Patricia Sherlock

“Take steps to expose your people and yourself to the best ideas and see to it that they are trained in how to apply them.” — Peter Drucker In our industry, many managers mistakenly believe that coaching involves motivating or counseling sales employees. However, coaching is really a process to improve the sales person’s performance […]

“Make decisions on people your top priority.” — Peter Drucker When a sales person is under-performing, many managers often implement a training solution as a next step. However, there are cases when training is not the answer. The reality is that not every sales person is a match for the business. This means that the

“If performance is to be improved, we need to define clearly what ‘performance’ means.” — Peter Drucker At a number of the companies I visit, the prevailing wisdom is often to let each sales person sell according to his or her preference. If corporate steps in and puts a sales structure or system in place,

“Maximize the wealth-producing capacity of the enterprise.” — Peter Drucker Amid the changing landscape of the financial services industry, I believe the companies who increase their percentage of top performers will come out ahead. The reason? As a matter of course, top producers are not only adept at figuring out how to deal with challenging

“Only when knowledge is used as the foundation for skill does it become productive.” — Peter Drucker Companies that want to stay on the leading edge must be committed to not only hiring better quality sales people but to providing ongoing training for current hires for best results. The first step in effective training is

“Assumptions about environment, mission and core competencies must fit reality.” — Peter Drucker In my consulting business, I see financial firms employing the standard solutions or what I call the “usual fixes” to improve results. These include new CRM systems, faster origination systems, one-day sales training workshops and increased advertising to name a few. While

“The greatest and most dangerous turbulence today results from the collision between the delusions of the decision-makers and the realities.” — Peter Drucker I recently watched the movie “The Social Network” about the founding of Facebook. To me, most interesting was Mark Zuckerberg’s willingness to make dramatic changes from the status quo at critical points

“Make systematic improvement a priority.” — Peter Drucker Why do companies fail? According to the Harvard Business School, one of the most prevalent reasons is assuming that what worked in the past will work in the future. One small example is how managers conduct conference calls. Many don’t prepare properly for the calls even though

“Every organization needs one core competence: innovation.” — Peter Drucker According to Harvard Business School, one of the main reasons companies fail is when “the way we’ve always done it” becomes the norm. Most firms make incremental changes but the fact of the matter is the business “model” has changed significantly. Firms who fail to

“In a period of rapid structural change, the only ones who survive are the change leaders.” — Peter Drucker In the financial services industry, there is only one aspect that remains constant: change. The external environment is in a continual state of flux. What appears to be a calm market is really the status quo