November 2002 Track Selling Times World Class Sales Management
 World Class Sales Management:
Coach your team to more sales with the seven steps of
the Track Selling System
by Bob Greene
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(From March 2001 Track Selling Times)
Bob Greene is sales manager for Direct Line Communications based in San Jose, Calif. The company is an authorized direct reseller of Nextel wireless services. Prior to his current position, Bob spent eight years with Nextel and owned his own business during the preceding eight years. For more information, please call Bob at (408) 298-1414.
"Anytime I think about sales management, I think of the seven steps of the Track Selling System. I've been in sales for more than 25 years, have attended dozens of workshops and training programs, and believe, without question, the seven steps provide the most effective selling process I've ever seen. Therefore, I'm continually referring back to them and have internalized Track Selling as my own selling process.
For me, the greatest revelation the process offers is that it provides the proper language and understanding of how to interact with the client throughout the sales cycle. It helps the salesperson make the sale and have the client feel good about their buying decision after the contract's signed.
I've actually made the Track Selling System and its seven steps the basis for all of my new salespeople's training and the core of my weekly meetings. I take the salesperson through each step in the process and dig-in to them deeply through questioning and role-playing over a several week period for hours at a time.
I've learned through my years of managing, however, to have a hard and fast process that doesn't allow for exceptions can be a death-knell. So I do offer a level of flexibility to my salespeople. If an individual's exceeding her numbers and there's a specific way she prefers handling a particular portion of the sales process, that's fine. The only requirement is that it doesn't negatively harm the relationship. For instance, if she were a 'slammer' during the closing step and signed many deals, yet did so only because she over promised, that would be unacceptable.
The role of a sales manager is part motivator, part taskmaster, part psychologist, part overseer and part mentor. And I believe the most important component is that your people truly feel that you're working for them rather than their only having to work for you. You accomplish this by working with each individually and the group collectively to train and guide them instead of only asking for their numbers at month's end."
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