Seven Steps to Success for Sales Managers: A Strategic Guide to Creating a Winning Sales Team Through Collaboration

1. First Step: Manage Yourself

Here you are in the middle. Whoever said it’s lonely at the top never sat in a sales manager’s chair. It’s a maddening, lonely process—trying to activate your people and satisfy the boss. The objectives, the people, the paperwork, the procedures.... The challenges are legendary, your control over them limited.

In the past decade, huge shifts in corporate America have exposed sales managers to a dizzying rate of change. Customers have become more demanding and price sensitive due to the proliferation of online competitive information. If they don’t like your price, they’ll find a better deal online. Combine global competitive pressures and shaky economic conditions, and you have companies cutting costs at unprecedented ...