The Nonsense That Passes for Sales Management

By Kelly Riggs

When a company needs to promote someone to sales management, the first place they typically turn is to one of their top salespeople.

That makes sense, of course. I mean, who would we turn to – one of the bottom-dwellers??

As a result of this very common practices, I’m sure you’ve heard (and probably experienced) that promoting your top seller to the ranks of management is usually a disaster just waiting to happen. You lose your best salesperson, and, more often than not, you get a mediocre sales manager.

But why is that? Why can’t top salespeople become excellent managers?

The answer is two-fold.

1. The skills needed to build a productive sales team are quite different than the skills used to become a professional salesperson.

2. Companies don’t arrange for the new, incoming manager to learn those skills.

This means, of course, that top salespeople can become excellent sales managers. The problem is that companies make it very difficult for them to be successful.

It’s similar to a football coach who needs a wide receiver for his team and notices a kid out on the track who is very fast and athletic. He’s FAST, so we put him out on the field – without any additional training – and expect him to be a Hall of Fame wide receiver.

I know, I know…that sounds ridiculous. But, that’s the point. Sales managers need additional and/or different skills than the ones that got them promoted to management. However, people looking for promotion can look for resources elsewhere if their company is not providing any help in such regard. They can check out online training sessions provided by educational websites that can assist in moving upwards on the career ladder.

The remedy to this recurring problem is fairly straightforward.

• Identify the competencies and skills needed to be a successful sales manager.
• Assess a potential management candidate with regard to those competencies.
• Then, assuming he or she looks promising, require the candidate to begin training to acquire necessary management skills.

And, by the way, budgeting, reports, CRM training, or marketing are completely different aspects from sales. Clearly, those things are important, but you might not need an in-house marketing team since it can be taken care of by outsourcing it to https://adverity.com/ or equivalent websites. However, sales could be worked more efficiently with a sales team employed for the company. Moreover, the critical skills that effective sales management leaders must learn including teaching salespeople; coaching performance; setting clear expectations; developing a winning culture; and, especially, identifying, hiring, and retaining new talent..

And that’s just for starters.

Without good management leadership skills, the nonsense that passes for sales “management” is quite ridiculous.

The Sales Management Disconnect

The truth is that most top performers make lousy managers because they expect everyone to have the same drive and motivation they do. They expect every salesperson to pick up on things as easily as they do, and have little tolerance for people who don’t “get it” very quickly. This is something that most employers should understand, whether you are a car dealership owner who has taken the most comprehensive and engaging course available to understand how car sales work, or you are a B2B founder who wants a kick-start on sales and needs to have the right managers working for you.

Promoting your best salesperson may not be the right way to go about it. They often lack patience, many not listen well, and see everything as an “excuse.” Which, to be fair, may often be the right assessment. However, what passes for “management” at that point can be quite ineffective:

“You need to…”

“Make more calls.”

“Do more prospecting.”

“Work harder.”

“Ask for the business.”

“Practice your presentation.”

“Get your mind right.”

And on and on it goes, providing almost completely worthless advice.

Why is it worthless?

Three reasons:

1. It does NOT set a clear expectation for the salesperson.

2. And, although it may be – generally speaking – a good idea, it provides no clear path to change.

3. It provides a built-in excuse when (not if) failure occurs

When the salesperson continues to struggle, they can suggest that, although they took your advice (!), they are still failing. So, to make things even worse, you will provide a new line of non-specific advice. That should help.

Worse, you’re asking the employee to find their own answer to a problem they clearly have no idea how to solve. With few exceptions, if they knew what to do differently they would already be doing it. They need help with skills they don’t have – and you’re asking them to fix the problem without a knowledge of those skills. Perhaps you should consider teaching them the skill instead.

But the biggest problem here is that vague generalizations don’t lead to behavior change. When you want a salesperson – or an athlete – to make changes in specific actions, you want to give them specific changes to make.

If you don’t, there is a serious problem. For example:

The rep can make more calls, but still do them poorly. Would that actually help?

The rep could add two new prospecting calls per month? Is that enough?

If I’m selling the wrong thing to the wrong person, will asking for the business really help?

Get the idea?

When a sports coach wants to improve player performance, he/she will identify very specific things that will be methodically worked on. The specific issue will be identified and observed. The current habit will be compared to a new skill that will be done differently in order to improve the outcome. The new skill will be demonstrated. And then the athlete will practice under supervision until the skills improves.

That’s what sports coaches call “coaching.” [Tricky, huh?]

So, instead of telling a salesperson he isn’t prospecting enough, here’s a few thoughts on coaching him to improve:

• Have him analyze his schedule and identify a specific time he would choose to dedicate to prospecting.
• Have him set that time in his schedule, and monitor results each week.
• Have him practice his initial call approach with you to ensure that his prospecting approach is sound.
• Have him identify a specific product or service he wants to focus on in these prospecting calls.
• Have him create a list of 10 specific accounts to target, and set a specific time frame for accomplishing those calls.
• Make several prospecting calls with him so you can observe.
• Debrief those calls to determine what was done well, and to identify areas of improvement.

Or, to be fir, you could just cut to the chase and offer this pearl of wisdom:

“Dude. You need to do more prospecting.”

I’m sure you’ll be giddy with the results.