Lance left this second engineering job and Shaklee to teach business and professional speaking and direct the theatre program at a community college and the Knoxville Young People’s Theatre. Still dissatisfied, however, he soon left the college and started a sales training business as an independent distributor for Ron Willingham’s Salestraining, Inc., which later became Integrity Training Systems.
Though Lance had no contacts and this tough field was built around cold calling, he had finally found his passion. With a little cash and a lot of prayer, he slowly built a sales consultancy business and trained salespeople in their face-to-face skills. Six great years with Ron taught Lance the importance of six-to-eight-week follow-up sessions with sales managers and their salespeople. The new habits that took root as a result led to increased sales. With the right coaching, dedicated salespeople were doubling their numbers within weeks.
He began to identify other problems within his clients’ organizations. Some had no sales planning or strategy. If they did have good sales plans, they often failed to manage the sales required by them. Even worse, many managers did not know how to inspire, coach, or lead their salespeople.
Lance took notes, read dozens of books, and designed new training solutions for his clients. This process led his business to new products designed to fix these problems: Beyond Quota Sales Management, Sell with CLASS, and Recruit and Coach the Best.
He eventually partnered with Steve Suggs, a former Northwestern Mutual Agency Manager, and since then they have grown SalesManage Solutions into an international sales management training company serving executive sales leaders, managers of the managers, and C-level executives.