What about Advice for Sales Managers?
Over the past couple of weeks, I've lambasted sales managers in "Real Life Sales Managers from Hell" and "More Real Life Sales Managers from Hell." As a result, I've gotten a couple of emails from sales managers saying I'm being unfair and that I ought to give sales managers more of a break. Here's an excerpt from one of the emails:
OK. OK. We get it! Sales managers suck. But why can't you write about how to make sales managers better? If there are so many turkeys out there why not write something to help out rather than b****ing and moaning?Well, there's something to that, I suppose. However, as it happens, I DO write quite a bit for sales managers, but not in Sales Machine, because this blog is about selling, not about managing sales reps. Sales managers have a different set of concerns.
My sales management writing appears primarily in two places: SellingPower magazine (which publishes six times a year), and in four SellingPower newsletters: CRM, Sales 2.0, Salesforce Partner, and Software Sales. The first three focus on sales technology while Software Sales has specific techniques for sales reps in the software industry.
Other than that, I can tell you sales managers out there that -- truly -- I'm not down on you. I realize that you guys have the hardest job in the corporate hierarchy because you're always caught in the middle between the people who are doing the essential work (the sales reps) and the people who aren't (everybody else).