Why Sales Mgt Succeeds or Fails

Many sales managers seem not to understand what the role entails. They do things because they have seen their predecessors doing them and are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past because they lack the experience or strategic guidance to do otherwise. Sales leaders often focus on the wrong things and unwittingly promote counterproductive behaviours. Management is like a mirror; the reflection you see is your own. Breaking this vicious cycle to leave the millstone of historic sub-optimal performance behind you is essential.?

Great sellers don't always make good sales managers. Many organizations force their high performers into sales management roles when they would be better left as individual contributors. This is not to say that sellers who want to go into sales management should be discouraged. It is more that sellers who wish to remain in the field should not be disparaged or looked down upon for their choices and perceived “lack of ambition”.?

Attrition is not always a bad thing. Particularly in the sales arena. Sellers that cut their teeth selling your stuff may outgrow your offering’s potential and require new (and bigger) challenges to help them to grow and refine / hone their selling skills and realise their potential. Good sales managers will embrace these individuals and work them as hard as they can for as long as they can before sending them on their way with their very best wishes.?

Sales management roles are sometimes seen as a refuge where poorer performers can hide amongst the aggregated contributions of their broader team mates. Sellers that couldn’t sell themselves often struggle to support their subordinates effectively and typically lack the credibility they need to drive their team to success.?

Many sales managers over focus on the administrivia and become little more than spreadsheet jockeys, drum bangers and checklist-tickers. Driving activity isn’t the job. Driving seller effectiveness is. Good managers will focus on efficacy, efficiency and effectiveness. Promoting the “right” behaviours and driving the sales team to do the things they need to do that deliver results better is what matters most.?

Assuring process governance is a critical part of the sales management role it is much much more than just asking the team “How’s it going?” periodically. The difference between a manager that’s playing at governance and one that is doing their job is two simple words… “Show me”. “Show me” requires your subordinate to demonstrate what they're telling you is real. “Tell me” lets them know that they can get away with spinning you a yarn.?

No sales manager knows it all. The knowledge half-life for sales skills is very very short. The moment one crosses the floor from seller to manager, the relevance of one's personal sales experience begins to deteriorate exponentially. Good managers know that they must continually learn from their team and their peers if they are to remain relevant and useful. Sales managers should be in the business of good practice identification and dissemination. Observing their subordinates doing what they do and highlighting bright spots and innovative approaches to the rest of the team is the way in which you can help to raise the skills of the group. If you’re not listening into a dozen or more calls a month then you’re likely to miss those early indicators of market shifts, and changing buyer behaviours or needs.?

Some sales managers get in their own way by trying to recapture the thrill of the chase that they remember from their days in the field. Vicariously getting your kicks through the endeavours of others isn’t healthy or helpful. Glory grabbers rapidly become a bottleneck to their team’s success and prevent their sellers from developing the closing skills they need. Good team managers recognize and accept that their role is to enable and support the development of the team. It’s not about them. It’s never going to be about them. It’s about the team. And it always will be. It is the job of the manager to make the team as effective as possible. The mark of a great sales manager is for their team to be confident and capable enough to continue to deliver even when the manager is not there to oversee their performance personally.?

Managing poor performers is an essential skill for any sales manager. Managing weaker members of the team up or managing them out requires a separate (but definite) set of skills. Many would-be sales managers diligently avoid the issue of performance management and instead rely upon the stronger members of the team to take up the slack and cover up the sub-par performance of their weaker colleague(s). This is unsustainable, damages the morale of the team and destroys the credibility of the manager.

Why do Sales Managers "Fail"??

If your offering is saleable; it can be sold. If your sales team isn’t selling sufficiently then it is likely that they are looking in the wrong places or they are not engaging as they should. The performance of the sales team is the responsibility of its leadership. Many sales managers focus on the wrong things. They invest time and effort driving activities that do nothing to improve sales productivity or effectiveness.

A more visual representation of the following can be found here...

The 10 character traits of ineffective sales managers include:?

Chief morale officer / Cheerleader?

• Making the team “happy” is not the primary purpose of its leader. Many sales managers focus on morale more than method. This is always a mistake. Productive teams that are performing rarely have motivational problems. Being part of a well-oiled machine that delivers is its own reward.?

Activity obsessed drum banger?

• Forcing sellers to make a fixed number of calls a day or week is rarely helpful. Mandating that they must meet with clients every X days is equally redundant. Such arbitrary targets do little to drive business or deliver results.??

The turn-around promoter?

• Encouraging sellers to persist and persevere with deals that are unlikely to happen is a waste of valuable resources. Knowing when to cut your losses and walk away is a critical skill for the sales manager to master.?

Deal closer / Glory grabber?

• Ex-sellers who miss the thrill of the chase often attempt to get their kicks by vicariously closing deals by proxy. This undermines their sellers and prevents them from developing the skills they and the business desperately needs.?

Chief excuse maker?

• There are always many plausible reasons for poor performance if someone is actively looking for them. Market conditions, competitive threats, offering related issues etc are often cited to misdirect management teams that take such explanations at face value.?

Detached dictator?

• Their “open door” policy doesn’t detract, or distract, from the fact that they see themselves as above the team and too important to be bothered with, or involved in, the details of day-to-day selling.?

Spreadsheet jockey?

• They spend more time running the numbers than managing their team. Obsessed with wringing every last dollar out of their compensation plan they focus on deal allocations and commission splits to the detriment of closing additional business.?

Peddler of platitudes?

• Always ready with a quip, a quote or a truism this sales manager utters hypothetical pseudo-wisdom that lacks the practical substance necessary to actually be useful in the field.?

Knee-jerk reactionary?

• The plan is the plan until it changes. But it must also be allowed time to bed down and deliver. Constantly switching strategy, approach, emphasis and focus is confusing and counterproductive.?

Regurgitator of garbage?

• They relay the messages from on high without adding value or context. Unfiltered pronouncements from the good intentioned don’t help sellers to close deals.?

What is the “real” role of the Sales Manager??

Sales leaders must provide the guidance and direction necessary to enable their sellers to be successful. If your sellers are successful, then your business will be successful. Managing sellers is not easy. It requires a balanced approach across multiple disciplines.?

A more visual representation of the following can be found here...

Sales Managers should be focusing their efforts in the following 10 areas:?

Rules of engagement definition?

• Setting direction is critical if you expect your team to go where you want them to go. Defining who they should be targeting, what they should be positioning and how they should engage with prospects is an essential element of the sales manager’s role.?

Baseline process development?

• Establishment of draft engagement plans or sales process models for different scenarios / situations?
• Working with sellers to refine and update baseline engagement plans based upon feedback from the field to ensure they are relevant and realistic.?
• Enabling sellers to select the most appropriate baseline plan for each engagement.?

Team capacity and competency analysis?

• High tech high consideration B2B sellers can typically handle 6-12 deals concurrently. Understanding the skills and capacity of the team and the individuals within it is essential if a manager is to allocate deals and coaching / mentoring effort appropriately.?

Bring governance to the process?

• The usage of the sales process model to manage the deal lifecycle?
• Formal qualification of deals – i.e. Zombie deal eradication!?See my previous article on continuous deal qualification here.

• Offering efficacy reviews i.e. Are sellers positioning what they should be positioning to prospects??

Support and enable sales execs?

• Role play and mentoring / coaching?
• Coaching and critiquing are two dramatically different things. Many critique in the mistaken belief that they are coaching!?
• Enabling sellers to do what they do (and to do it better) is at the very heart of sales manager’s role.?

• Discovery question development?- Helping sellers to unlock the doors, break down the defensive barriers and extract the information they need is a critical sales competency that many overlook.?

• Value story validation?- Coherently explaining why your offering matters and how it will help real people in the real world to become really successful is essential.?
• “Drop and prop” type exercises in team calls as well as anecdote sharing sessions all help sellers to refine and hone their talk tracks.?

• Objection play development?- Preparing for objections makes them less scary when they happen in the field. Having standardized objection handling plays helps sellers to see objections as an opportunity to close rather than an indicator of failure.?

Identification and dissemination of good practice?

• Regularly observing sellers in the field to see what’s working and what’s not.?
• Highlighting “bright spots” to the wider team so that everyone can benefit from the learnings of their peers.?
• Networking with their sales manager peers to expand their personal knowledgebase of understanding and approaches beyond their own limited experience.?

Acting as the formal interlock with the marketing team?

• Defining content and market intelligence requirements?
• Collaborating to turn brand and corporate messaging into usable field messaging?
• Agreeing the thresholds and qualification criteria to be applied to leads before they are handed over to the sales function?
• Supporting, and participating within, the customer reference program?

• Providing feedback on the usefulness of content assets and suggestions as to how they may be improved.?

Voice of reason / pragmatism?

• Reining in the overly optimistic, excited and exuberant to ensure that aspiration and reality collide on a regular basis.?

Performance management?

• Not every seller is going to be delivering to the required level. Managing weaker members of the team up or out is essential if team morale is to be maintained.?
• Treating people with dignity and sensitivity is mandatory. They may be in the wrong job. They may lack the pre-requisite skills or character traits. They may be experiencing issues unrelated to the role. Whatever the causes, it is the role of the sales manager to help their team to achieve and grow. If this means helping them to leave the role to find something more appropriate, then so be it.?

Culture and climate builder?

• Fostering a supportive and collaborative environment takes time and diligent conscientious effort. Months of good work can be undone in an instant with a careless word or action.?

Sales Management metrics are a big part of the problem

Revenue will always be the ultimate measure of sales success. However, it is not the only thing that matters. Not all revenue is good revenue. I know that this probably sounds naive and/or facile but please bear with me for a moment. Sales leadership isn't only there to deliver short term revenue to fend off the quarterly attentions of the investor community...

Sustainable and predictable growth requires a much wider focus. Sales management is responsible for creating, operating and maintaining the revenue generation machine that the business will depend upon for its very survival and growth.?Changing sales behaviours will require a significant change in emphasis and priorities. Changes that won't happen on their own. The status quo is an incredibly powerful and seductive force. To break the cycle, sales leaders are going to have to act differently. And their contribution to the business will have to be measured in ways that go beyond the direct revenue contribution of their immediate team...

I'll walk you through some next generation sales metrics and the measures that could / should be used to track sale manager performance in a future article...

TTFN!