Walter Brown: What To Do First

Walter Brown (RIP) was a very special friend who taught so many of us our early sales/sales management skills at EMC that will stay with us forever.

These skills and principles stand the test of time when it comes to best practices.

In my book, we include two of his fantastic sales handbooks, both timeless classics.

Shoutout to these early EMC sellers who have used his handbooks throughout their careers: Ken Dougherty Brian Bell Peter Bell Jim Sullivan Joe Gately Andy O'Brien Jeffrey Casale John R McCarthy Bill Scannell Bill Swales Bill Hogan Steve Walsh Ken Grohe Kevin Scannell Chris Riley

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Randy's Tips to Sell More 👉 Excerpts from Your Go-To Sales Advisor

Chasing Quota by Walter Brown

Chapter 1: What To Do First

Top sales managers do three things well:

1. Assemble a team of high-quality people.
2. Constantly develop those people.
3. Drive them to produce the numbers.

However, to be successful, you need a Playable Hand, including these seven cards:

1. A Healthy Marketplace (Enough action, no dominant competitor, pricing that allows a profit, etc.)
2. A Competitive Offering (Good enough to win your share.)
3. Enough Territory (Enough action, either actual or potential.)
4. Good Comp Plans (That will allow winners to make good money.)
5. Supportive Management (Maximum support with minimal meddling.)
6. Realistic Goals (Make-able without miracles.)
7. Enough Time (It nearly always takes longer than you plan.)

If you don’t hold all seven cards, then get them. Or look for another assignment.

Now let’s look at some rules for getting started right:

(In the back is a glossary of key terms used throughout the book.)

Take time to see the financial picture.

• Make sure you know your company’s financial status: balance sheets, operating budgets, income statement, etc. You won’t understand your management until you can see things from their viewpoint.

Don’t be stampeded into growing too fast,

• because too fast is too risky.
• If more than one third of your people are unproven (new, newly promoted, etc.) in their current jobs you are probably growing too fast.

Don’t have too many direct reports.

• If it takes more than one hand to count your direct reports, you have too many.

Avoid part-time sales management.

• Probably the toughest assignment for sales managers is to also carry a personal sales quota, because of the constant conflict: Do I sell today, manage today, try to do both or what? Avoid such jobs unless they transition into full-time sales management.

Negotiate your quota well.

• Be smart about this: Do your homework, prepare your position, and sell it hard. Don’t let yourself get steamrolled; you have to live a whole year with a bad quota.

Assign more quota than you carry.

• To crush your numbers you have to create a cushion.

Build a common language.

• You can get by with a dictionary of less than 30 words: Suspect, prospect, qualified, hot, closable, in the funnel, etc. But make sure that everyone uses the same dictionary.

Sales Success can be summarized in nine words:

• Build a good prospect pipeline; then harvest that pipeline.
• Make sure everything else flows from this simple structure.

Plan ahead.

• Publish a sales team calendar, at least a month in advance.

If you are newly promoted from sales ranks, spend the bulk of your time where you have been spending it: In front of prospects. But do it with your reps now, instead of alone.

• (Of the choices available—salesman, salesperson, sales rep, account exec, etc.—I have opted to use the term ‘rep’ throughout.)

Carry a bag before you take a sales management job.

If you take the job anyway,

• Climb into a tandem harness with your reps and learn the job in depth.

Don’t expect a big inheritance.

• Reps mostly inherit empty pipelines, managers mostly inherit flawed teams. Don’t complain about it. The team you build will shine by contrast to the team you inherited.

To be a top sales manager you will need to:

• Read People
• Lead People
• Feed People
• Weed People

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