ProActive Sales Management: How to Lead, Motivate, and Stay Ahead of the Game [Hardcover]

William "Skip" Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 2009

Few sales managers are true managers, often falling back on the skills that made them great at sales. This essential book, now updated with strategies in line with the changes in sales since the book's original publication, provides readers with a proven method for managing the sales process, as well as the salespeople. This title is packed with specific, field-tested techniques. Packed with all new metrics and tactics for making the numbers in today's competitive sales environment, this is an important resource no sales manager should be without.

Editorial Reviews

Review

One of Selling Power Magazine's Ten Best Books to Read in 2010.

Book Description

Today’s sales managers have to be quicker than ever, being more proactive about hiring the best performers and retaining them, multi-tasking, and managing complex sales processes in order to close more and more deals. This book provides readers with a proven method for managing the sales process as well as the salespeople. Packed with specific, field-tested techniques, ProActive Sales Management shows sales managers how to:

• motivate a sales team

• get their sales team to prospect and qualify

• create a proactive sales culture

• effectively coach and counsel up and down the sales organization

• reduce reports to one sheet of paper and 10 minutes a week

• forecast with up to 90% accuracy

• take A players to A+ levels

Packed with all new metrics and tactics for making the numbers in today’s sales environment, this is an important resource no sales manager should be without.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM; Second Edition edition (July 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0814414567
• ISBN-13: 978-0814414569
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #44,376 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

William 'Skip' Miller (Los Gatos, CA) is president of M3 Learning, a sales and management development company, and an instructor for numerous AMA sales management training programs.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a Sales Manager's survival guide!, December 12, 2000

By 

Donald Best, Senior VP, WW Sales (Fair Haven, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ProActive Sales Management: How to Lead, Motivate, and Stay Ahead of the Game (Hardcover)

Managing salespeople is very hard. Contrary to coventional wisdom, being a successful salesperson has very little to do with being a successful sales manager. Too many organizations put good salespeople in management roles with little preparation, and then they wonder why the failure rate for new sales managers is so high.

"ProActive Sales Management" is an indispensable guide for any professional sales manager, from the newest to the most seasoned. This is a practical, actionable blueprint for building and managing a winning sales organization.

The core of "ProActive Sales Management" is a set of tools that can be immediately applied to a variety of sales management challanges, regardless of size of sales force, type of industry, or even geographic region. Our own organization has successfuly applied these methods in the US, Europe, Asia, Canada and Latin America.

The key strength of this book is its common-sense approach. This is not about dogma or ideology, as so many sales and sales management books are. This is about getting the job done, and doing it well. If you manage salespeople, or if you aspire to being a sales manager, you must read this book!

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad, but don't place too much faith in Sales Gurus, March 15, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: ProActive Sales Management: How to Lead, Motivate, and Stay Ahead of the Game (Hardcover)

Good attempt at writing about sales management, and Skip makes some very solid points in the opening chapter. He points to the need for Leadership as a key element of a good sales manager. Unfortunately, I think Skip knows more about sales than leadership, himself, so he is not great at explaining HOW to be a good leader. He spends a lot of time on how to hire good people, which I agree is important. This might lead some rookie sales managers to fall back on the excuse of inheriting weak sales reps, and worry more about replacing them, than fixing them.
Read the first chapter in a book store somewhere, and save the $$$

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant in its simplicity, February 14, 2001

By 

Jim Zahka (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ProActive Sales Management: How to Lead, Motivate, and Stay Ahead of the Game (Hardcover)

Read this book twice. It is brilliant in its simplicity, yet deep in content. Whether you are a veteran sales manager, or new to the world of driving revenue through others, you will be taking notes and developing action plans for your sales organization.

ProActive Sales Management is the most effective, easy to implement structured approach I have seen yet. I would also buy this book for all your strong sales people. They'll gain valuable insight into what skills they need to succeed as an individual contributor, and you'll be developing your next manager as part of your succession plan.

Jim Zahka, Vice President of Sales, Knowledge Impact, Inc.