Sales Activity Management is more than a name
At SAM, we believe so firmly that managing activities leads to success, we named our company after the concept. Our name represents our belief that we all have the potential to achieve great things, and that activity management doesn't leave success to chance. It’s a concept that inspires, builds confidence, empowers and helps people become their best. Our team is field driven. We believe every sales professional deserves the best tools and leadership to help them succeed and grow.
Our goal: Make success available to everyone.
Our mission: Inspire confidence and success by providing the most effective activity management resources available anywhere.
At SAM we’re proud to say our products and system help more than 55,000 clients every day!
What is SAM?
Put simply, SAM is the world’s leading provider of custom activity management tools, systems, and training services that help sales professionals and managers Succeed on Purpose™.
SAM Today
As technology has advanced, so has the SAM system. eScoreBoard, now in its fourth version, is complemented by eRecruitBoard. These online tools are customized around recruiting and incentive management needs.
In 2003, the Client Development Services division was opened in the Philadelphia office to provide a vast array of training and consulting services to assist clients in integrating the tools and the SAM System.
The mission of SAM — to inspire confidence and success by providing the most effective activity management resources available anywhere — remains the same. SAM was launched to make a difference in the careers of new and veteran producers and the managers who lead them. Headquartered just outside Chicago, the SAM team is proud to give its growing client base of 55,000 the freedom to dream and the ability to succeed on purpose.
What is the SAM System?
The SAM System is a collection of self-accountability tools, and a methodology, that come together to help you focus, plan, implement and maintain the activities necessary to acquire and serve clients. The elements of the system work together to help you establish good work habits, and become more focused, organized, responsible, and productive.
Philosophy
Sales Activity Management is more than just our name, it is the belief that we all have the potential to achieve great things and activity management doesn't leave success to chance. It is a concept that inspires, builds confidence, empowers and helps people become their best.
We are a field-driven company that believes every sales professional deserves the best tools and leadership to help them succeed and grow. Our goal is to make success available to everyone.
The SAM Team
The SAM executive team, along with talented support staff in Chicago, Philadelphia and North Carolina, are always ready to serve you.
Mickey Straub, President and Founder
In 1995 Mickey launched SAM to provide sales professionals and managers the tools and leadership they need to succeed. Mickey felt then, as he does now, that low performance and high turnover is expensive both financially and emotionally, and he built the SAM system to overcome those challenges.
Under Mickey’s philosophies and leadership, SAM has grown 50% annually, and now has more than 55,000 clients across the country. With offices in Chicago and Philadelphia, as well as a printing and fulfillment center in North Carolina, SAM continues to grow at a rapid pace.
Mickey has great passion for writing and speaking, and is a lector, election judge, community organizer and industry contributor. Mickey was recently elected to the board of NAIFA-Chicago (National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors).
Paul Lee, Vice President of Client Development
Responsible for driving day-to-day product sales, and sales operational areas, Paul’s focus is on SAM's mission of helping sales professionals succeed and managers lead. To accomplish this, Paul provides the most effective activity management solutions available anywhere. Prior to joining SAM, Paul spent 15 years in sales and management across the enterprise software and financial service industry.
Tim Straub, Vice President of Technology
Tim joined SAM in 2002 and proceeded to develop and implement the eScoreBoard and eRecruitBoard tools. With a commitment to inspire clients with secure and innovative product lines, Tim brings extensive experience across the business, marketing, and IT consulting spectrum.
History
Mickey Straub, the founder of SAM, built the company from his own personal experience with sales and activity management.
After studying many of the most successful sales leaders and organizations in the country, he became convinced that you can't manage time — at least not literally — you can only manage activities.
Mickey looked back at the times he had the most sales success and found that it was always a result of when he was very focused and kept close track of how many clients and prospects he was calling on daily. He then realized that if he could help provide better tools and coaching for salespeople and managers, he could make a great impact on the sales profession, and the lives and careers of all those involved.
Thus, SAM was launched on April 15, 1995 after more than a year of testing the concepts and tools that grew out of Mickey’s extensive research. The first SAM planners – or SAM Books as they became known – had a built-in sales system, and were envisioned to become to the sales profession what Franklin Planner organizers had become to the general public.
To make this happen, Mickey knew it was essential to communicate with his first clients and obtain feedback on how SAM Books were working for them. Through these discussions, Mickey decided to customize SAM Books around a company’s culture, systems and terminology.
Customization has since been a consistent element to SAM’s success and when Mickey’s nephew, Tim Straub, joined the team and built a customizable, web-based system called eScoreBoard, popularity and usage of SAM Books soared and the entire SAM system was born.
"Just do it or I'll get someone else!"
One turning point in Mickey's life that prompted him to start the company came after a conversation he had with his boss, in which he asked him for advice to help get himself back on track. His boss replied, "Just do it or I'll get someone else!" He realized at that moment that his boss didn't have the answers, and instead relied upon (and perhaps hid behind) an authoritarian approach to motivate. What he was looking for was guidance and ideas on better ways he could run his business. What he got was a threat to "do the job or else."
Unfortunately, it was the standard reaction given to salespeople that he had heard many times before. It wasn't that his managers were bad guys, they just didn't have the answers and were unable to train, mentor and provide a step-by-step roadmap for success that was transferable to the next new salesperson. Instead, they managed the way they were managed and what worked for them, focusing strictly on results, and leaving the rest to chance. "It was survival of the fittest," he thought and, "no wonder why turnover was so high in the company." From that moment on, he realized that if he could help provide better tools and coaching for new salespeople and managers, he could make a great impact on the sales profession, and the lives and careers of all those that follow. If only he could find the answers, perhaps he could help future salespeople shorten the learning curve, as well as avoid many of the pitfalls and frustrations he experienced during his early years.
Mickey started looking for answers, studying the great minds of the past and present, searching for a better roadmap for success that would help future salespeople while simultaneously moonlighting and building the company after hours. It was during those times that he first realized the benefits of activity management, especially after learning about several of the most successful companies in the country that credit their culture of activity management as being a major cause of their success. And another quote kept re-surfacing. "We reap what we sow." He knew the concept of sowing and reaping had been around for centuries. It was Biblically based and couldn't be denied, especially when it came to sales. He knew he was on to something that was so simple, yet revolutionary, and became determined to bring it to fruition.
During one of the motivational seminars Mickey attended, he heard that there are only two primary motivators of all human beings, that of pain and pleasure. More specifically, it was the desire to avoid pain or gain pleasure. He had plenty of both that motivated him to start the company. One positive motivator was that if he could help people internalize the benefits of sowing and reaping when it came to sales, perhaps that concept would benefit them in their personal lives as well. The rest, as they say, is history. The core products his company provides have become more advanced over the years, but the reasons why they are in business have not changed. Take a moment and visit the many parts of our website and review our products and services to see if we can be of service in helping you achieve your goals. Take note of our phenomenal client list and read the wonderful testimonials.
Our goal is your success.
What is Activity Management?
Activity management can be likened to a road map to success. Managing activities provides opportunities that empower you to avoid roadblocks by focusing on the activities necessary to get you where you want to go. Utilizing activity management helps you plan how you will achieve and maintain success by knowing the number of high-payoff activities that must be executed for goal achievement
Basically, it puts you in control and makes you responsible for your results.
What industries can benefit from Activity Management?
It may sound gratuitous, but the truth is that Activity Management knows no industry boundaries! What began with a focus on the financial services, insurance, and banking industries, has grown into a system applicable to sales professionals and managers from all walks of life.
Why? Because across all industries, one thing stands true: activities produce results. Improve activities and results follow.
No matter your position or the industry you work in, our goal is your success. That hasn’t changed since our inception in 1995. SAM has been helping sales professionals and managers from all walks of life access the tools, systems and leadership they need – and deserve – to build a successful business and career. And we can help you, too!