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JULY/AUGUST 2007
FEATURESTORY
What Are Great Sales Managers Made Of?
The answer is as intangible as the definition of leadership itself
Leadership is defined so broadly that it’s often up to each individual to decide what constitutes a good leader. The best leaders may be most easily identified by the performance of their teams.
The complexities of modern business make it difficult (some would say impossible) to encapsulate what great sales managers are made of. That didn’t stop us from trying, however. In our opinion, there are no wrong answers and the “right ones” change as rapidly as the business arena itself...
PUBLISHER'SNOTE
What We Talk About When We Talk About Work **
Wisdom from our Publisher, Mike Murrell...
EDITOR'SNOTE
A Summer Read That’s Sure To Energize Your Team **
Summer thinking from our Editor-in-Chief, Paul Nolan...
UPFRONT
3 Ways to Become A Better Manager **
Sales managers oftentimes are reps who got promoted. Management, however, is a skill that needs to be learned...
5 Things You Can Do Now To Improve Your Sales Team **
The No. 1 complaint from people in the sales trenches is that management does a good job of talking about the need for good leadership, but seldom moves from inspiration to execution. Authors and consultants Richard Hadden and Bill Catlette offer these five ideas for turning ideas into actions...
Just Passing Through **
Promotions can help you retain top salespeople, but “management tourists” can undermine a company’s stability...
SALESTRAINING
Talent War Tales: Conventional wisdom can steer you wrong
A lot has been written about the war for talent, much of it bad advice offered by consulting firms and management gurus, says Robert Sutton, author (most recently of the business bestseller The No Asshole Rule) and a highly regarded management guru himself. Sutton says if you want to win the talent wars, five lessons stand out...
What’s On Your iPod? Possibly the Latest Training Session **
People used to hide their iPods from their bosses, if they used them in the office at all. Now the bosses are passing them out to their employees. Companies from health care suppliers to fast-food chains are handing out free iPods so that employees can download audio and video files of CEO announcements, training courses and sales seminars...
Q&A: Managing Vs. Coaching **
What are some signals that will help verify that sales coaching is occurring?
INCENTIVES&RECOGNITION
When it comes to coaxing increased performance out of employees – sales or otherwise – companies have always tended to think cash first. Cash incentives remain the predominant method businesses use to move the needle, but an increasing number of executives and managers are heeding research and real-life results that suggest employees may perceive non-monetary incentives to be more valuable...
Satisfied Employees Boost the Bottom Line
Research by HR consultants consistently shows that employees rank salary below having a job that’s challenging and one that offers advancement opportunities in terms of importance. Money, it seems, can’t buy workers’ loyalty...
What’s It Cost To Improve Performance?
In general, the three elements of incentive program budgeting include number of participants, length of program and expected results. There are two types of award budgets – closed-ended, and open-ended. You must determine the maximum costs involved with a closed-ended program and an estimate of costs involved for an open-ended program...
Remember The Three C’s: Create Corporate Culture
Attracting and retaining creative high achievers is a priority for every company. Corporate culture is one area that has significant impact on recruiting and retaining top
performers, yet is frequently overlooked, according to Patricia Bautz, Vice President of Corporate Employee Service at Cognex Corporation...
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MEETINGS&INCENTIVETRAVEL
What Will Impact Meeting Spending? **
Answers from Meeting Professional International’s FutureWatch 2007...
Train For More Productive Meetings **
The average employee spends approximately six hours per week in scheduled meetings, with supervisors spending more time than non-supervisors. It’s a good idea to continually assess the value of your meetings and whether time spent in them can be reduced...
Obstacle Courses Are So 20th Century **
Everything gets a makeover eventually, even team-building exercises. Companies are bypassing activities like rope courses for less traditional – and more enjoyable – events that often are tied closely to the meeting’s purpose...
Boutique Mystique **
First there were boutique hotels – small, private, luxurious and impressive. Now there are venues for boutique business meetings, where everyone is made to feel like the CEO...
Teamwork For A Cause **
Companies are increasingly setting aside an afternoon or even a full day while at an off-site meeting to frame a house, build a playground or paint an after- school center. The Las Vegas affiliate for Habitat for Humanity has received more than a dozen requests from groups who want to participate in building a home...
Investing In Employees’ Home Life While On The Road **
Amid evidence that divorce and relationship stress can make workers less efficient, a small but growing number of companies have implemented training programs designed to help employees strengthen their marriages or other personal relationships....
Q&A: Better Odds for Vegas Success **
How can planners make the most of all that Las Vegas has to offer?
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PROMOTIONALPRODUCTS
Who’s Buying What and Why? **
If you buy into the wisdom of crowds, it’s worth noting what promotional products businesses are buying and how they are using them. The Promotional Products Association International started segmenting the promotional products market in the 1960s with four product categories. Now there are 21...
Q&A: Best Ways To Build Brand **
When a company uses incentives to change workplace behavior, the key is selecting something that will entice the target audience. The freedom of choice that comes with gift cards
provides a built-in advantage...
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GIFTCARDS
How do you use gift cards? **
Sales managers oftentimes are reps who got promoted. Management, however, is a skill that needs to be learned....
Q&A: Playing Your Cards Right **
What prepaid gift card brands work best for motivating?
The 2007 Incentive Gift Card Council (IGCC) Directory (383KB PDF document. Requires free Adobe Reader)
The Incentive Gift Card Council (IGCC) is a strategic industry group within Incentive Marketing Association, created to provide an awareness of gift cards
as a viable option for use in premium and incentive programs. This directory is a service to SalesForceXP readers who use — or are interested in using — gift cards as
employee or customer incentives...
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INCENTIVEPRODUCTS
Incentive Product Focus: High-End Incentives (476KB PDF document. Requires free Adobe Reader)
Need to coax extra effort out of your sales team? The best motivator isn’t money, but rather the sort of things that people are reluctant to spend their money on...
What Works: Workshop (405KB PDF document. Requires free Adobe Reader)
Oh sure, you can learn a lot from your mistakes. But it’s more fun to learn from your successes. In this section, our advertisers share real-life stories about how their clients used non-cash incentives to motivate a target audience and exceed expectations...
Incentive Alley (445KB PDF document. Requires free Adobe Reader)
Take advantage of these exclusive offers to SalesForceXP readers on merchandise, gift card and travel incentives from our advertisers...
COACHES'CORNER
Simply Brilliant **
“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” — Sir Winston Churchill. Read more quoteable quotes from five sales gurus...
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SFXPADVERTISERS
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