Don’t You Get It? Sales Managers Are the Keys to Sales Success!

One of my pet peeves as a sales consultant and trainer is when someone says “I did sales training before and it didn’t work.” When I dig deeper, however, I almost always discover the client expected to see miraculous results when their sales staff went back out to the field following a sales training. To all of you who have that same belief — WAKE UP!

Results are a directly tied to the sales manager’s ability to communicate and reinforce clear performance expectations and follow-through. Unless there is follow-up and reinforcement after any sales training, sales reps left to their own devices will be more likely to fall back into their old daily selling habits.

Want proof? We just did a beta test on our new IMPACT Virtual Sales Training™ program (which is an amazing new technology for geographically dispersed sales teams). In one test, we conducted an “Open” enrollment program. We had six sales reps sign up — all of whom wanted to learn a sales process to help them improve their sales skills. The second beta group was drawn from a healthcare company whose regional manager wanted to do a pilot program for six reps. This group had the same objective — improving their sales skills — but were dispersed across several selling territories from New Jersey to California.

After only 3 weeks in the Open program, five participants had dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. None of them completed the required homework or projects to help them reinforce what they were learning. There was no performance expectation or management support from their within respective organizations. In the end, many of them simply decided that learning new skills wasn’t as important as their other daily activities.

By contrast, there were two sales management observers of the program in the healthcare group. Each week, a manager would send an email to the group praising their progress and follow- through. I just received a comment from this manager that read “For the first time ever, I was speechless on most calls. It was fantastic, and I think [our sales rep] made some great progress with these new offices (because of what she learned in the training.)” She went on to say she is seeing measurable results as a result of what they were learning and applying.

The obvious difference: the expectations, reinforcement and follow-through of the sales managers. The bottom line is, if you want to make a measurable difference in your sales, begin at your sales management level.