10 Ways Management Can Improve How it Works with Sales

Too many times Management winds up getting in the way of Sales and winds up either damaging a customer relationship, or worse yet, damaging the sales force, making them less effective.

Below are 10 things Management should be doing on a regular basis to improve both the sales team and volume.

I’ll be discussing these in-depth during a very special free video webinar I’m doing for Salesforce on Dec. 10 titled High-Profit Selling: How Leaders Impact Their Teams' Success.   You’ll want to make sure to watch it either live or via a recording. Either way, you’ll need to sign up now.

10 Things Management Needs to do:

1. Make customer visits at the start of the fiscal year to help uncover new strategic opportunities Sales will be able to leverage during the year to come.

1. When meeting with the senior management of big customers, be sure to say how you will have your account manager follow-up directly with them. This is a perfect way to allow an account manager to develop a working relationship with the top management of big customers.

1. Make customer calls with salespeople but determine in advance what your role is and what questions you will be asking.

1. When making sales calls with a salesperson, allow them to control 100% of the call. It’s the salesperson’s job to introduce you, start the sales calls, and most important of all, to ask for the order. If it becomes your sales call, you will undermine the credibitliy of the salesperson with the customer.

1. Never email a customer, regardless of who it is, without ensuring the salesperson is included in the CC. In the body of the email, include the name of the salesperson to help the customer know that you view the salesperson as an extension of you.

1. Before starting to develop next year’s plan, actively gain input from the sales team, customers, and overall industry.   The sales team will embrace the plan and objectives far more if they feel they were able to contribute to it.

1. Recognize outstanding performance by salespeople. They might be several steps below you in the organizational structure, but by you taking the time to recognzize their efforts in an email, meeting, etc., it will show them you support them.

1. Do not communicate directly with salespeople lower down in the organization. Use the proper channel by keeping their sales managers involved.   Going around sales managers is a very destructive behavior that goes on in far too many companies, large and small.

1. Be pro-active in wanting to meet with customers. Never allow either your lack of sales experience or demands of the job to serve as an excuse to not be in front of customers. Make customer visits part of your annual objectives. It might be one customer visit per month or one per week, but regardless of the number, set a goal and achieve it.

1. Respect the sales organization in the same way you respect other departments in the company. Too many senior managers look at salespeople as if they’re some sort of a lower-level professional than others. That type of an attitude reveals itself far more than one might think.

Management plays a much bigger role in building or destroying sales than most companies realize.

Don't forget to sign up to get view the video webinar of me discussing this subject in-depth on Dec. 10. You won't regret it!

Mark Hunter "The Sales Hunter" author of High-Profit Selling, recognized globally for his insights on sales.  He travels more than 200 days per year speaking to organizations on selling in today's market.  www.TheSalesHunter.com.