Sales reps need to be able to engage their customers in conversation if they want to make a sale. One of the best ways to do that is by using open-ended questions.

Open-ended questions allow the customer to talk, and by doing so, the prospect will feel more engaged and connected to the sales rep. In addition, open-ended questions can help uncover hidden needs and wants that the customer may not have been aware of.

As we have often discussed, sales managers have 4 main roles in the day-to-day management of their sales team. This involves coaching, which should represent 50% of their work, holding their reps accountable, motivating them and ensuring the recruitment of the best talent.

Among these essential responsibilities, accountabilty is generally the one that causes the greatest discomfort for many managers who fear resistance or even their sales representatives quiting. However, a lack of control over your team can have significant consequences on the achievement of sales goals and on the performance of the organization as a whole.

Since the notion of accountability is still poorly perceived today, I share with you 3 common management errors and how to ensure better control over the discipline and performance of your best players.

As a sales manager, you have a key role to play in the success of sales training initiatives for your team. Indeed, you must make sure that your team puts into practice what they have learned from their sales training. In general, I have noticed that sales managers don't usually seem to know what to do after the training and have difficulty applying the various learnings.

Only 13% of the information is retained by the participant during a training session. To ensure that you are properly equipped to increase retention, you must commit to participating in the multiple sales trainings that your team attends. Now that all trainings are given virtually, the challenges of knowledge retention are even greater.

With the Covid-19 crisis, training has become more critical than ever before, because skill gaps are more visible and have a broader impact on business.

These 5 elements will help you reinforce your team's learning so that maximum information can be applied following a training session. This will help you get a return on your investment.

Dear readers, we are thankful for the interest you have shown towards the articles we have published during the year. The team at Prima Resource hopes that these articles have been useful to you, whether you are a business leader, entrepreneur, sales manager or sales representative.

Some articles have sparked more curiosity and we have compiled them for you to discover them or to rediscover them a second time.

If I'm talking about a mammal living in the lands of Africa and Asia, that is fast, elegant and resembles an antelope, you may guess that I'm talking about a gazelle. The main strength of gazelles is that they travel in herds to better react to danger. Impressive fact, some of them reach a running speed of more than 100 km per hour. Are you wondering why I'm talking about gazelles in an article on sales team performance?

Just like a group of gazelles, a sales force is more efficient with the contribution of each of its best players. The company's goals are achieved more quickly when everyone also gives their 100 km per hour.

Since joining Prima Ressource, I've had the opportunity to greatly expand my knowledge and skills in sales management. It allowed me to discover some things I would have loved to know when I was in a sales manager position, that would have completely changed the way I acted in that role.

Among all that I have learned, there is one fundamental component that caught my attention and that would have made all the difference: the importance of using specific sales assessment tools such as Objective Management Group's assessments. These are tools that make a huge difference in sales coaching and that would have made me a much better sales manager than I have been.

Coaching sales representatives is essential for sales manager. As it is often said in our articles, a sales manager should spend at least half his time on this beneficial task.

In order to be productive, each session with a representative must first be well planned. The sales manager must establish in advance the topics to be covered and the ways to measure their effectiveness.

A sales manager who limits himself to coaching his representatives only on their technical skills does not offer them the opportunity to develop to their full potential.

A manager must also work in depth on his sales team's shortcomings that result from innate characteristics.

To do so, one must coach every representative considering his or her sales DNA.

Sales managers have huge responsibilities towards their sales team. One of them is coaching.

Just like your sales rep, your sales managers are in need of coaching. So, who’s responsible for coaching sales managers ? This is an important question.

Either the sales VP or the President will coach the sales managers. However, if in some case the VP is unavailable, or the owner finds themselves incapable of coaching, then the best option is hiring an external resource.

Coaching is one of the sales manager’s most important roles, making it an activity which they must spend a good amount of time doing.

The most common mistakes made by sales managers during their coaching sessions can effectively be summarized by this : confusing sales coaching with sales training.

While training remains vital to your team’s success, it’s important to understand that the process, as well as the techniques, are different than the ones used during effective coaching sessions.