I’m posting another great tip from Steve Rosan’s fun book, 52 Sales Management tips. This is tip #6 and the importance of making sales people write down their goals.

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Coaching is the most important skill to effectively develop top sales performers. What I have found is that many sales managers have never learned how to be effective coaches. There is little or no training on coaching and senior sales leaders fail to role model and reinforce effective coaching.

• How many times do you have an agreement in a business review to do a specific activity and realise that a few months later that it didn’t happen?
• How many times does your sales rep agree to work on a specific skill only to find out that there has been little or no change in that skill?

Time and time again we are disappointed that important things just don’t happen. The problem is that your sales people are overloaded. As much as they agree to specific actions they get lost in the day-to-day demands and forget many of the commitments they make. What steps need to be taken to increase the likelihood of follow through on a commitment?

Tip #6: The Power of the Pen

To increase the chance that you or your sales reps will achieve a goal they have set for themselves it is critical to have them commit their plan to paper, write it down! When people put pen to paper it has two key benefits. Firstly, they have thought out what specific activities/steps they need to do to achieve their goal(s) and secondly the process of writing crystallizes in the brain what they intend to do. This speaks to commitment. With a written commitment the sales rep takes ownership of the outcome. 

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You can get Steve’s book on Amazon  or here, www.52SalesManagementTips.com.  It’s a must have pocket guide for front line sales managers.