Sales Manager Survival Guide: Lessons From Sales' Front Lines

As an admitted fan of David Brock I have eagerly anticipated this volume. When I became a manager I noticed something - when interviewing quality sales candidates, in 90% of cases I could trace the reason for their desire to move-on to their relationship with their sales manager. If this relationship is good, reps will tolerate lower pay, tough conditions and challenging objectives. On the other hand, if that relationship is bad, no amount of money or perks can compensate for long. From that observation I coined a phrase: "People don't quit their job - they quit their boss." Sales Manager Survival Guide is a template for being the quality, high-performance manager people dream of working for.At one time or another I have made most of the mistakes Dave mentions in Survival Guide. Compared to general sales books, there is a relative dearth of books that sales managers can draw upon to better themselves. Sales Manager Survival Guide is the book I wish I had when I first became a manager.The scope of this book is phenomenal. I am at a loss to find a single topic that should have been covered but wasn't. It accurately conveys a very clear picture of the roles and responsibilities that today's sales managers must attend to. Even better is the fact that Dave shares his considerable insight and experience on every topic. In my view, this is the best aspect of the book. Dave is seriously street smart and has a knack for distilling a principle down to its essence. The book is oozing with quick axioms that get right to the point. It's tight, salient and concise. Dave is not afraid to state his opinions and in my view they are all right on the mark.You can't walk away from Survival Guide without a clear understanding of your priorities as a manager. 50% of your time should be spent with your reps. This is the highest payoff of your time. I would argue that how to prioritize our time as managers is probably the most challenging day-to-day issue we deal with. Dave tells us right where to put the "X" on our priorities and then contrasts that will all of the other things vying for our time.New managers might find Survival Guide a splash of cold water to the face. Dave does not candy-coat how challenging it can be to be field marshal in today's selling world. The rescue is that part-one of the book is devoted specifically to first-time sales managers - which also makes a great on-ramp to the advice in the rest of the book.The coaching section was one of my favorites in the book. "Coaching is the single most important skill for your future." Sadly coaching almost never done (or never done correctly) and most of us have few role models we can emulate. Coaching is not training, and it's not about fixing people either. Coaching is about helping people solve their own problems, and helping them become what they are capable of becoming. This is a great section and Dave covers all of the bases here: How to coach, directive & non-directive coaching, specific questions you should be asking, structuring your coaching, setting an example and how and when to find time to coach.Some of my other favorite parts include Dave's discussion of the pitfalls of forecasting and how forecasting differs from pipeline. In the section on setting quotas and pipeline Dave offers some excellent insight on how quotas and pipeline requirements should be defined. Performance reviews, hiring and firing all come with the territory and Dave shares street smart approaches that have been clearly learned from the school of hard knocks. The section on metrics is a good one and Dave discusses some commonly used metrics that are terrible and then offers an excellent framework for reporting metrics, then explains how these can be adapted to your organization. The book goes deep here and then slides nicely in to how to use all this for forecasting.In the sections on time management, sales enablement and pitfalls to avoid Dave does what he does throughout and that means sharing practice advice on what works and doesn't work in each of these areas. There is nothing vague here. Do this. Don't do that. There is no confusion. These issues are so important right now and so easy to get wrong that this section alone is worth the price of the book. It's obvious by now that Sales Manager Survival Guide - Lessons from Sales' Front Lines exceeded my expectations. Maybe it's just me, but I really dig Dave's style of writing. Those who like long stories or case studies may not enjoy it as much as I did. What I did enjoy was pure, valuable content - distilled. As a reader that makes the most of my time reading and I appreciate that in his writing style. The practical advice in this book is rare and it's rarer still to find it all in one place. I have no hesitation recommending the Sales Manager Survival Guide to anyone in or considering sales management today.

This is a great book full of practice advice and guidance for Sales Managers. I like the way that Dave writes – it’s clear, succinct, and to the point. Key points are bulleted and/or in bold print. The book is easily structured to be a reference guide – just turn to the appropriate topic/chapter that you need, as you need it.My favorite sections are:• The 30-60-90 days of being a new manager. This section provides great guidance on what to focus on for the first 30 days, then the 30-60 day timeframe, and then the 60-90 day timeframe. It can be overwhelming to be a new sales manager, and this guidance helps you to focus on the few critical area for each of these timeframes.• Coaching. Dave’s guidance of spending 50% of your time with the reps struck me as very realistic in gaining good results, and in coaching/developing your reps. I’ve seen time and time again where managers let the ‘management’ side of reporting, metrics, reporting, etc. take so much of their time, and the reps aren’t getting the guidance they need.• Feedback. The guidelines he includes for both giving and receiving feedback are very powerful. I like his Feedback Guidelines checklist, and have dog-eared the page in my book.This is the type of book where you can read (or refer to it) multiple times. Each time I look at it, I gleam something new. It’s good for managers at all walks of their sales management journey – both new and experienced managers.

Clearly a useful book, got a lot of applicable tips as myself being a newly promoted manager. The top advantage is that it allows you to come back to the specific topics very easily afterwards, just like a user manual, thanks to laser focus structure and content going 360 degrees.However, I would take out a few chapters (8,9) at the end, too much on the surface and somehow off track.

I loved David's tactical breakdown of the Sales Manager Survival Guide. For new reps being promoted to management this is a must read. I also believe for tenured managers this is a great guide to get you back on track when you sometimes stray. Many insights on the importance of coaching your team as well, this is an overlooked but heavily impactful process when done right.

This is an incredibly useful book to read if you need to make sense out of the chaotic life of a First Line Sales Manager (FLSM). Would deserve being translated in other languages than English!

Absolutely love this book.I wish I've had this 10 years ago. Get this book if you're a new sales manager or even if you're already in the job for a longer time.During my sales career I never really had mentors who understood the craft of sales management (most of them were good salespeople who got promoted because of their sales skills, not management skills), without a proper notion of coaching. So for me this is a book that provides a framework that can make you the manager you wish you've had.

This book isn't full of colourful anecdotes of how the author saved the sales world but instead its a full of practical advice on how to run a sales team. There is a section on coaching that is pretty comprehensive on the practical application of coaching. And sections on reviews, recruiting / onboarding, performance management, business management, sales enablement, etc.While I've given it five stars that is for the content and not the editing. Sadly there are quite a few errors in the book with missing words or letters which is abit annoying given the quality of the content.

David A Brock will win you over from the first lesson. From how to start your new role as a Sales Manager to how to manage as a seasoned one, this book had it all covered. Priortising your work, review mechanism, effectively coaching your teams, performance reviews, hiring the best, training, managing your manager .....you name it, you have it. This book has really helped me to focus on the key things, which I Would have learned the hard way. I can't thank Dave for putting his invaluable experience for people like me to use as day to day reference. Buy this, Read This, Study, Practice and Keep it with you in office for daily reference. Go ahead get your self the survival guide you need: MUST BUY👌👍👏👏👏👏