The Sales Performance Suite

The 5 Key Responsibility Buckets of Top Producing Sales Managers

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 Cold Month End Sweat!

There have been times, more often than not, when you've likely contemplated, "As a Sales Manager, what really are my key responsibilities? My boss creates fire drills and my sales team seems to need parental guidance! On top of that, I have to hit the numbers!"

All of that seems to "hit you" when you awaken at 2 a.m. in a cold end of month sweat wondering if your new rep updated the CRM with the closed deals so you'd make the quarter-end numbers. Or, when you're busily draining the swamp and avoiding the alligators.....

5 Key Buckets of Responsibility

Across global sales organizations of all sizes and in all market segments, we've seen the key responsibilities of sales manager broken down into 5 buckets:

1. Meet sales/financial goals
2. Build an effective sales team
3. Individual rep development: skill and behavior
4. Express clear communication
5. Provide leadership and direction

Top Performers Have Expectations of You

As a sales manager, your top performers will expect you to:

• Be honest and candid at all times, regardless of how bad the news is.
• Consistently put the good of the organization before that of any individual team member's self-interest.
• Provide frank and clear feedback to achieve success.
• Display integrity by unflagging honesty and keeping the customer's best interests in the forefront.
• Not speak negatively of a team member in front of other team members, but publicly recognize successes.
• Take ownership for mistakes and move promptly to correct them.
• Do what you say and do so consistently; your words must be backed up with actions.
• Allow them to "learn by doing" and avoid "doing it for them."

Remember that in your role as manager, your behavior is looked up to by your direct reports as a model to emulate. For them to grow, they need a leader who exhibits behaviors that are worthy of following.  

All of which, of course, is accomplished by your unyielding focus on building a foundation of integrity and trust.

How do you build that foundation?

A good start is to focus on skill areas which will provide your team the greatest return on their time and offer them the opportunity for the highest levels of professional growth.

Start by downloading our Free Guide to Pre-call Planning. By coaching your team on the valuable techniques found there, you'll be building the basis for long term performance and you'll go back to getting a well deserved and good night's sleep!

Photo credit: dgilder

Grab the Rings of Sales 2.0 – But Don’t Slip Off The Parallel Bars!

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Okay, the headline metaphor may be a bit of a Olympic-sized literary stretch...but you have to admit, the visual of a coach watching her gymnasts compete is not too dissimilar to a manager trying to coach a diverse sales team.

Let's face it, your team is made up of individuals:        

• With different talents, strengths and weaknesses;
• That have divergent support needs;
• That are often in remote locations.

If that's not challenging enough for a coach, it gets considerably more difficult when the commission checks may not be quite as big as they once were. But one thing is for certain, how you manage, lead and enable your sales force today will determine what kind of issues you will be faced with tomorrow.

Sales Is Not Always A Team Sport - But The Team Still Needs To Win!

On one level, it seems like a contradiction in terms, doesn't it? But a good coach knows that a team is made up of unique individuals. So then, why do we so often see corporate incentive and retention programs rolled out with a one-size-fits-all structure and mentality? Based on what I've seen in corporate America, it's because that's the easy way out.

What's the old management saying?

"I love a hungry sales person with two mortgages, three cars and an expensive boat and a base salary woefully inadequate to meet the need."

As a consequence of that mentality, the typical corporate retention and incentive strategy is something along the lines of establishing a performance-based bonus program. Sell more - make more. Simple. Everyone's happy - right?

Wrong. (And I won't even get into the issue of how those goals are typically set.)

While I won't disagree that I look for money motivated sales folks, have you ever seen one single survey of sales people that indicates that money is their number one concern? 

Didn't think so.

Don't get me wrong, money is a key issue...it's just not the only or necessarily the top one. Let's assume that you've already got a reasonably good comp plan in place. Let's also assume that you're not currently having to... what's the corporate euphemism?...oh yeah, "right-size" the sales organization. If that premise is correct, then I'm going to suggest that it's an important time to find ways to recognize and support your key individuals. The goal is not only keeping your high performers, but also keeping them at high-performing levels!

We've Been Here Before...And If You Haven't, Pay Close Attention

So maybe you're saying,

"I don't have to worry about things like retention or recognition programs right now. These guys should feel lucky they even have jobs. And besides, there's no money for things like incentive programs or new sales enablement initiatives right now."

I hope that's not the case. It may very well be a pervasive corporate culture at the moment, but I would argue that's exactly the wrong way to look at things.

Believe it or not, we are beginning to emerge from the economic downturn. Yes, this one has been a doozy, and employment will be the lagging indicator, but economic cycles - to coin a phrase - are still cyclical. And your most valuable assets still get on the elevator every day.

When things do turn around - and they will - some of your best assets may not let the door hit them in the rear on their rush to get to their next job.  It's time to pay attention. Remember, the best time to retain your best players are before you need to.

Parallel Bar Management Skills

We often talk in this blog about the emerging "sales enablement" tools and how they can help your team produce more and do so more efficiently. Not a bad thing to consider from a retention perspective either. High perfoming reps in particular will appreciate it and use them! Heck, some of the Sales 2.0 tools can even help you coach (not just manage!) your players. I applaud those companies with enough vision to recognize the significant ROI of making that kind of move now. But that's just part of the managerial picture.

As a sales executive, you are operating in critical times. A time where your best management skills need to be working in parallel with the longer-range plans and goals. Maintaining and building the morale of their sales team takes a lot of effort. And this is not news, but individuals like to be treated...well, individually.

As We Focus On The Pitch, It's Easy To Lose Focus On The Pitcher

Alright, I know. I'm mixing metaphors here. (At least it's still a sports metaphor!)

Have you found yourself so focused on the need to close the deal and hit your numbers that you've neglected what you know about Sales Management 101? If so, remind yourself of a few of the basics and pull a few of these moves out of the tried-and-true toolkit. Yes, it takes more time and energy to manage this way but, trust me, in the long run you'll be glad you did.

• Catch people doing something right! Do you remember the first time your boss pulled you aside and said "good job!" Remember when he mentioned your name at a sales meeting for something you did well or for the good idea you had? Doesn't have to be a big deal. But catching people doing something right is still one of the most powerful management tools in your management toolkit. Reach for that one as often as you can!
• Discuss career pathing. Maybe the current economic times make the idea of talking about a positive career path with your subordinate seem like a silly waste of time. Heck, you might even be worried about your own career path! Well now's the best time to talk up a positive future. Just like Vince Lombardi said, "Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence." (Oops, another sport just entered the blog building.)
• Review reporting demands. You might feel powerless in this area because of management expectations, but I encourage you to give it a go. Your sales people will certainly appreciate it. Take a look at the reporting and administrative requirements placed on the sales team. See anything that can be minimized or eliminated? Still having a weekly sales call to regurgitate what should be in the CRM? Worse yet, are your people shackled by a CRM  that has been so over-engineered that you're having reps spend hours each day just trying to keep up with data input demand?

It's about productivity - not re-productivity. Find the extraneous and the duplicitous and eliminate it! To quote Yoda: "Necessary are the battle reports you need, but get the soldiers you must beyond the weeds."

Good luck...and heads up coach, there's a game on!

Photo credits:

azzurri_nr1 http://www.flickr.com/photos/ajacied/2772283192/

Krachel http://www.flickr.com/photos/krachel/2609725004/