eBusiness Weekly
Sales management is one of the most difficult jobs out there. Your responsibilities span the organisation — along with the immediate head of sales or director of sales, you’re working with people in Product, Marketing, HR, Customer Care and so on.
Managers are responsible for the individual and collective success of their salespeople and the organisation as a whole. Rallying sales teams to hit their targets is no easy task, especially when every team member is motivated by different things and they are a team of star performers.
As a sales leader, success will require you to be religious to certain key habits and ability to schedule your time and ultimately your week wisely. As a team leader you are responsible for the individual and collective success of the team on a monthly, quarterly and annual basis which gravitates from hiring top talent, retaining “A” game players and collectively pushing for the drive of results.
Like any other management job, sales management comes with its own unique set of challenges. Often-times, leaders inherit a team with varying levels of experience, commitment, skill, and motivation. Learning the behaviours of each individual and determining how to effectively communicate on an individual and team basis is essential to the success of the entire organisation, hence your time should be centred on understanding these unique skills.
Today, we share some of the key elements and activities a sales manager should focus on throughout the work-week.
1. Shadow your reps every day
As a sales manager, you have an infinite number of things you could be doing. However, you should make time to shadow your reps each and every day. Why is this activity critical?
First, you can observe and then pass on best practices. Your top-performing salespeople might not know exactly what they’re doing to be so successful. But since you’re spending time with everyone, you can pick up on common trends and outlier behaviours.
Second, shadowing your reps lets you catch issues immediately — rather than several weeks or months down the line when they’re not hitting their number.
Third, you’ll save precious time in pipeline review. You won’t need the same amount of explanation or context as when deals are completely foreign to you.
Fourth, it tells your sales team that your biggest priority is their deals. They’ll reward you with their loyalty, commitment, and respect.
2. Always be recruiting
Based on where you stand regards to your team, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is waiting to recruit until you have got an open spot on your team. Usually, you won’t have quota relief: which means every day that position isn’t filled, you’re falling behind. Many managers end up settling for someone mediocre because they don’t have time to find a great candidate.
To avoid this issue, spend an hour every day recruiting, no matter what your headcount is. Go to networking events, ask your contacts for referrals, interview salespeople, add connections on LinkedIn. You’ll have a ready pipeline of potential reps when the time comes.
Consistently recruiting also encourages your current salespeople to keep working hard. After all, they’ll know they can be replaced if they stop getting results. I don’t know a single sales director who wouldn’t hire a superstar even if you’ve got a full roster. If you find someone amazing, you can ask to hire him/her.
3. Be obsessive about your time
Time management is huge in this role. In fact, many sales managers are specifically trained in managing their time.
If you have an open-door policy, I’d get rid of it immediately. Schedule “office hours” instead: Two 60-minute blocks per week during which anyone can drop by your desk or shoot you an email and get a response.
For separate questions or requests, tell your reps to book time on your calendar. This will free up hours of your schedule. Rather than being involved with every issue that comes up, your salespeople will only present the most important ones. They’ll figure out the minor questions on their own and address them, it’s also an empowering tool for them.
4. Be a micro-manager
Micro-managers often get a bad rap in business but as a sales manager, it’s key to performing your job well. You need to be in the weeds and know what’s happening on your sales floor so you can effectively make management decisions.
Your sales team needs a leader, one that doesn’t sit back and watch their team do all the work. And your leadership in one-on-one meetings and on the sales floor will show them you’re there for them, to advice and coach.
This will also alert you to issues at their start. If you’re not paying close attention to your team and their activities each day, you might miss important details that could help you address an issue before it gets out of hand.
5. Always include a finish line
Great sales managers always include a finish line when they introduce new ideas and strategies to their team. Do the same, spell it out, remind them and preach it.
For example, let’s say a sales manager’s priority is for their reps to be proficient in the product. They have an idea to set up a lunch-and-learn session with their sales team and the product manager who explains the product to the reps in detail.
If they have one lunch without any clear goals and takeaways for the lunch, the reps will question the purpose. Why should they take time out of their schedule for meetings like this in the future?
Instead, the sales manager could present the sessions to their team like so:
“We’re going to have lunch-and-learn sessions with the product manager for (product/service X) so we’re proficient in the product we’re selling. We’ll start out with two sessions over the next month, then we’ll evaluate what you’ve learned and see if we should continue this programme.”
In conclusion, setting clear time-lines and goals will help you as the leader roll out strategies effectively, and reps will take you more seriously because you follow through on your ideas. Implement these habits into your sales management routine, and you’ll see the difference in your team’s performance.
See you next week!
The views given herein are solely for information purposes; they are guidelines and suggestions and are not guaranteed to work in any particular way.
Robert Gonye is a Business Growth Influencer. He writes in his personal capacity. Comments and views: [email protected]
