Monday, October 17, 2011 is National Bosses’ Day here in the United States. Here at The Brooks Group, we train sales managers that, in order to be great...

They can't lead where they won't go and they can't teach what they don't know.

However, in order to prepare for the upcoming celebrations (I'm sure parties are planned everywhere), I thought I'd jot down a list of qualities and characteristics we've seen great sales managers display.

They...

Michael Scott was not a great sales manager.

• Coach
• Participate
• Lead
• Help
• Get in the “trenches”
• Empower
• Communicate the big picture
• Understand their team's roles
• Provide tools
• Hold their team accountable
• Develop
• Permit
• Test
• Delegate
• Train
• Ask

QUESTION: What else do GREAT Sales Managers do for their teams?

- @JebBrooks

In the interest of full disclosure, I'm in the Sales Training business. So you might think my answer to the question, "Are great salespeople born that way, or can the be taught?," is a little skewed. But, I'll answer earnestly.

Anyone can learn to sell.

That's because sales is a process. And people can learn processes (if they want to). It is, of course, easier for some people than others. Let me make an analogy:

Math is a process. Anyone can learn how to run a formula. It's easier for some people than for others, but we can all -- with enough effort -- learn what to plug where. "Numbers-oriented" people learn more quickly than others, but anyone can eventually get it.

Sales is also a process. Anyone can learn it. It's easier for "people-oriented" people to learn how to sell than it is for others.

The challenge, of course, is finding the "people-oriented" people in the first place. If you're hiring salespeople*, you want to find the ones who either:

1. Already understand how to sell or
2. Will have a short learning curve.

Am I right? Can anyone learn to sell?

*As an aside, the best way to determine how much work it will take to get someone selling at their peak, consider implementing a sales assessment tool.

@JebBrooks

It's a question we hear a lot:

Should I spend my time with top performing salespeople or bottom performers?

Aren't you better off investing your time with responsive salespeople? After all, a good coach brings value to great players and sub-par ones. The same is true in sales management. However, if the salesperson you're coaching won't heed your advice, it's a waste of everyone's time. Right?

Responsive salespeople are...

• Humble enough to take criticism,
• Smart enough to solicit it, and
• Willing enough to act on it.

Responsive salespeople also want to improve themselves. They accomplish that with more than just your coaching. They look for ways to learn more about professional sales. They understand what it takes to be a top-performer. That's NEVER settling for stagnation.

The flip side of this coin is that you've got to offer good coaching. A sales manager who gives poor suggestions or old-school ideas will do more harm than good. So...

As a manager of salespeople, what are you doing to ensure you're a good coach?

In other words:

• What books are you reading?
• What seminars are you attending?
• Who do you turn to for coaching?

If you're not constantly investing in your own skill-set, you run the risk of becoming irrelevant. In order to offer valuable coaching, you've got to be improving yourself.

@JebBrooks

There's a fine line between confidence and arrogance. Here's what I mean...

• Confidence is the feeling or belief that someone can rely on you.
• Arrogance is having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's own importance or abilities.

Here are some differences between the two.

1. Arrogance is exaggerated, meaning it's "larger" than reality. Confidence is a suitable dose of reality.
2. Confidence is given to you, over time, by others. Arrogance, on the other hand, is something you give off.
3. Arrogance can be masked for a short time as confidence.
4. Perhaps most importantly: Confidence is good. Arrogance is bad.

Confident or Arrogant?

The moral is this: Prospects and customers want to deal with a confident salesperson. They'll eagerly run away from an arrogant one.

So, as a sales manager, how do you find salespeople who are on the confident side of the spectrum?

After all, it can be difficult to tell whether a particular candidate is unnecessarily arrogant or appropriately confident during a short interview. In fact, it's sometimes even difficult for people to tell how they come across to others. And, that's for good reason; self-perception can be vastly different from reality.

Here are a few ways I've used to tell whether someone is arrogant in an interview setting:

• Ask them about a time they had to "eat crow" or admit they were wrong. Confident people willingly share, but arrogant ones have trouble with it.
• Make the interview a looooonnnng one. Arrogance can be masked as confidence for only so long.
• Use an assessment that measures a person's self-perception. Nothing like knowing what's beneath the surface!

What else have you done to make sure?

@JebBrooks

Recently, I was thinking about how much "things" have changed in the last few years. It occurred to me that just the last half decade has brought a lot of it. The time since 2005 has had some surprising impacts on sales…

1. New ways to maintain, manage, and multiply relationships.

Today, we’re able to remain in close contact with people we would have lost touch with in the 1990s. Sometimes, that can be a bad thing.  In fact, according to one study, as many as 20% of British divorces cite online social networks as a cause. This connectedness has serious implications for your sales team.

2. Social networks (online and off) as a critical source of info.

Not only are we able to maintain, manage, and multiply our relationships, but we can also now use them to get (and share) more information. People put much more value on the information they get from their friends whom they perceive as unbiased (or at least with their best interests in mind). This is true of our “online” networks, too. Think about the number of people a recent college graduate can contact because of her Facebook account! The average person has 130 friends on Facebook. Social media means people don’t lose touch with each other the way they did in the past.

3. Every market has become more crowded.

Whether you’re selling heavy equipment, software, gears, or soft drinks, your marketplace has almost certainly become more crowded. I think that’s because it’s cheaper now than ever before to start a business. Technology has made markets more accessible. Of course, a crowded market means lower prices. Unless your sales team knows how to get a premium price. Today’s difficult economy has eliminated some of that competition, but not all of it.

4. Buying decisions have been pushed higher up.

This has become more true in the last three years. Decisions that used to be made by mid-level managers are now made a step-or-two higher. This, I think, is because of the economy. I don’t see it changing. People are spending money again, but they’re still trying to figure out how to do it in this “new” economy.

5. Larger groups of people are being asked to make decisions.

In order to spread risk, and to ensure nothing gets missed, committees are more frequently assigned to make purchasing decisions. This has serious implications for the way your sales department approaches opportunities with their prospects. How much attention do they pay to the people who aren't in the room, but have influence?

6. It’s harder to get face-to-face with prospects.

Prospects are becoming more guarded with their time than they’ve been in the past. It’s more difficult to get face-to-face with them. It’s becoming more important to justify your reasons for asking for their time.

7. Prospects have access to more information than ever before.

In the past, it was almost a sure-bet that your prospect had less information about your offering (or possibly even their problem) than you. That’s not the case anymore. Today, you can’t be sure what your prospect knows. Until you ask.

8. Personal positioning has become easier and more essential.

Salespeople can more easily become the trusted business advisors their prospects expect and their customers demand. The first step is to listen. Are your salespeople listening to the "twittersphere"? Might their customers benefit from a blog about how to better use your product? Could your sales team publish one as an account management tool?

9. People who understand technology increasingly in the “drivers’ seats.”

People who can harness the power of technology have the opportunity to drive revenue. The Sales 2.0 movement acknowledges the fact that technology enhances a salesperson’s ability to facilitate a buying decision. Salespeople who know how to use technology to their advantage will see a higher return on their investment of time.

What else? What have I missed? How else has our profession changed?

@JebBrooks

I noticed a great post by Mark Hunter on his "The Sales Hunter's Sales Motivation Blog." It's about the influence Facebook can have over a salesperson's sales efforts. He makes the simple, but powerful point that its influence can be good (if, for example, your friends post positive comments on each others' walls) or negative (if, for example, your friends post demotivating things).

First, I believe strongly that social networking plays a critical role in today's selling environment. However, there are important considerations...

Remember the old adage that "You are the company you keep?" If you hang around generally positive people, their attitude will rub off on you. If, on the other hand, you're around negative people, well...you know.

Success in sales demands a positive attitude!

With Facebook, that takes on even more meaning.  Here's what I mean: not only are we influenced when we're in the same room with our friends, but, with Facebook, their attitudes can impact us when we haven't seen them in years! The feelings and attitudes of others can be felt when you're in your office, at your house, or in a coffee shop. And, since there are 100 million active users accessing Facebook from mobile devices, the influence of our friends' is really felt everywhere. That means your salespeople are probably being influenced by their online comrades' attitudes when they're out on the road, too.

So, may I leave you with two questions? First, what role do your salespeople's Facebook accounts play? And, second, who are you hanging out with online and how are their attitudes impacting yours?

Stay positive (online and off)!

@JebBrooks

Here's a webinar we recently put together on how to recognize a disengaged salesperson on your team. Be sure to check out Part 2, below.

Here's part two of our webinar series about disengaged salespeople.

We’re ramping up for another Sales Management Symposium – our 29th, as a matter of fact. It'll be on May 12 and 13 in Greensboro, NC. You might think I’m bragging when I say we host the best open-enrollment basic training course for sales managers in the world. And I guess I am. But, we’ve been doing it since 2002. And, in that time, 705 sales managers from all over the world have participated in this one course! That doesn't even count the thousands of others who have gone through customized versions.

It’s changed a lot through the years.

Like lots of things you do for the first time, our first attempt was rough. There were a few sales managers from all over the country. We gave them some good information, but if they came to next month’s SMS, they wouldn’t recognize it.

Part of that is because the world of sales has changed so dramatically. Part of it is because we’re constantly tweaking and improving all of our content. But the end result is that every program we offer is the best we can provide!

We spend a lot of time during the two-day course talking about hiring and coaching salespeople and how to effectively hold them accountable. We know being a sales manager is hard (it's like herding cats!) and that's why we focus so much on providing tools and techniques to empower sales managers to do their jobs effectively.

If you lead salespeople, I hope to see you in May!

If there’s one thing we’ve got here, it’s a lot of content. That’s how we’re able to bring ongoing value to our clients year-after-year.

The other day, I was looking through some whitepapers we put together about five years ago and came across this list of 10 ways sales managers fail. Is this still relevant in today’s new marketplace?

1. Unilaterally raising quotas on star performers…or making quotas impossible for marginal performers to achieve
2. Having pay plans that are confusing or designed to reduce a salesperson’s income from its current level without astronomical growth
3. Failing to provide organized sales skills training regardless of a salesperson’s experience
4. Relying on “end-process assessment” rather than “in-process measurement” when evaluating salespeople
5. Not allowing salespeople to finalize transactions
6. Lacking a sales platform and subsequently not coaching salespeople in the system
7. Spending too much time with sub-par performers
8. Selling and not managing or managing without selling
9. Not providing adequate training for new product/service releases
10. Not allowing for individual differences within teams

Let me know what you think…

@JebBrooks

Do You Want to Train Your Sales Staff or Change Your Sales Staff?

We are all too familiar with the scenario of a sales team investing in sales training and after a few weeks of being back in the field, they fall back into their old routines and their management team is unhappy because they experienced no immediate change in sales results.

Why does this happen? Despite good intentions to implement new skills, the hectic pace of real-world, everyday selling often forces salespeople back into the ‘comfort zone’ of their old sales habits and techniques. Simply put, they take the path of least resistance to get the job done.

The reality is that it takes more than a Facilitator’s Guide, a charismatic presentation and a few role-play exercises for a training provider to achieve true changes in sales performance. An effective ‘sales changing’ program (versus a ‘sales training’ program) requires three things:

• A strong sales management team that embraces the need for change.
• Sales managers that are outstanding ‘coaches’ who will get out in the field, observe their sales staff and offer their expertise and guidance.
• An accountability tool (or scorecard) in place so the entire team knows where they are now, where they’re headed and where to course-correct if they get off track.

Jim Tunney, a retired NFL referee and current motivational speaker said, “If employees don’t understand their company’s goals and its game plan, these goals won’t be achieved. Football doesn’t make this mistake. Its goals are always clearly defined. At the end of the field is a goal line. Why do they call it a goal line? Because 11 people on the offensive team huddle for a single purpose—to move the ball across it.”

“Where are the coaches on game day?” They’re on the field coaching their players – not in the office handling paperwork, waiting to hear the outcome of the game!

The key to an effective ‘sales changing’ program begins with your sales management team. Then, partner with a sales training provider that fits the culture of your organization and communicate the specific, measurable results you want to achieve. A good sales training provider will embrace the accountability and be energized by the opportunity to do it right. I guarantee you’ll see new, productive habits among your sales staff, along with the results you expect from your investment.