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(Updated January 9, 2018.
The show notes for this podcast have been updated from the original but not the podcast itself. I wanted to include more information than originally posted. I felt it would be helpful as we look back at some of the most important and useful concepts for a sales manager.)
Business owners hire lawyers to handle legal issues and accountants to help with finance. So why don’t they seek out help for sales issues?
As a consultant and management coach, I work one-on-one with managers, to help address their challenges. The coaching process consists of weekly calls. In each call, we discuss the issues that keep them from achieving better results.
During the first few weeks the calls are more frequent. The initial phase of a coaching consultation features more than one call per week. We spend three to four hours (per week) evaluating and regulating a typical sales process.
Our discussions center around the same topics we cover in Sales Management Workshop. So today, I want to take you through some of the key areas I’ve covered.
The Sales Manager
The sales manager has one job; to build and lead a group of people that generate revenue.
The issue is that most live in a vacuum. Their professional world exists within the walls of their company.
Many managers become so consumed with the day-to-day challenges of creating revenue, that they stop growing as a manager.
If you’re listening to this podcast or reading this post, you haven’t. You understand that you need to constantly look for ways to develop yourself and your team
The first thing that I tell my clients is to start reading and listening. Consume any information that helps you grow and develop.
From time to time, I recommend books to sales managers. You can buy them with my affiliate link to Amazon, or go to a bookstore. I do receive a small commission when you use my links. I don’t care how you get them, just get them and start to build your library and knowledge base.
For Sales Managers To Grow, Change Is Required
Change can be one of the biggest challenges sales leaders face. Even when they know what they are doing isn’t working, they keep doing it. People fear change, but without change, you can’t evolve.
Sometimes change is required even when things are going well. If you haven’t had a chance to read the book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t by Jim Collins. The first two paragraphs of the first chapter sum up the entire premise of the title. This is what it says:
‘Good is the enemy of great. And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great.’
“We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don’t have great government principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because they settle, it is easy to settle for a good life.”
“The vast majority of companies never become great, precisely because the vast majority become quite good – and that is their main problem.”
If you have this book on your shelf, dust it off and give it a second read. Here is the link to Good to Great on Amazon.
I want you to think about where changes might work for you:
- In business you are either going up or down. Where do you stand?
- Nothing stays the same, unless it’s resting at the bottom. Where do you stand?
- Change is always needed. What areas of change would you like to see?
- Don’t get paralyzed by your current situation. What part of your business has you paralyzed?
- Take action today to change what isn’t working or change what is working to make it better. What would you like to change today?
Leadership
The first thing I want you to think about is your leadership. We have talked about leadership several times at Sales Management Workshop. The ability to leadership important to any sales manager
Many sales managers obtained their position because they were the top salesperson in the organization. That’s how I got my first sales management job. Those individuals were top producers because of hard work, persistence, and an overwhelming desire to win. This is a noteworthy individual achievement.
The issue is that when many of these high achievers move into management, they still work as an individual. Here is some of the information on leadership we have published at Sales Management Workshop.
“An Introduction To The Sales Management Workshop”
“How To Deal With Sales Burnout”
“Leadership The Key To Sales Management Success”
The important lesson is that a sales managers job is to get work done through others. That’s what leaders do.
Success as a sales manager requires competent and motivated leadership. Your team, its production, and its competency won’t show through just because you’re the boss.
Great Leaders Serve
Sales team performance improves based on your ability to lead. Another book that I would highly recommend is The Secret: What Great Leaders Know — And Do (Third Edition) by Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller. This isn’t a new book, but the concept of leadership isn’t new either.
In the book, the president of the company is coaching a newly appointed manager. In one of the first sessions they talked about leadership. The mentee asked, “So how do I become a great leader?”
To demonstrate, the president used the example of an iceberg. Like an iceberg, leadership has two components.
When you look at the iceberg you only see about 20% of it on top of the water. That’s what people see of a leader and he labeled it as the actions or activities people see from a leader.
Most of the iceberg, 80 percent was under water. That’s the part that people can’t see, the part that sinks ships. The 80 percent represents a person’s character. People can’t see it, but it is the major component of an iceberg and a leader.
Both parts are important, but in choosing a leader, more weight was given to character over skill. Why? Because the secret is that great leaders serve. How can you serve the people you lead? There are lots of ways.
- Serve by providing a plan to follow.
- Serve by providing the training they need to succeed.
- Serve by helping them develop their sales skills, not just their product knowledge.
- Serve them by providing coaching to grow and prosper.
- Serve buy providing leadership.
Strategic Planning For The Sales Manager
When you look at a sales leader, or manager, you would assume that they have developed a plan for their team to follow.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States and a five star general. This is a famous quote in his speech to the National Defense Executive Reserve Conference in 1957,
“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”
If you expect people to follow you, give them a plan. Leaders have established goals for the team and each of its members. They also have a plan to help them achieve those goals.
A good sales plan has many parts. They could include:
- Profiling your ideal customers
- Knowing where they are
- Knowing why they buy
- Understanding your market
- Territory design
- Territory planning
- Sales process implementation
- Managing the your process
- Understanding your sales matrix
- How to build your sales plan
Hiring For Sales Management Success
I have never seen a successful sales manager that didn’t have successful salespeople. When I talk to managers about hiring, I always ask one question, “How many hall of fame coaches do you know of that didn’t have hall of fame players?”
If you want to build a team of high achievers you need a hiring process. You can’t just take the first person that walks through the door.
Before you start the hiring process you need to know what type of salesperson you are looking for. You also have to have a plan for how they will be trained and supported.
A key is to look for salespeople that are motivated to succeed. This one attribute is far more valuable than experience. You can teach someone your products or services. What you can’t teach is their self-motivation. We have produced several podcasts or blogs related to hiring you may want to reference:
“Hiring Salespeople As Employees Or Independent Contractors”
“The Sales Interview – Telephone Screening”
“The Sales Interview, Get Ready, Get Set, Go Do A Good Sales Interview”
On Boarding New Salespeople
It’s important that you get your new salespeople off to a proper start.
The most important time for a new salesperson is when they first come on board.. The first 90-days sets the stage for their long-term success. Don’t hire anyone until you know how you are going to get him or her up to speed and productive as soon as possible. If you want your salespeople to make it, lay out a good 30, 60, 90, and 120 day plan for their development.
We devoted two podcasts to sales on boarding:
“Sales On Boarding Part One – The Introduction”
“Sales On Boarding Process Part Two: Developing Your On Boarding Program”
ABC, “Always Be Coaching”
There is a movie produced in 1992 called Glengarry Glen Ross. In the movie, Alec Baldwin played the role of the sales manager. One of the key lines, in his speech to the sales team was “ABC means Always Be Closing.” For managers I say, ABC means “Always Be Coaching.”
Even your best salespeople need a coach. Even sales managers need coaches. Michael Jordan needed a coach and he is considered to be one of the best basketball player ever.
Most major corporations have coaches for their executives. Coaches for people making millions of dollars a year. In my practice, I coach some sales managers that are very successful. The have a coach to help them achieve what they couldn’t achieve alone. This is no different than your salespeople.
Remember, ABC, Always Be Coaching.
- Coach in one-on-one sessions with your team to better help them with their challenges.
- Coach in the field so that you can observe and coach them through their challenges.
- Coach in you meetings. Have well-planned and executed sales meetings that help them resolve common issues.
We publish a lot on coaching and will continue to do so. If you missed any of our material on coaching, you should check them out. Some of this information was published after the original publish date for this podcast.
“SMW 008 TEAM COACHING – THE SALES MEETINGS”
“SMW_010 FIELD SALES COACHING, THE RIDE ALONG AND THE COACHING PROCESS”
“SMW_011 INTRODUCTION – SALES ONE-ON-ONES”
“SMW_012 SALES COACHING, TO MAXIMIZE SALES PERFORMANCE, YOU HAVE TO COACH”
“SMW_021 A FEEDBACK SYSTEM FOR SALES MANAGERS TO IMPROVE SALES PERFORMANCE”
Find A Mentor
The last thing I wanted to say is find a mentor. Having people you can trust and respect on your side is invaluable. I would suggest you sit down and develop a list of people that you can talk with and share ideas.
I’m talking about a list of mentors that you can go to for advice. When building your list of mentors, remember:
- Look inside and outside of your organization
- Look for mentors to help you manage the stress of the job
- Look for mentors to help develop as a leadership
- Look for mentors to help you grow professionally
Conclusion
Becoming a successful sales manager requires a lot. Our goal here is to provide you with some of the questions and hopefully answers to your sales management questions. Try to put into practices some of them:
- Build your support system. If you need a coach for yourself, get one.
- If you don’t have a coach, find one.
- Don’t be afraid to make changes.
- If it isn’t working, don’t wait, seek out answers and try something different.
- If it’s going good, think about how you can make it great.
- Planning – have a plan for your team to follow.
- Hiring – Have a hiring process that insures you get the players you need to make your team a winner.
- On boarding – get them started the right way. This will reduce incompetence, turnover, and wasted time and money.
- Be a coach – help them to develop and grow and you’ll become a superstar.
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