Podcast appearances and mentions of Kevin F Davis

Selling With Love is more than a podcast! Join the community of like-minded entrepreneurs ready to overcome their sales blockages and transform the planet at: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14070148/ ======= Are you a CEO or a founder struggling with sales? If so, pay attention because Alice Heiman can make your current and future life way easier. Along the interview, you'll discover the first sales, leadership skills and progressive stages that every CEO has to go through. Besides, you can discover why is never to late to learn how to sell, and the crucial aspect of remaining close to your customers if you want to thrive in business. Save the episode and take good notes because it can save your present and upcoming career. =======

Kevin F. Davis talks about the fact that the best candidates have other options. He cautions against setting the bar too high for candidates and kicking out some people you shouldn't. Instead, there are 3 other traits sales hiring leaders should be looking for - traits he's found to be key indicators of future sales success. This is our third of 3 interviews with Kevin F. Davis,  author of two books “Slow Down, Sell Faster!” and “The Sales Manager's Guide to Greatness.” 

Kevin F. Davis shares ideas on the how and what to ask in the phone interview. He suggests questions other interviewers might not ask. Do you use your 20 minutes (30 minutes MAX!) wisely in your phone interview with candidates so they have a good first impression candidate experience with you?  You're seeking thought provoking questions from them that enhance their experience with you, as well as give you insights into how they might perform with prospects. This is our second of 3 interviews with Kevin F. Davis,  author of two books “Slow Down, Sell Faster!” and “The Sales Manager's Guide to Greatness.” 

In this current podcast series, we are discussing the candidate experience during the hiring process.  Today, we are joined by Kevin F. Davis,  author of two books “Slow Down, Sell Faster!” and “The Sales Manager's Guide to Greatness.”  Sales hiring leaders - do you conduct your own phone interviews? If not, listen to why Kevin thinks this is a mistake.  This is the first of 3 interviews with Kevin F. Davis on the subject of Candidate Experience.

Kevin F. Davis is the founder and president of TopLine Leadership. Over the past 25 years, more than 20,000 sales managers from many of the world’s most successful companies have attended his 2-day workshop on sales management leadership. Kevin is the author of three books:• Getting Into Your Customer’s Head• Slow Down, Sell Faster!: Understand your customer’s buying process and maximize your sales• The Sales Manager’s Guide to Greatness: 10 essential strategies for leading your team to the top. He is also the architect of our Salesfuel Sales Manager Training program and a facilitator as well.  This episode is also available with VIDEO on The Sales Experts Channel! WATCH HERE: Sales Experts Channel: https://thesalesexpertschannel.com/smith-strong-show/ In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Kevin discuss:  ·      The simple, common mistake sales managers make when working with AEs that blocks productivity. ·      How to have difficult conversations with your team  ·      What is the #1 reason sales managers fail ·      Sales and marketing alignment strategies “Most leaders have a mindset that they are doing everything right. So when things go wrong, instead of looking at themselves, they blame others. I’ve seen this a lot with sales managers. Unfortunately, this attitude bleeds over to the sales rep.” – Kevin Davis Join hosts Audrey Strong and C. Lee Smith every week as they dive into the aspects and concepts of good business management. From debunking sales myths to learning how to manage with and without measurements, you'll learn something new with every episode and will be able to implement positive change far beyond sales.    Connect with Kevin Davis https://toplineleadership.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-f-davis/   Connect with Manage Smarter Hosts ·         Website: ManageSmarter.com  ·         LinkedIn: Audrey Strong                                                            ·         LinkedIn: C. Lee Smith    Sales Experts Channel: https://thesalesexpertschannel.com/smith-strong-show/ Connect with SalesFuel:  ·         Website: http://salesfuel.com/  ·         Twitter: @SalesFuel  ·         Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/salesfuel/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Sales Manager's Guide To Greatness!    You may have been a top salesperson, and still continue to be, but that doesn't always qualify you to be a top sales manager. Both have very different skill sets and require mastery in very different skills.    Kevin F. Davis is the author of the book The Sales Manager's Guide to Greatness: Ten Essential Strategies for Leading your Team to the Top. Kevin started his career in sales at an entry level position and worked hard to become a general manager. His new role gave him the opportunity to train and coach 250 sales people and directly manage the sales team and sales managers.    He also founded TopLine Leadership, Inc. where they have offered sales coaching and leadership workshops to corporate clients and groups of sales managers for the last 27 years. Other books Kevin has written include Getting into your Customer's Head and Slow Down, Sell Faster.   On writing the book  There aren't a lot of books written about how to effectively manage sales people so Kevin wrote his books to help fill this void in the marketplace and to offer support that was sorely lacking. Research has shown that up to 80% of all sales managers in North America don't get the training they need in order to be successful. Their company may not have a budget for it or they offer management training that is too general to solve the specific problems of their sales managers.    Not enough time  Managers have to spend the majority of their work day answering emails, dealing with interruptions, going to meetings, and answering questions from their sales team. With this constant activity, they are too overwhelmed the distractions to coach their salespeople.       The self-serving bias   Most salespeople think they're better than they actually are. We tend to overestimate our capabilities and underestimate our weaknesses. The result is a sales team who think they're better than they are and don't fully appreciate the mistakes they may be making. Because they aren't being coached, they don't know they're making mistakes and end up perpetuating existing problems. Unfortunately, salespeople are getting a lot less feedback from overtaxed sales managers. Because they are so busy, managers tend to wait for a sales rep to come and ask questions instead of being proactive. An opportunity to coach comes from approaching the sales team with critical questions throughout the entire sales process. Kevin points out that the salespeople on the team who appear to be  the least needy are probably the people who need coaching the most.   Great salespeople don't always make great sales managers. #SalesTruths   According to Kevin, a great sales rep who has mastered  their sales role inhibits that individual's success as a sales manager. As sellers, we love to take charge of a situation and work it through to have a successful outcome. Once you become a sales manager it can be tempting to jump into a conversation a sales rep is having with their client. This can send a message to the team you don't trust their process and destroys an opportunity for valuable coaching following that meeting. Kevin further added that the sales people who report to you are your Number One customers so you should care about how to make them the most effective they can be.    From being task-oriented to people-oriented   One attribute of a great sales leader is recognizing the importance of sharing time between tasks and coaching their team. Sales managers need to be able to focus on their salespeople and connect on a professional and personal basis.    As a sales manager, it's your job to ensure that your salespeople are with you and they know what the team is trying to accomplish. While it's good to be task-oriented, it's equally important to be people-focused. Kevin mentioned the valuable lessons he learned from the story of Beth Comstock (now the vice-chairman at General Electric) about how important it is to focus on people and not just be a task-master.    Understand the buying cycle    The sales forecast is a misnomer. The sales forecast should be a buying forecast. It is important to understand the customer's buying process to maximize the sale. Sales managers need to be able to recognize when a buyer is purchasing differently from the way the sales rep is trying to sell. Oftentimes sales reps sell faster than the customer wants to buy. The buying process focuses on improving the accuracy of the forecasts instead of depending on the guesswork of sales. The key to this is by asking the right questions. One example would be to ask the sales rep, What are the buying criteria in order of priority?  When a sales manager asks the right questions, the sales rep knows what to ask the customer.    Managing sales people requires a completely different set of skills from selling. If you're looking to get promoted, set a goal to become as masterful at  leadership as you are selling.   “The Sales Manager's Guide To Greatness!” episode resources  Connect with Kevin Davis via his website and you can also follow him on Twitter (@kevinfdavis) and LinkedIn accounts.  If you are interested in more sales stories, you can talk to Donald directly. Reach him via these channels: LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook about any sales concerns.  This episode is brought to you in part by Crmble, the easy-peasy CRM for Trello that helps you manage your contacts and leads without investing in complicated solutions, sync all your data, manage custom fields, and get powerful reporting on your sales. Try Crmble for free now at www.crmble.com/tse. This course is also brought to you in part by  by TSE Certified Sales Training Program. It's a course designed to help new and struggling sellers to master the fundamentals of sales and close more deals. It will help them elevate their sales game. Sign up now and get the first two modules for free! You can go and visit www.thesalesevangelist.com/closemoredeals also call us at (561) 570-5077.  We'd love for you to join us for our next episodes so tune in on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. You can also leave comments, suggestions, and ratings to every episode you listen to.  You can also read more about sales or listen to audiobooks on Audible and explore this huge online library. Register now to get a free book and a 30-day free trial.  Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.

Our podcast is designed to provide you with top business insights, fresh perspectives from world class guests, and the tools you need to lead better than before. In this episode, Tony Richards interviews Kevin F. Davis, President of TopLine Leadership Inc., about his book, The Sales Manager’s Guide to Greatness. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You may have been an A-player salesperson or you still are, but that doesn't necessarily make you an A-player sales manager. Recognizing the difference is one problem. Mastering the skill sets of sales management is another. Our guest today is Kevin F. Davis, author of the book The Sales Manager's Guide to Greatness: Ten Essential […] The post TSE 568: The Sales Manager's Guide To Greatness! appeared first on The Sales Evangelist.