t Resemble the Past 

15 Lessons Learned from Converting a Multi-Day Conference to a Virtual Conference

3 Steps You Must Take Today To Save Your Company From This Economic Downturn

Do You Know if Your Sales Organization is Analog or Digital?

4 Ways You Can Quickly Increase Sales, Revenue and Profit

10 Reasons Why Sales Don’t Grow

Another Powerful Reason Why Salespeople Struggle to Become Great Sales Managers

7 Reasons Why Salespeople Underperform and How Sales Leaders Can Coach Them Up

Companies Rush to Get This One Thing in Place for their Sales Teams Before January

Applicant Tracking and Sales Candidate Assessments Fit Like Ducks Take to Water

Top 3 Reasons Why Sales Training Doesn’t Change Your Salespeople

The #1 Key to Making Sales Forecasts Accurate Again

Another Powerful Reason Why Salespeople Struggle to Become Great Sales Managers

Top 10 Reasons Why Sales Don’t Grow

What B2B Companies Must Learn from 10 Reasons Why Amazon is Destroying Retailers

Help is Here for Salespeople Who Find Themselves as the Underdogs

How Coyotes are at the Heart of Sales Motivation

What Percentage of Sales Managers Have the Necessary Coaching Skills?

Quadruple Dittos Motivate Your Sales Team to Achieve

Latest Debate Had Some Great Sales Leadership Examples

The Secret to Coaching Salespeople and Why It’s So Scary 

The Conversation Sales Leaders Must Have with Salespeople

Connecting the Dots on Sales Management

Verne Harnish’s Rant and 3 Sales Leadership Issues

Keys to Improved Sales Performance – Part 4 of 4

The Real Problem with the Sales Profession and Sales Leadership

Why Sales Leaders and Salespeople Get Frustrated

How Much Sales Development Can Leadership Do In-House?

Sales Leadership Observations about Pipeline and Terminations

Sabermetrics for Sales Leadership – Projecting Sales Revenue

Disagreement Over Sales Leadership Best Practices?

The Sales Leadership Landscape – A Different Perspective

Are Sales Leaders More Receptive to Training Than Salespeople?

Sales Leaders Got These Issues All Wrong

Sales Strategy and Tactics – Thoughts from the Super Bowl

What Sales Leaders Don’t Know About Ego and Empathy

Sales Leadership – a Balancing Act to Achieve Compliance and Quotas

Sales Leadership – 6th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions

Sales and Sales Leadership Lessons from Lou Piniella and the Umpire

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