SalesGiants interviews Ken Thoreson, Your Sales Management Guru

Ken Thoreson,
Your Sales Management Guru

Ken Thoreson is a sales leadership and sales management guidance speaker, consultant, author and executionist. He's also Your Sales Management Guru!

1) Ken, what kind of customers do you usually work with and how do you help them exactly?

During our 13 years of consulting, Acumen Management Group has worked with hundreds of  B2B clients; they have been in early stage to high growth to turnaround situations.

Specifically we assist our clients in building a business and sales strategy with a focus on execution. We like to say we operationalize the business strategies. Our belief is to build a prescriptive approach to the strategic sales management aspects of an organization rather than allowing opportunistic or ad hoc systems and operations to exist. 

We focus on the tough job of sales management; hiring/recruiting top talent, building sales compensations plans that drive results, creating management systems to help build predictable revenue, teaching leadership/management skills and building a culture of high performance. We use our experience, our process, and tool set to make a difference in our clients business and personal lives.

2) In a short sentence, what companies should be interested in your consulting services? 

Our ideal client companies are frustrated in not achieving predictable revenues, are not winning market share or are growing so rapidly they cannot build the infrastructure  necessary to support their sales channel.

The other level of companies we serve are major vendors that use independent dealers, VARS, resellers to go to market. We create Partner Facing programs to assist the vendor companies in building a stronger channel organizations, increasing loyalty and partner profitability. Our clients in this segment are Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Ingram, TechData, etc.

3) On the other hand, who shouldn’t? What will companies NOT find in Acumen?

Acumen is not a marketing or lead generation firm and we are not a sales training organization, we have a close eco-system partnership with firms that can perform those services.  We focus typically on the weak link in most firms, the sales management function.

4) Besides your website (http://yoursalesmanagementguru.com/), what other sales websites would you recommend? 

Acumen’s main web site: www.AcumenManagement.com offers :

• a White Paper on the Job of Sales Management: the 40 actions sales management must do to build predictable revenue,
• free assessments on sales management, sales compensation and your overall business operations,
• free video’s on hiring salespeople,
• free video on building sales  training programs and on-boarding new hires as well, 
• radio interviews on several topics related to sales management and leadership.

We also have a complete list of free articles on general sales management topics and 5 hours of Sales Management training on DVD’s and our Interactive Sales Managers’ Tool Kit.

5) How about your preferred sales/business books?

For salespeople: I have been recommending Jill Konrath’s latest book: SNAP Selling.  Obviously our recently published books from our “Your Sales Management Guru” brand have been well received, they are The Sales Management Guru’s Guide to Hiring a High Performance Sales Team, The Sales Management Guru’s Guide to Sales Management and the Sales Management Guru’s Guide to Build Sale Compensation Plans. They are packed with great practical insights and tools for sales leaders. 

About you:

6) How did you get started in sales?

Right out of college, I was hired by Burroughs Corporation, in the computer business and in those day’s they had a great sales training program. Extremely thorough and it set the basis for everything I have done. I then worked for a small independent entreprenurial organization as a sales manager and VP of Sales.  From there I became a VP of Sales for a North American based vertical software organization that sold our solutions through a network of channel partners. Those two experiences gave me a basis for understanding small business as well as more complex aspects of sales leadership.

7) Most memorable sale? 

There are quite a few, but one that sticks out was  a nearly a million dollar order from a major corporation, I was told I had the order on Friday morning, I offered to pick it up, but the client told me he would mail it to me, he was located about 45 minutes to an hour away from my office..  The man died over the weekend from an heart attack and in the transition a merger took place and I never received the PO!... A lesson learned! PICK UP THE ORDER and stay  with it. I was fairly young and what a difference that would have made... but it taught me an important lesson.

8) Most disastrous sale (or funny situation)?

I recall as a sales manager helping a young rep at the end of December, the rep had been told the PO was done, and on her prospects desk. In calling the prospect we learned from his voice mail, the “buyer” had left for the holidays.   We took a lesson from an old movie” All The Presidents’ Men”, we started dialing all the phone numbers that had similar phone numbers to our buyer.  Finally someone picked up the phone; we sold him on walking over to this person’s desk and finding the PO and faxing it to us!  That order put the young sales rep over her quota for the year!  Everyone felt good and I felt great because we didn’t quit, we were creative and it worked!

                       

 About your work as a sales expert:

  

9) What is the biggest mistake you see as a sales expert? 

Our work as a sales management consultant puts us in a position to see many mistakes made by owners or sales managers. The number one mistakes however  is simply a lack of focus on hiring. We do not see a systematic approach to “Hiring the best-not the best available”. A sales manager should  spend 20% of their time in hiring, interviewing and on boarding properly.  With great people, great things happen. We like to say that for each hire, you need to interview a minimum of 5 individuals and you should be advertising for talent at all times-consider it your marketing campaign for building your company.

A Sales Management Guru hint: the great salespeople may not be looking when you are, so you must always be interviewing. Our book provides many tips and tools to improve your odds in hiring. Remember if you lose a salesperson, it could take you 90 days to find their replacement and another 90 days for them to build their sales pipeline-that is 180 days or 6 months without their revenues adding to your quota goals-that is why the life span of most sales managers is less than 18 months.

10) What is the best sales advice you have ever received?

Two that I recall:

“You must know the difference between presenting and selling”. 
“The 3 laws of selling: emotion, emotion, emotion. You must have it, you must transfer it and you must have the prospect ready to take action based upon it.”

  

11) What are you working on right now that makes you feel energized? What's your next big project?

Well, with 4 books being published and my consulting practice in good shape and our Sales Leadership Workouts organized  (workshops) , the next big action item is our motivational  Keynote programs where I share my experiences, but also the concepts of creating both personal and professional success.  I call it “No Regret’s, a Do-over Recipe for Personal and Professional success. It ties in with my Sales Management consulting, my life experiences, my love of cooking along with solid idea’s to help others find success. In one of my new books, that I co-authored with Stephen Covey; Success Simplified I highlight how to Create a Menu for Life.

  

12) What is the best testimonial/comment you have ever received? 

Great question: thinking back on our many comments and the quotes from our website, it might be: "If I were to condense my opinion of the value received from you over the years into one thought it would be that you provide detail upon detail in our conversations – not abstract theory but practical, useable information

13) Any last comments?

The role of sales management is tough. You report to the President, you must work with your peer group of other managers and you must lead your  team! Everyone in the company knows who you are and how well you are performing. It takes work, a positive attitude and insight.  Our newsletter might be of value to your readers: “Why Sales Managers Succeed”, each month I focus on the Personal, Professional and Organizational aspects of sales leaderships. They can  subscribe (free) at our website, www.AcumenManagement.com

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To know more about Ken Thoreson and Acumen Management, please visite www.AcumenManagement.com or his blog http://www.yoursalesmanagementguru.com

Interview with Andrew Dugdale, from Fit-4 Sales Assessment (www.salesassessment.com)

1) Hi Andrew, thank you for this interview. Let's start by talking a little about Fit-4. In a short sentence, who should use Fit-4?

Anyone who wants to improve the revenue performance of their sales people – and if you find anyone who doesn’t, then Fit-4 definitely isn’t for them!

Fit-4 is a unique, role specific, robust and highly accurate sales assessment instrument that compares the capabilities of your current sales talent, or new hires, to the capabilities found in a High Performer doing the same role.

This enables you to measure an individual’s suitability for your specific sales role and shows you:

• How well they are likely to perform, compared to a high performer in the same role.
• What their development needs are specifically to improve revenue performance in that role.
• Whether they have the potential to become a high performer – or not.
• What’s going to motivate them to perform better – or stay with you.

2) What have you learned after all your experience with Fit-4? What is the biggest lesson?

The biggest learning/surprise is that so many sales people have ended up in their current jobs simply because there was a vacancy, they happened to be available, and the recruiting manager felt they would fit in with the team.  

The biggest lesson we have seen is that ‘being available’ and ‘seeming like a nice sort of person’ are not good enough reasons to employ sales people.  

The biggest challenge we face is breaking the bad news about the capabilities of their sales team to a sales leader.  The benefit though is that we can at least help them fix those same problems – usually within just a few weeks!  

3) What sales books do you like and recommend?

My favourite books are “Every Business is a Growth Business” by Charan & Tichy (because if you’re not in business for growth – you must be a charity!); and “Differentiate or Die” by Jack Trout (because if you can’t differentiate your offering it’s simply not worth being in business!).

 4) What's the first thing someone should do after taking your assessment?

Take stock of their situation: our assessments are Role specific, so if a candidate gets good results – then hoorah!  the right person is doing the right job, and they should feel good about the fact they are in a happy minority of sales people and enjoy their undoubted success.  

If a candidate gets poor results – then maybe they need to reconsider whether they are doing the right job – often sales people hunger for sales jobs with bigger titles, but then find them hard, become less successful, and so become unhappy; by taking a job for which they are a good fit, regardless of the title, they will be more successful, happier – and ultimately enjoy their career in sales. 

If people get results showing they are in the right job, but lacking capabilities – then they should work with their employer to improve their skills, and through that their success, and ultimately their happiness.   To be successful in sales you just have to enjoy your job.  

Rule number 1 – ensure you are in the right job; 

Rule number 2 – ensure you are fully trained for that job;

Rule number 3 – don’t think the grass is greener elsewhere – enjoy your new found happiness and success.

About you:

5) How did you get started in sales?

I started life as an electronics engineer back in the mid seventies, moving into the embryonic business of computer engineering in the late seventies.  After qualifying as a computer engineer I moved to work as a product specialist with an Intel Partner right at the start of Intel and the Microchip.  After working in that role for a few months, I found that I was designing in product which was resulting in the customer buying, often without a sales person being involved, so I migrated to ‘technical sales’.  

After a few years doing this I moved to a fully fledged sales job in the early 80’s with a British company producing Ethernet components, right at the beginning of the networking revolution, initially selling, then managing European Sales, then Worldwide sales.  

From this point in the late 80’s I moved into a major US Telco, just as the telecoms business was deregulating and enjoyed success there, before my final move in corporate life to ICL in the mid ‘90’s.  

I left ICL to start my first sales training business (Intellectual Capital Development Limited – which is still going) in 2000, developing the basis of the Fit-4 product during this time.  I formed SalesAssessment.com in April 2008 to sell the advanced hybrid sales assessment tests I had developed over the previous 8 years.  

6) What was your toughest sales ever?

My toughest sale was persuading my wife that it was right for me to leave the security of a very well paid Corporate job to “risk it all” in my own business!  Thank goodness it was a success! Or I may not be here talking about it today!

7) Most memorable sale? Was it because of the money, the adrenaline, the recognition, the power?

None of the above – it was memorable because it was the only sale I wasn’t sure I wanted to make.  Going out on your own is a very big step, especially when you have kids at private schools and a very expensive house to run.  I know it was right, but I was looking for reasons to “lose the deal” all the way through.  So I was selling to my wife – and also to myself!

About your consulting:

8) What is the biggest mistake you see as a sales consultant?

I’m not really a sales consultant any more, I now research, design and publish role specific sales assessment tests.  But in my time in my other company I have seen them all – perhaps the biggest mistake I have seen over and over again is people worrying too  much about the competition instead of getting on and creating competitive advantage through continuously improving the value of their offering to their customers.   

Actually – in thinking this one through – perhaps the biggest mistake people make is to study their competitors in detail, but NOT spend time understanding their customer’s business in the same sort of depth.  

How crazy is that?  It ends up with them designing their businesses as “followers” to their competitors, trying to keep up with them instead of trying to innovate and lead.  And we all know there are no prizes for being second in sales.  Maybe some companies “design in” being second???

9) What are you working on right now that makes you feel energized? What's your next big project?

My next big project is to answer the "so what" question many customers ask after taking our assessments.  The level of granularity in the development detail we provide is very fine and most training courses are more like blunt instruments than surgical instruments.  

Once our customers see exactly where the capability gaps are for each individual, they want to invest specifically in these precise learning gaps – not apply a blunt instrument approach.  

My next challenge is to find enough high quality e-learning modules that are a good fit to our diagnostics and develop a portal enabling our customers to identify precise training elements for each individual.

10) What is the best testimonial/comment you have ever received? Or the one that touched you the most?

Fortunately I get many testimonials, but I think the best one recently was from one of our smaller, growing customers who said ““Growing businesses need the best sales talent, with the right skills, in the right roles, with each sales person highly motivated at all times.  Yet that is one of the hardest things to get right.  Fit-4 delivers the means for any business manager to get that golden combination, whether you understand sales people or not.  Whether hiring, or developing your existing sales people, Fit-4 can guide your investment decisions into the areas that will deliver the most return.”

It really doesn’t get better than that – being able to help not just the Fortune 500, but also the smaller guy.

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To know more about Fit-4, please visite http://www.salesassessment.com/index.html