Sales Leadership: Developing the Complete Sales Leader

LEADERSHIP SERIES: Research suggests that Sales Leadership is the difference maker between good performance and superior performance. And how sales leaders embrace five essential roles is critical to the success of their teams. We hope you find this series of short informal discussions around sales leadership useful and thought-provoking.

Having the Right Salespeople in the Wrong Territories is a Losing Strategy for Everyone

As sales managers, we like to break salespeople up into three groups, at most: good, bad, and mediocre. That might work, at least marginally, when it comes to studying the raw numbers like how many accounts they have opened, or what sort of revenue they’re bringing in to the company. But as a recruiting and management strategy, it’s pretty terrible.

That’s because salespeople are just like any other type of professional – good at some parts of their job, and not as great at others.

This is true even for the superstars. While it might seem like you have a couple members of your team who can consistently sell and service their accounts at a higher level, I’d be willing to wager that a close look would reveal that they are actually stronger in some areas than others. Again, this is natural, and something that most of us recognize intuitively.

But what we don’t always pick up on is the correlation between the people we have on the payroll (along with their prospective talents) and the territories we put them in. But thinking these decisions through – and making adjustments as necessary – can have enormous long-term impacts on our department sales figures, not to mention the careers of the salespeople involved.

Think about it this way: the reason that we have so many different positions on sports teams is that, despite the fact that they are all athletic, different competitors have different talents and skills. So do your salespeople, and if you are playing them out of position, you can be sure it’s costing you some wins.

Naturally, unless your sales team is all in the same city, you aren’t going to be able to move your sales team around frequently, and the last thing you want is a game of musical chairs going on within different territories and accounts. But, as different members of your team move on, retire, get promoted, and so on, take care that you try to replace them with other salespeople – from within your department or without – that are a good fit for what’s needed. If you need a hunter who can open lots of accounts, for example, then hire one, or move one from another territory where a more customer service center approach is needed.

Over time, this will not only give you the right team, it will give you the right pieces in the right places. Never forget that every member of your sales team has different skills that they bring to the table. Your job is to find out where you can best help them succeed.

© Sales Effectiveness, Inc. – All rights reserved

Learn more about the Catalyst5 Leadership System

LEADERSHIP SERIES: Research suggests that Sales Leadership is the difference maker between good performance and superior performance. And how sales leaders embrace five essential roles is critical to the success of their teams. We hope you find this series of short informal discussions around sales leadership useful and thought-provoking.

The Ins and Outs of Territory Growth Planning
Often, when a group of sales managers get together,
one of the common concerns they express to each other is how few of
their salespeople come close to truly meeting their potential…
and many are challenged by meeting the goals and expectations that
have been set for them. Certainly, this is a big problem in all
walks of business, and especially in the selling profession. But
what many of these managers fail to see is their own role in the
difficulty. That is, they never fully express what it is they
expect their salespeople to do, beyond possibly giving them their
financial objective, and most certainly don’t take the time to get
the producers’ input on those goals. When you stop and think about
it, that doesn’t really make a lot of sense; you have to
have plans for your salespeople if you want
them to achieve those plans. That’s where
territory growth planning comes in. Sometime in the near future,
sit down with each and every one of the salespeople on your staff,
and make a set of goals that you mutually agree upon. These should
be more than simple sales figures. Make sure you note the number of
target accounts you both believe can be opened, the number of
prospecting calls you want them to have completed, etc. Although a
lot of sales managers never even go that far, it’s not nearly far
enough. You can’t just verbalize the sales goals, or have them
written on a piece of paper. To make them into reality, you have to
follow up. For that reason, we recommend having a meeting every
once in a while, every three or six months for example,
specifically geared towards territory growth planning. In this
meeting, you let each of your salespeople formally present their
plans for meeting their goals. In other words, you asked them to
explain exactly how they are going to meet the goals that the two
of you have set together. And then comes the easy part: every few
months, you get together to review progress on their plan. This
isn’t new advice, per se; as the old adage goes: “inspect what you
expect.” But what makes it different, and what’s so hard for a lot
of sales managers to accept and understand is that, over time, your
salespeople will actually start to look forward to these meetings.
Why is that? Because they aren’t concerned with you asking them to
do something anymore – they already know what’s expected. Instead,
they’re looking to you for help, feedback, and encouragement to
keep making progress. Sales reviews are only stressful, for you or
your salespeople, when they don’t know what to expect, or don’t
have the tools to meet the quotas that have been set for them. Bear
that in mind and make territory growth planning meetings a regular
part of your sales management routine. It might be a little
different than what you’re used to at first, but you’ll be
surprised at what sort of difference they can make. © Sales
Effectiveness, Inc. – All rights reserved

Learn more about the Catalyst5 Leadership
System

LEADERSHIP SERIES: Research suggests that Sales Leadership is the difference maker between good performance and superior performance. And how sales leaders embrace five essential roles is critical to the success of their teams. We hope you find this series of short informal discussions around sales leadership useful and thought-provoking.

Finding a Cure for the Stressed-Out Sales Manager

When high-performing sales reps make the transition to management, it’s usually with visions of record profits, big bonuses, and a sense of unlimited career opportunities floating through their mind. What they typically don’t think about is the reality that so often awaits them: early mornings spent shuffling paperwork, long hours in the office after everyone else has gone home, and evenings spent catching up on e-mails they couldn’t get to during the day.

In other words, being stressed-out and short on time.

If this sounds like you, know that you aren’t alone. Right now, in offices and sales departments all around the world, thousands of others are having the same thought. Some are second-guessing their decision to move from producer to supervisor; others are downright regretting it.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other options. The truth is, a lot of the problems we have as sales managers are those we’ve created for ourselves. We didn’t do it consciously, of course, but through process of poor or inefficient decisions, we lead ourselves into a lifestyle of stress, deadlines, and the day-to-day feeling of dread.

Here are four possible cures for the stressed-out sales manager:

Let go of the idea that you have to be in control. Your sales team is probably never going to do things the way you would, but that doesn’t mean they can’t meet and exceed your hopes and expectations. Focus on putting them in positions to win, rather than trying to control their style and schedule.

Think like a coach, not a manager. A coach inspires your best performance, while a manager gives orders until you produce something that is satisfactory. Which one do you think your sales team needs? Learn to encourage and teach, and establish the environment for them to succeed – when you do, the results will take care of themselves.

Get your sales staff more involved. Training, conducting sales meetings, and getting feedback are just a few of the areas you can have your producers share the load. Encourage them to share what they know and build each other up. It’s as good for their confidence and team spirit as it is your schedule.

Learn to be a better recruiter. Ultimately, a lot of the ease or difficulty of your job is going to come down to the men and women that are part of your team. Bear that in mind and get better at finding winners. As the months and years roll by, you’ll have fewer and fewer salespeople who bring you stress.

It’s easy to become stressed out and overwhelmed as a sales manager, but it’s not the only way to do things. Follow these tips to become a catalyst and sales leader for your staff –your bank account and blood pressure will thank you later.

© Sales Effectiveness, Inc. – All rights reserved

Video preview of Catalyst5 : Developing the Complete Sales Leader

LEADERSHIP SERIES: Research suggests that Sales Leadership is the difference maker between good performance and superior performance. And how sales leaders embrace five essential roles is critical to the success of their teams. We hope you find this series of short informal discussions around sales leadership useful and thought-provoking.

Do You Have a Strong Vision for your Sales Team?

How often do you find yourself wishing your sales team could simply “do better?” If you are like most sales managers, the answer is probably at least once a week. But ask yourself this: have you ever told them what “better” would actually look like? Have you thought about it for yourself?

Too often, sales managers fall into the trap of wishing their teams would sell more, execute better customer service, or open bigger accounts. But without any firmer sense of what these would mean in the real world, they turn into empty rhetoric. That’s why a critical part of effective sales management is creating a strong vision; knowing where you are trying to get to doesn’t just help your producers, it also helps you remember exactly what you’re hoping to achieve.

The first step is defining your sales vision.  Here are some of the favorite short vision statements we have seen  “we will win the most awards at next year’s national sales meeting,” “being the most knowledgeable sales team in our industry,” and “having the most sales people promoted into management positions.” You’ll notice that, even though none of these goals have specific numbers or figures tied to them, they all point you and your team into a definite direction. That’s what having the vision is all about.

The next step is to put this vision into action through constant reinforcement. Make sure there are visual reminders of your vision posted around the office, refer to it during your sales meetings, and make sure you integrate it into the short and long-term goals for your team.  Over time, this will encourage your team to focus their efforts in that direction, while reminding you to coach them in those areas at the same time.

Taking this approach will almost certainly turn your team into one that is high-performing and living up to your vision. So what do you do then? Refine your vision, and set new goals. What you want from your sales team, and yourself, is bound to change over time, so review your vision once a year or so, and be sure that it’s still in line with what you want to achieve.

As the old saying goes, you can’t really get anywhere until you know where you’re going. Having a strong sales vision for your team is a good way to define your direction, and to become a better sales leader.

© Sales Effectiveness, Inc. – All rights reserved

Video preview of Catalyst5 : Developing the Complete Sales Leader