Let Me be Brutally Honest … Your Sales Manager is Your Key to Success or Failure

I keep up with blogs and postings from sales training vendors and read about their experiences with clients who, they complain, expect measurable results from sales training programs but aren't willing to "invest enough money to do it right." That really gets under my skin because it is the sales training vendors' fault and not their clients fault — PERIOD. Essentially, the sales training vendor is saying "I'm only doing x amount of work for the amount you’re willing to pay me." That's not a sales training vendor; that's a sales vendor who is more interested in their own revenue than fulfilling their clients’ expectations for success. The irony is these so-called ’sales training vendors‘ preach and teach that their selling system will help their clients’ sales staff increase their sales. However, If the budget isn't ‘enough’ they will often cut portions of the system (usually reinforcement) and only do as much as they feel the budget allows. It's as if they’re selling you a brand new Airbus 767, but you negotiate a lower price, so they rig it so it won't go over 160 miles per hour. You still get the brand-new Airbus, but it won't go fast enough to take off.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let me give you the formula for any successful sales force:

1- A Superstar sales manager
2- Recruiting and selecting top talent
3- A consistent, easy-to-follow sales process
4- Coaching to expectations
5- Accountability

If you don't have #1, but do have 2-5 the result will be failure (I hope the reason is obvious). If you do have #1 without 2-5 you have a chance for success because your sales manager will implement their own process for 2-5. Top performing companies begin with a top performing sales manager and then train them on a management process that includes 2-5.

Take a look at your challenges in this difficult economy, but focus on your sales management rather than your sales team and ask yourself these questions:

1. Does he or she spend time in the field setting the example and coaching their team?
2. Does he or she set clear expectations to the team that are activity driven, and not just focused on ’making quota’?
3. Does he or she have accountabilities in place (not 'call reports') to measure performance?
4. Are there daily/weekly/monthly rewards and sanctions in place?

If your sales manager is not doing these things, then it's not the economy that should be your concern.

Sales Managers – The Real Role

Superstar sales managers are far rarer to find than are superstar salespeople. The truth is that no one will ever perform any better than they are expected to perform…coached to perform or held accountable for their level of performance. It is this expectation and ongoing development role that the most effective sales managers fulfill.

Sales managers need to have mastery over a large number of things. Here are just a few:

• Management know-how
• Teambuilding expertise
• Sales knowledge
• Problem solving
• Morale building
• Time management
• Product knowledge
• Political skills
• Account management
• Goal setting skills
• Motivational techniques
• Self-management
• Business acumen
• Interpersonal skills
• Supervisory skills

Although all of these are essential skills for being a productive sales manager, there are lots of others that play just as important a role.

Among those are:

• Integrity – Simply doing what is right no matter what the outcome.
• Consistency – Salespeople need to know, with some degree of predictability how their sales manager will act or react to issues or events.
• Tact – Quite often it is not what someone says that is important. Just as often as not it is how they say it. That is tact.

All of that having been said, it is important to know that the sales manager is the one person who can influence sales and productivity more than any other person in an organization. Sales managers generally interview and hire salespeople, guide their growth then mentor and direct salespeople. Let me ask you this essential question, “Can the presence of an ineffective sales manager negatively impact a sales organization?” You know the answer to that question as well as I do!

So, let’s be more specific. Here are the ways that poor sales management can impact a sales organization:

• Low morale
• Salesperson turnover
• Poor hiring practices
• Plateaued sales
• Low closing ratios
• Poor sales or product knowledge
• Non-existent teamwork
• Perception of favoritism
• Salesperson animosity
• Poor client relationships
• Ineffective communication
• Lack of consistency
• No controls
• Too much control
• No direction
• Resistance to embrace new ideas

We could likely go on forever with the problems. What is the bottom line here? Sales managers can, quite simply, make or break a sales organization. Period.

One of the most perplexing problems I have faced is this one: How much sales management training do sales managers generally receive? The answer? Very little.

Sending a sales manager to a leadership symposium is great. The problem? Leading a sales organization is not like leading any other type of organization. The same is true when a sales manager is packed off to a management seminar or any other short-lived, relatively disconnected training that is far too general to be of any value to them.

The inevitable result is a reliance on their own gut-instincts, modeling of the behavior that their sales manager used with them or the application of general principles when a very specific set of skills is required.

Here’s the challenge. Selecting, training and managing sales managers could be the single most important function any organization could have. The military knows that. Enlisted personnel need the guidance of street-smart, demanding NCO’s. Platoons are led by platoon sergeants, the company is led by its first sergeant. Salespeople need to be led, too. But they need to be led by highly trained and skilled leaders. Don’t presume for even one minute that just because someone is made a sales manager that they can fulfill that role as ably as the situation may demand. They need to be trained. Your organization has too much riding on it to leave it to change. Don’t run the risk.