Sales Managers’ “to don’t” List!

By Jim Marshall

You are the owner of a successful business and, although you’re managing to survive in these turbulent times without massive layoffs and cost cuts, you’ve decided to take a more active role in leading your sales team.

Or, you’re the CEO of a large corporation, you’ve noticed that sales and market share are lagging and you’ve decided to “shake things up a bit.”  You fire your VP of Sales and promote your top sales person into the position, although he/she has no previous managerial training or experience.  (Worse, you are that top salesperson and gladly accept the promotion.  “How hard can this be?  I’ll just show ‘em how I did it.”)

The problem is this:  the skills needed for successful salespeople are not necessarily the same skills needed for successful sales managers.  Promoting the top-producing salesperson into the sales manager’s position might be seen as a reward but, without regular management training and development, the previously successful top sales producer can become a disaster.

With that in mind, here are 13 surefire ways the newly promoted sales manager will fail:

1)    Refuse to accept personal accountability for the behaviors and production of your sales force.

Spending time blaming your salespeople, the market, the economy, the product or the company will never increase sales.  Accepting excuses from salespeople – rather than identifying and rectifying problems - does them, and your company, a disservice.

2)    Neglect to develop the salespeople you manage.

The function of the sales manager is not to sell.  Rather, it is to develop the salespeople on the team – not by showing them “how you did it,” but by identifying their individual strengths and weaknesses, reinforcing the former and addressing the latter. 

3)    Focus on the results rather than the behaviors and activities.

Results are clear to everyone.  Your team’s sales figures and production are probably posted on the office white board or company intranet.  But are you tracking the activities that are necessary to achieve those results? 

4)    Don't use all the data available when evaluating your salespeople.

Why guess what makes your sales people tick when highly accurate, dependable assessment tools will tell you precisely how and why your sales people sell – or what’s preventing them from doing so?

5)    Manage all your salespeople the same way.

Each team member has different skill sets, motivators and needs.   As such, managing everyone the same way will result in frustration, lack of clarity, and missed opportunities for growth in the ability to sell.

6)    Forget the importance of profit.

Sales volume is not the indicator of success.  Dropping the price may get the sale, but it leads to leaner margins, lack of confidence and a poorly performing sales force.

7)    Focus on the problems rather than the objective.

Make sure your team understands your target market segment and limit their presentations to qualified prospects.  Have them learn as much as they can about the prospects in that segment.

8)    Be a buddy, not a coach.

The top achievers on your sales force want to improve and win.  Salespeople need a mentor, a coach, to spur them to leave their comfort zone in order to find new success.

9)    Don't set standards, and never rank your salespeople by anything other than revenue.

Without clear expectations, without the awareness that there are varieties of ways to succeed, and without the knowledge of where they stand, salespeople flounder into isolation and alienation.

10)  Never train your salespeople.

Thinking you know everything your sales team needs to know about sales limits them to your experience.  Without continual refinement of selling skills in the rapidly changing marketplace, you can find yourself unprepared to meet unexpected challenges.

11)  Condone incompetence.

Salespeople can actually believe their lack of competent performance is acceptable when they see no consequences for their actions – or inactions.

12)  Recognize only the top revenue producers and then, only once a year at bonus time.

Failure to cite all members of the team as the reason for sales success leads to isolation and lack of camaraderie.  Recognition of everyone's efforts strengthens the team and leads to greater initiative.

13)  Always see conditions instead of obstacles.

Seeing a down market (or anything that gets in the way of business) as an unchangeable condition leads to excuse-making. Accepting excuses de-motivates the sales force.

Expecting a great salesperson – or another department head – to succeed as sales manager by learning on the job just doesn't work.  Why?  Often times, they are not trained in assessing, developing, tracking and coaching salespeople who may be struggling to generate revenue in a down economy.  Applying excess pressure on the sales force only produces anger, resentment and resistance. The untrained manager only pushes harder, the staff “churns and burns” and the entire system becomes dysfunctional.

So what is the answer?  Potential managers should exhibit the proper attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that will enable them to be successful.  Then they should be trained on how to properly assess, develop and motivate the sales force. They – and you – should understand that the primary function of a sales manager is to grow their team, so the team will grow the sales.