Did you ever feel in business like as if you were standing in the middle of the battlefield? Well, you were not so far away from the truth, because sales is a tough industry. Sales people are sales managers troops, sales process is your tactical procedure, sales department an actual base camp etc. So how can you actually guide your sales army when leading from the war room?

1. LEADING FROM THE WAR ROOM:
BUILDING A BATTLE-READY
SALES FORCE

2. Nikolaus Kimla
n.kimla@pipelinersales.com
www.pipelinersales.com
CEO at Pipelinersales Inc.
Written by...
Based on the ebook:
Leading from the War Room: Building a Battle-Ready Sales Force

3. It can often seem that running a sales force is like
fighting a war—and in fact it more or less is
a war between your company
and your competitors.
As a sales manager, your troops are your salespeople.
You want those troops to be as battle-worthy as
possible. You want them to return as
winners— for their own satisfaction as
well as the bottom line.

4. A COMPETENT
FIGHTING FORCE

5. Today there’s a whole
separate battle occurring in
addition to the company
fighting for marketshare:
the battle for great talent.
Competent talent is hard to
find, and is becoming
increasingly so.
A Competent Fighting Force

6. SALES FORCE
QUALIFICATIONS

7. ● intelligent and personable
● a high interest in people, the courage
to speak to others on their level, and
a power to convince
● a capacity for listening
● must be able to rapidly observe, size
up opportunities and make the most
of them
● ready, willing and able to truly help
the prospect.
Sales Force Qualifications

8. Sales reps need something even
beyond these important
characteristics: they need to be able
to function as team members.
Because of the hectic speed at which
business is conducted today, it takes
a sales force that works as a team,
and follows management direction,
guidance and mentoring.
Sales Force Qualifications

9. WITHSTANDING THE
HEAT OF BATTLE

10. Buyers research online and make buying decision well
before contacting a salesperson. The traditional sales
approach of generating leads, qualifying prospects,
giving them the pitch and going for the close won’t cut
it today.
In order to succeed, reps must be brought to a deeper
level of understanding than ever before.
Withstanding the Heat of Battle

11. ● A full understanding of their industry.
● A complete understanding of their
product or service.
● A good grasp of the competition.
● A firm understanding of typical buyer
profile.
Withstanding the Heat of Battle
Today's sales reps must
have:

12. Withstanding the Heat of Battle
Salespeople are brought up to this level through sales
management coaching and mentoring.
According to recent studies, coaching and mentoring is
the one function of a sales manager’s job that gets
neglected the most. But it is actually the most
important, for it is the only way to truly improve your
sales force.

13. THE SALES PROCESS: YOUR
TACTICAL PROCEDURE

14. For reps, a sales process brings an orderly progression
to sales cycles, and for the sales manager it provides a
positive direction through which he or she can
supervise the sales force.
It is the primary method of pulling your sales force
together as a real team and succeeding at the velocity
needed in today’s hectic world of commerce.
The Sales Process: Your Tactical Procedure

15. ● Consult your proven producers
● Buyer needs, wants and patterns are key
to all stages
● Add value at every stage
● Sales process should be
dynamic--changeable on the fly
The Sales Process: Your Tactical Procedure
Some very important points
in evolving a sales process
are:

16. SALES AND MARKETING:
RUN UP THE WHITE FLAG

17. Often Sales and Marketing are at odds--but
this shouldn't be, especially today. Sales and
Marketing are like two units of the same
fighting force.
Sales and Marketing: Run Up the White Flag

18. Your sales process does include
marketing steps. Marketing conducts
campaigns to generate leads. But there
can be disagreement over lead quality.
Sales claims leads are terrible. Marketing
says the leads are adequate, and that
Sales just isn’t handling them correctly.
The solution: Sales and Marketing must
agree on a definition of “lead” that
satisfies both sides.
Sales and Marketing: Run Up the White Flag

19. As part of the Sales-Marketing cooperative, you should
decide what supplementary collateral materials reps
should have available at each stage of the sales
process. Each pipeline step should have an added value
that moves it smoothly along to the next stage—and
Marketing can provide a great deal of that added value.
Sales and Marketing: Run Up the White Flag

20. TO WIN BATTLES, YOU
NEED GREAT INTEL

21. What would “intelligence” be for you as a sales
manager and for your sales force? It would be the
“intel” of what your product or service could fulfill
based on what potential customers need, want and
desire. It would be clues to their pain points.
To Win Battles, You Need Great Intel

22. Today, right on the web, You can research
your prospect companies, learn all about
their standings in their own industries
and markets, and even research key
personnel.
You can also research your competition,
what they’re promoting, and how they’re
positioning their products. You should
know at least as much about the
competition as your prospects do, and
preferably more.
To Win Battles, You Need Great Intel

23. Your prospects are on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,
blogs, and other social platforms. Sales reps should be
right there with them, answering questions and offering
help, and positioning themselves as experts. Instead of
simply pitching at prospects, your reps are establishing
relationships that will not only result in sales but
continue paying off for years to come.
Through social media, you can also follow your
competition.
To Win Battles, You Need Great Intel

24. THE SKILL OF LEADERSHIP

25. In sales management, it’s often a top veteran
salesperson who is promoted to sales manager. This is
good for the reason that most sales reps will not follow
someone put in a sales manager position who has never
sold.
The downside is that the average star seller promoted
to a management position has rarely received training
as a manager. It is a separate and very important
skillset.
The Skill of Leadership

26. If you’re finding yourself struggling due to lack of
management skill or experience, do not despair:
management is something that can be learned. Take the
extra time—even if it’s your own time—to learn it. There
are many management courses available, and many
books on the subject. Consult successful managers and
management experts, and get yourself some coaching.
The Skill of Leadership

27. 1. Focus on the result.
2. Always know the big picture.
3. Concentrate on a few things, not
everything at once.
4. Utilize strengths.
5. Engender trust.
6. Stay positive.
The Skill of Leadership
Here are six basic principles that
come from renowned management
expert Fredmund Malik:

28. THE SAFE BASE CAMP

29. As a sales manager your “base camp” is your
sales department—the environment you
create in which your salespeople can thrive
and sell to their fullest. This safe place is the
crux of efficient sales management.
The Safe Base Camp

30. To create such an environment, you
must start with accurate metrics that
measure progress toward the overall
target, and toward each sale. Take
each sales process step and identify
meaningful metrics that measure real
progress from stage to stage. With
these you can monitor the progress of
each rep in real time, and the sales
force as a whole.
The Safe Base Camp

31. Another intelligent use of metrics is to see
where your salespeople are strong, and also
where they’re weak. Place them where they
can do the most good—for your sales force,
for the company and for themselves.
The Safe Base Camp

32. EMPOWERING THE
SALESPRENEUR

33. Sales reps require as much freedom to decide and act as
they can be given. Entrepreneurs are highly self-motivated.
They have an awareness of opportunities that others do
not, and on top of that a capacity for acting on them.
Look over the list of qualities for an entrepreneur, and you’ll
find they apply as well to salespeople—so we have coined
the term “salespreneurs.”
Empowering the Salespreneur

34. The entire concept of Pipeliner CRM is to
create the ideal infrastructure for the
salesperson to play to their strengths. We
provide the capacity to measure their
activities. Our tool is not one of control, but
of empowering strengths.
Empowering the Salespreneur

35. ● ››Focus on your talent. Hire the best, and cultivate them well.
● ››Arm your reps to survive in today’s frantic pace of business. Turn
them into the experts they need to be.
● ››Evolve a highly efficient, functional and dynamic sales process.
● ››Partner up with Marketing and become a functional overall unit,
able to bring your sales to ever-higher levels.
● ››For yourself and your reps become proficient in the gathering of
sales intelligence utilizing the web, social media, cloud services and
your CRM solution.
● ››If you haven’t, learn the skill of management to become an
efficient and powerful leader.
● ››Utilizing the right metrics, combined with understanding, create a
safe space within which your salespeople can flourish.
● ››Grant your salespeople the right amount of freedom to function as
the salespreneurs they are.
To sum up:

36. May you enjoy great success
as a sales manager!
We’re always here to help.

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