“Sales managers are one of the least equipped roles in business.”
That is what Dave Brock says when he looks over the sales landscape. That’s one of the main reasons he wrote “The Sales Manager’s Survival Guide,” available now on Amazon and other Bookstores. The book is formatted into easily digestible, short chapters that enable you to keep the book on your desk as a quick reference guide to the sales scenarios you face day to day with clients and with your sales team. In this conversation, you get a great peek into the contents of the book and what Dave hopes to happen your sales management because of it.

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Sales managers are some of the least equipped people in the industry.
When the sales manager doesn’t know what he’s doing the entire team and the entire organization suffers. It’s an obvious fact, but what’s not so obvious is that very few sales managers have been adequately trained to know how to actually BE a sales manager. That’s a fundamental premise of Dave Brock’s book and in this conversation you’ll hear him defend the statement and give examples of why sales managers need help in knowing how to do things like establishing a cadence in their sales cycle, review their sales pipeline, and hold sales executives accountable in good ways. You will gain a good deal from this conversation so be sure you take the time to listen.
A field manual for sales managers to up the entire team’s sales game.
When you’re in the midst of a difficult situation with a member of your sales team, you don’t want to be ignorant of what to do or how to think about what’s going on. That’s why Dave Brock wrote “The Sales Manager’s Survival Guide” in a short chapter, easy to reference format. He wants you to be able to find the solutions to your situations quickly and have the experience of a “sales coach” at your fingertips. If you haven’t grabbed a copy of the book yet, you’ve got to get one right now. You can find it in the links on the show notes page for this episode.

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How many potential customers exist in your territory? Do you know?
Part of doing a good review of a sales professional’s strategy is to assess how many of the organization’s target clients exist within their sales territory. It’s a surefire way of understanding the breadth of the prospects the salesperson has to call and visit. Every sales manager should be able to instruct their sales force how to do that kind of assessment and make the most of the results. On this episode of In The Arena, Dave Brock walks through that type of assessment and explains how it helps the entire organization remain organized, active, and accountable.
Sales accountability: The uncomfortable but needed asset in sales.
Many sales organizations are lax when it comes to the kind of accountability that generates active pursuit of prospects and increase in sales revenue. One of the reasons accountability is such a difficult task for most sales managers is because they’ve not established clear expectations in terms of the number of leads in the sales pipeline, the timing and duration of the typical sales cycle, and what steps should be taken to move prospects through the cycle in a reasonable amount of time. Dave Brock lays it out for us on this episode.

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Outline of this great episode

[3:22] The reason Anthony invited Dave Brock back to the show.
[7:42] The feedback Dave is getting from his book so far.
[10:56] What Anthony likes best about Dave’s book: the easy use format.
[12:15] The need for training for sales managers and middle sales leaders.
[18:42] What is cadence and what is the value of it?
[22:50] Why sales managers struggle to do a proper pipeline review.