Press Release 5-12

For immediate release

Charlotte Sales Productivity Coach-Lion Tamer Celebrates Five Years in Business

From sales manager to lion tamer.

That’s been Philippe Le Baron’s path the first five years of being in business for himself.

But he sees little if any difference between the two professions. That’s because, “I liken the relationship between sales manager and sales team individual to that of lion tamer and lion,” says Le Baron, president of LB4G Consulting, an international sales productivity firm based in Charlotte.

Whereas virtually every training program for the sales industry focuses on sales and leadership skills, Le Baron has built his business by homing in exclusively on  sales managers’ habits.

“Sales managers are the toughest people to coach,” Le Baron adds. “They are notoriously resistant to change and they tend not to get much support once they reach that level. And when they do, they soon realize that the sales people they are now leading  are pretty unique animals — independent, aggressive and not always the best team players.”

The French-raised, Charlotte-based  Le Baron recently celebrated his fifth anniversary in local Gallic style. Heavy hors d’oeuvres et vin were served to clients and strategic partners at SouthPark’s Cafe Monte.

After focusing initially on small businesses following his move to the U.S., Fortune 500 companies are more and more embracing Le Baron’s unique and proprietary methodology, originally outlined in his 2009 book, “1+1+1=4!®,” subtitled, “The Winning Formula for Rising Sales Managers: The Art & Science of Getting 100% of Your Reps @ Goal.”

And to help make the process resonate better with sales managers, Le Baron has implemented a colorful and somewhat theatrical circus analogy.  Indeed, Le Baron promotes a Lion Tamer’s marketing approach (with himself as “The Lion Tamer/Lion Whisperer” in his webinars and blog videos.)

Le Baron’s global client list includes Sonoco, Oracle, Total Energy and Gas, Herrmann International and NCR. But he hasn’t abandoned the small business owner, having created a “911 Sales Management Hotline” for them. Down the road, Le Baron sees this small business arena as being particularly ripe for franchise development.

“The first five years certainly weren’t without their times of stress,” Le Baron notes, “but if anyone doubts whether America is still the land of opportunity, they’d better think again : Despite having started in the middle of a recession, I could never have achieved what I have achieved anywhere else on this planet and the next five years are ripe with promise.”

And as long as Le Baron doesn’t need a whip and chair to meet the challenges ahead, he figures to do just bien.

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EMC was one of the few companies I saw who was using this function in order to accelerate Change from within.

The key is to use your sales productivity manager, when you have one, to focus mostly on the front line sales managers. Ideally she/he should report to the VP Sales and be measured by specific metrics which are aligned with some of the front line sales managers’ metrics (in order to guarantee consistency with her/his “clients” ‘goals)  and to add SPM specific metrics that compensates the success of the sales productivity manager based also on the percentage of sales people making goal. Therefor he/she works at 3 levels to accelerate change where needed : At the VP sales level to be his/her change acceleartor – the partnership should be extremely strong at that level because the sales productivity manager has no real power whatsoever except being the #2 of the VP Sales. Now if the sales productivity manager does his/her job right, change will accelerate thanks to his/her push from  below at the sales manager and also sometimes at the rep level, and when change happens people usually resist it…so he needs to be clearly backed up by the VP Sales to help everyone make the right steps on their individual change journey without stopping.

When done right this transversal function can become a great asset to drive any kind of sales transformation by being plugged in the field teams and by adding value where needed and when needed during weekly execution processes therefore without the need to take people off the field (on the job coaching & training). The reason not many companies really use this yet is because the job profile is hard to define and qualified candidates are rare : it’s training, coaching, change management and consulting all at the same time and 80% of it is focused on the Lion Tamers who are very busy people especially when they are in the cage…

The only way the SPM can earn credibility, trust and therefore mindshare and attention from her/his “clients Lion Tamers” (so that they can transform) is by also stepping in the cage not only to observe and to coach but also to act with the lions themselves sometimes and  always making sure THE Lion tamer (NOT her/him…) gets the credit and always gets the light. This is still a very dangerous exercise for many…but real sales transformation that will remain self sustainable over time can only happen that way.

]]> http://lb4gconsulting.com/sales-productivity-management/2012/05/07/sales-transformation-practice-accelerate-change-with-a-sales-productivity-manager/feed/ 0 http://lb4gconsulting.com/have-fun-with-the-sales-productivity-chef/2012/05/04/tgif-making-sales-leadership-fun/ http://lb4gconsulting.com/have-fun-with-the-sales-productivity-chef/2012/05/04/tgif-making-sales-leadership-fun/#comments Fri, 04 May 2012 20:16:13 +0000 http://lb4gconsulting.com/?p=3483

Here I am live from the Ringling Bros and Barnum&Bailey Circus, preparing for the interview…

Dear Lion Tamer friends,

Thank you for your help over the last 5 years. We had a little celebration yesterday at Cafe Monte in Charlotte,NC for LB4G’s anniversary of 5 years in business !

I would never have made it that far without each and everyone of you when I got off the boat from France 4 years ago to start a business with one idea, a lot of passion and a recession ready to hit Charlotte, North Carolina…

We were so busy having FUN last night that I forgot to mention my latest VP sales training program (a prelude to my upcoming online CD/DVD products) and an invitation to James Malinchak’s next BiGMoney Speaker bootcamp if you want to learn HOW to excel at speaking in public (a $3000 value). I recently hired James as my coach to help me build out other revenue streams for my business through keynotes and speaking engagements and I highly recommend him – there are many charlatans out there on the speaking market but he is one of the good guys, and he is also a rising star in the Internet online marketing Gurus world…

See you next year! I am working (hard) on getting more of my european clients over this side of the pond too…

Keep those smiles on your faces and remember to think of me when you hear of a lion tamer who is in trouble, (I saved 3 more of them last year thanks to my “Saving Private Ryan coaching program”…)
Philippe
PS : find attached a few souvenirs from our get together, “Taming Lions” is one of the most exciting and toughest jobs on the planet but it should also be FUN, I guess we led by example yesterday!

I have a dream that a day will come when college kids will be able to take sales 101, 201,301 401,501… in class and will be able to graduate in sales by learning processes, psychology, change management, communication skills, listening skills, entrepreneurship, empathy, neuro plasticity, making a difference,…

I have a dream that one day, real sales management courses will also be given in college and will add real value to front line sales managers (not the usual 50’000 foot view strategic marketing stuff given by PhDs with bow ties who never led a sales team in their lives),

I have a dream that one day, a child will be able to go to his parents and say “Dad I want to become a salesman and help change the world to make it a better place” and his mom and dad will smile back at him and tell him “Son, we are proud of you”…

What is your dream?

Make it a great week end !