“This is not a book for newly appointed sales managers, or for experienced sales managers. It’s a book for every sales manager. As I read Jeff’s book, I was counting all the money I didn’t make when I was a sales manager, because I had no book like this to provide me with the answers I needed. With an investment of less than 12 cents per tip, MENTOR offers the best ROI I’ve seen in a business book in many years.”

Dave Stein
Author of How Winners Sell

Foreward - Marc Benioff
Chairman & CEO - salesforce.com

Living in California, I’m no stranger to earthquakes. I’m familiar with them for another reason as well. An “earthquake”—at least in famous playwright Arthur Miller’s vocabulary—is that moment when the customer stops “smiling back.” It’s the moment the sale, no matter how well sold or managed, screeches to a halt. It’s the moment when a salesperson hears their least favorite word: “No.”

We hate to admit it, but of course we’ve all been there. In my personal experience—from selling lemonade to software—I’ve encountered some of these so-called earthquakes. As someone who now runs a company in the sales automation marketplace, I hear often about how this misfortune strikes other businesses as well.Misfortune helps us appreciate the true value of a mentor because it causes us to seek ideas from others to help learn how to keep “No” from happening the next time.

While there are a myriad of reasons why certain deals are stymied, there’s one fault line that’s always easy to recognize. It happens when a company puts ultimate emphasis on the money coming in—while ignoring basic sales management principles of “how and why” it should happen. As Jeff comprehensively delineates in this book, a well managed sales organization is built upon a thorough knowledge of why it’s in business, how its sales processes work, training and knowing its salespeople, and understanding the depth of its customers’ experience. Creating a successful company begins with integrating and better managing the sales process throughout the entire organization. It ends in the creation of more profitable revenue.

What Jeff does here is share his mentoring tips on how sales managers can build a successful sales organization in the companies they work for. I have watched him accomplish this first hand as our mutual career paths have crisscrossed over the years. One of the methods he covers—and of course my favorite—is the use of customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. Working with sales managers on a regular basis in my own business, I hear first hand how their salespeople are constantly looking for ways to be better informed and share their information (good and bad) with C-level executives in order to gain better visibility. On the flip side, CEOs are also looking to gain their own improved visibility and accountability into the sales function.

An example of the utility of this book is that Jeff makes an important point when he suggests that solutions (like CRM) must be simple for sales managers to implement in order for salespeople to embrace them. In one of my favorite parts of this book he describes a situation where deploying a CRM solution was so difficult that the implementation manager went crazy—literally! Luckily we’ve come a long way from solutions dogged by exorbitant costs and impossible implementation.

Successful sales managers, as you well know, are action oriented. By incorporating hundreds of practical tips and real-life examples, this book guides sales managers and sales oriented CEOs on leading more effectively and selling more strategically. That’s what makes this book unique and a worthwhile read. With Jeff’s mentoring — drawn on 20 years of experience—companies can reduce the “earthquakes” and enjoy a more stable and profitable sales landscape.