Issue 5
Failing to Choose and Develop a Sales Leadership Team that Nurtures and Develops their Salespeople’s Potential, which in turn Decreases Sales Results
GOOD SALESPEOPLE DON’T NECESSARILY MAKE GOOD MANAGERS
The single most common mistake that organizations make is promoting their number one salesperson into the role of sales manager, thereby depriving themselves in a single stroke of their best producer
and hamstringing their sales force with an ineffective manager.
The skills required for managing, mentoring, and developing a sales team are totally different from those required for selling. As a result, it’s not uncommon to find newly promoted sales managers who
regret having taken a management position and may even leave to get back into sales.
"In the past two years, many sales executives have taken off their management hats and headed out into the field to close deals themselves–an understandable phenomenon in difficult
times.
"But now it’s time to put that hat back on. Your team values you much more for your strategic thinking and coaching abilities–and you can’t focus on these things if you are spending
too much time out in the field. Leave the selling to the stars–your coaching can carry them to new heights."
Melinda Ligos, Editor in Chief, Sales & Marketing Management, January 2004
INSUFFICIENT TIME FOR SALES TEAM DEVELOPMENT
The majority of sales managers—new and experienced alike—say they do not have sufficient time to train and develop their sales teams. They are so focused on sales results—and so accustomed to
achieving success through their personal pursuit of those results—that they overlook their greatest potential source of power: the power to increase sales performance by developing their people.
"The sales manager’s role is transforming–from evaluator to developer, from expert to resource, from teller to questioner. This change is no mere tweaking adjustment–it is a 180-degree
shift from how most sales managers manage and how they are managed. Most organizations profess to want coaching, but they don’t really do anything about it.
Just as students are lucky to have one or two special teachers in a lifetime, most sales professionals are lucky if they get one real coach. Organizations don’t have role models for
coaching, they don’t train for it, and they don’t hold people accountable for it."
From the book Sales Coaching, by Linda Richardson
LACK OF SKILLS AND RESOURCES
Even when they do recognize the importance of developing their salespeople, many sales managers find that they lack the skills and resources to do it effectively. It then becomes easier not to bother.
AN OVERWHELMED MANAGER
To make things worse, most sales teams consist of a number of individuals with differing levels of experience and ability, so the whole issue of team development becomes too daunting for the
overwhelmed manager to contemplate.
One particular well-known hotel chain adopted a "hire and fire" policy for sales managers: if a sales manager didn’t achieve the required quota of sales (occupancies) for three months running, they
were immediately given their marching orders. One property (hotel) in particular had three different sales managers within a 12-month period and wondered why they couldn’t achieve their target of an 80% occupancy.
SETTING A BAD EXAMPLE
Very often if a sales manager is starting to fall behind on sales, their first reaction is to drop the price or offer an incentive to try to "buy" the business. While this may create some short-term
sales increases, the reduced profit cannot sustain the development of long-term client relationships.
SOLUTIONS
Sales Directors who recognize that the different roles played by salespeople and managers require different skill sets factor those differences into their recruitment and selection of sales managers.
Instead of promoting top-performers purely on the strength of their sales performance, these Sales Directors look for management candidates who can demonstrate an ability to help others strategize,
work effectively with customers, and build their self-confidence.
These Sales Directors recognize that coaching competence is absolutely pivotal and feature it highly in managers’ performance reviews and remuneration packages.
PROVIDING DEVELOPMENT FOR SALES MANAGERS
Successful Sales Directors ensure that some sort of training and development program is in place to help sales managers continually improve the way they coach and develop their team. Equally
important, top-performing Sales Directors look for ways to provide sales managers with the resources they need to perform effectively.
This may mean, for example, giving managers tools with which to identify each individual salesperson’s strengths and development areas, providing them with an easy-to-use framework to address
development areas, and putting a process in place that helps their team to implement new skills.
"I believe that the best people to start developing are sales managers. Since they usually represent just a tenth of the total sales force, they’re easier to reach in a concentrated
way, and their enhanced skills give you immediate leverage because their coaching then produces a multiplier effect."
Giles Watkins, Global Competence and Learning Manager, Shell Lubricants
PROVIDING RESOURCES TO MOTIVATE DEVELOPMENT SESSIONS
Sales meetings provide a wonderful opportunity to offer appropriate team development, yet sales managers often lack resources and assistance to help them make the most of this opportunity.
The more resources Sales Directors provide to sales managers, the more likely managers are to run effective, fruitful meetings, because they won’t need to spend time preparing to conduct these
development sessions.
The most successful Sales Directors of all bend over backwards to make sure that the development resources they give their managers are easy to use, are designed to appeal to and engage salespeople
regardless of experience level, and, above all, can be used in manageable pieces so that sales teams can absorb and actually implement new ideas.
"Sustainable shifts in behavior will only ever be realized when first-line leaders have the skills and capabilities to provide coaching ‘in the moment.’ The greatest value will be
created by investing in building coaching capability and providing toolkits for support rather than endless programs that rarely have impact longer than a three month period."
Pavita Walker, Director, Organization and Leadership Development, Barclays Group
A COACHING CULTURE
Every interaction that sales managers have with their salespeople provides a coaching opportunity, and the organizations that have committed to building a strong coaching culture are the ones most
likely to succeed in today’s competitive selling environment.
COACHING GET MEASURABLE RESULTS
Charlotte Gould, a CRM Manager for The Shell Company of Australia Limited, commissioned Millwood Brown to conduct a survey to identify what tangible success had been achieved since the organization
became more coaching-orientated. Within a 12-month period, here are just some of the successes:
-
Overall customer satisfaction increased from 80% to 88%
-
Professional manner increased from 81% to 96%
-
Ability to understand customer needs increased from 79% to 90%
She summarizes these achievements by saying that "our customers are noticing and appreciating what we are doing, and our key challenge, of course, is to link this into real profitability. We’re on the
right track."
OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Every sales manager has a powerful role to play in developing and supporting their team members’ potential so that an increasing emphasis is placed on performance management to enable more salespeople
to achieve more of their potential.
"Performance Management has come more to the fore recently in BT Commercial & Brands, and that’s a great thing, but you have to create frameworks where people can actually deal with
performance management. The whole point behind our coaching program is to give individual managers that framework to work to. That way we’ll deliver success in Commercial & Brands in the future."
Colin Mattey, Director, BT Commercial & Brands
"A leader is someone who helps improve the lives of other people or improve the system they live under"
Sam Ervin
Final Summary ...read>
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