The Myth of the Traveling Sales Leader

Managing a team of salespeople can be a challenging job at times. Those of us that have done it know that it can be a delicate dance of fighting fires, managing expectations, and prognostication about forecasts. It's further complicated by trying to maintain a travel schedule that allows you to "stay connected to the customer." Let's face it. The internal demands of the job can be downright maddening (no offense finance) and sometimes getting out in the field can feel like an escape! This often presents an interesting dilemma for sales leaders: do I focus my attention on setting up the right tools, processes, and conditions for my team to succeed, or do I get out there with the sales force and help them close the deal?

Now before I go any further let me clarify the intended audience for this article. First, when I talk about sales leaders, I'm speaking specifically about those individuals that manage a team of sales professionals. They come with a variety of titles: District Manager, Regional Director, Head of Sales, Team Leader, Vice-President, etc but all have the common component of people management. Second, there are huge differences in sales leadership based on the product your people sell and the industry you operate in. For the purposes of this article, I'm specifically talking about complex sales with a long sales cycle. If you find yourself in more of a transactional business characterized by a short sales cycle, call centers, and commission based compensation structures, this may not apply directly to you - but stick around - you may find something beneficial anyway.

"Ask yourself, do you honestly behave the same way when your boss is around? Neither do your people so get out of the way and let them do their jobs."

Let me use the following hypothetical example to illustrate the problem. Picture a high performing salesperson out there in your own organization. This person is respected by management and year after year somehow finds a way to be successful - even when everyone else has a bad year. You're probably picturing him or her now. As a reward for their long term sustained performance (or maybe as a retention incentive) they get promoted into a leadership job in the sales organization. At first, it seems like this is a perfect fit. Their stellar track record continues in the short term as the new leader criss-crosses the country dropping in on the members of the team, smashing sales objectives, slaying dragons and winning more favor from senior management - largely doing what they were before only now with an increased level of responsibility. Then after a couple of years, for the first time in this individual's career, they fail to meet objectives. More time goes by with more failure leaving everyone scratching their heads wondering, "What happened to our superstar?" Sadly, this situation often resolves itself by the superstar taking some sort of incentive to leave the company or leaves on their own accord and goes to work for your competitor.

So, what went wrong? As this is a hypothetical scenario we could make up any number of excuses, but you've likely already done that as this is probably all too real. We all know that guy! One way or the other, the culprit is most likely a question of priorities. Was the superstar salesperson turned leader putting the right amount of emphasis on the right things or were they "escaping to the field?" Were they spending too much time traveling and not enough time effectively managing their people and resources? This leaves us to wonder why people have such trouble adapting themselves to a new leadership role. In my experience they generally fall for one or more of the following traps:

1) Failure to Trust the Team: Few things have a more detrimental effect on the interpersonal relationships that bind people together than a lack of trust. If your sales leaders are out there accompanying their people to every customer engagement to make sure nobody makes a mistake its only a matter of time before you get that dreaded call from HR that so-and-so has left. Ask yourself, do you honestly behave the same way when your boss is around? Neither do your people so get out of the way and let them do their jobs.

2) Failure to Recognize Individual Credit: Also known as the leader that takes all the credit. You can have all the trust in the world, but if you fail to properly reward and incentivize the people that actually achieve your success your tenure will be short lived. The best leaders practice the technique of credit deflection. Anytime a leader is praised for something good, they immediately deflect the compliment to a member of the team that was responsible - even if they weren't. NOTE: You can't fake this. If you don't approach leadership from a truly thankful and appreciative heart you will fail.

3) Failure to delay gratification: This is a tough one for salespeople that are used to seeing the direct results of their efforts. Included in the transition to leadership is a focus on things like tools, process, and analysis that are harder to see the results of since they are often indirect in nature. This is why it feels good to get out in the field and be with the customer. You can hear a customer's satisfaction with something you said. You can see their facial expressions, and feel the confidence of the firm handshake closing the deal.

"If making Diamond every year is what floats your boat, I recommend therapy."

4) Some people just love travel: I'd be remiss if I didn't point this out. We all seemingly know a coworker or friend that loves to tell you about how they just passed 3 million miles or achieved lifetime platinum status at some airline or hotel chain. They also love to post photos of their feet taken from the deck chair they're sitting in with some tropical scene in the background. These folks tend to make us laugh but in reality this behavior is reflective of an over-inflated view of their own self importance. If making Diamond every year is what floats your boat, I recommend therapy. Go home. Be present in the lives of your children & family. Teach your dog to catch a Frisbee. Break 90 on the golf course. Volunteer at the local Boys & Girls Club. Above all, make sure you are grounded in your responsibilities at home.

So, if a leader has fallen for one of more of these traps, what's the remedy? Clearly you can't just abandon your travel schedule and expect things to improve. I also don't recommend barricading yourself in your office and never interacting with customers at all. There are times and circumstances when you'll need to interact with a counterpart in the customer organization that expects to talk with someone in a position of authority, and when those opportunities present themselves, take them. Be efficient about your travel so you can focus on the things that really matter - your people. In contrast to the pitfalls above, here are some things that will make you a hero Captain America (and I don't mean Patrick Reed) would be proud of:

1) Focus on Coaching: In the new economy dominated by technology and information, recognize that your most important role is to teach your salespeople how to sell, and to be connected to them in their struggles. This usually takes the form of dedicated 1:1 time with each of your salespeople, usually on a weekly basis. 30 minutes is usually enough and it can be done over the phone or on a video call. The point is to connect with your people, understand the strategy they are using, learn about the customer personalities they are interacting with, the value propositions they are tailoring for each customer, and provide them suggestions on how they can advance the sale. Make this their time. Allow the salespeople to set the agenda and don't dictate actions. You should ask probing questions to draw out the details, but don't make them follow a template.

If you need additional resources on sales coaching or how to develop salespeople, I recommend The Challenger Sales Model

2) Focus on Resources: A mentor of mine once told me that "all leaders are servants to those they lead." At first glance it seems backwards of how we typically think about supervisors and bosses. The point is, your primary job is to remove the barriers that prevent your people from succeeding. That is, focus on what you can control that makes their jobs easier. In a sales world, that's generally resources. Forecasting, CRM, expense reports, travel budgets, internal reviews, TPS reports, or whatever gets in the way of your team meeting their objectives. Put another way, sales leaders should fight the battles their people are unable to overcome. That may mean that it's you sticking your neck out instead of them - but that's the servant part.

3) Trust the Process: Like any professional endeavor, success is defined by a commitment to the everyday behaviors that make you successful. If you take any specific action and implement it by itself, it's guaranteed to fail. Likewise if you implement all of them but only perform them once, don't expect anything different. To borrow an analogy from Simon Sinek, going to the Dentist one time doesn't keep your teeth healthy. It's brushing your teeth for two minutes every day for a year combined with going to the Dentist that does. After one trip to the Dentist or one teeth brushing you won't see any results, but cumulatively over time we know that people who do both have healthier teeth. (Here's Simon Sinek's full talk: https://youtu.be/HQ8ZznC9YLw)

If you've made it this far, you have probably figured out that this article is not about business travel at all. It's about leadership priorities. It's also about distractions. (Squirrel!) We hear in sales & business development training all the time that our discipline is about relationships. What they don't tell us is which relationships are worthy of the most precious resource we have - our time. If you spend all your time visiting your customers, and no time developing your people you will fail. Conversely, if the only thing you focus on is your people and make no time to understand your customers, you will also fail. I can't prescribe what balance is appropriate for you in your organization and your industry. It's up to you to make the right choices, recognizing that your first attempt will likely be wrong and you'll have to adapt it. What you can't afford to do is fall for the trap that this article isn't about you. I'll close with a quote from my favorite golf instructor:

" If you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting." - Martin Hall

Marc is a Sales Director at a large aerospace company.  His views are his own
and in no way reflect those of his employer or any affiliated entity.