10 Things You Can Do to Become a Rock Star Sales Manager
Sep 16 2013 By Anthony Iannarino in Sales , Small Business
Here’s
a list of ten things you can do to become a rock star sales manager.
Following this recipe will help you lead your team to their best ever
results, and it will help you turn in your best ever performance, too.
1. Care about your salespeople.
Sales
management is a leadership role. You aren’t managing a team as much as
you are leading that team (I’ll have more to say about this later). If
you want your team to care deeply about succeeding, about making their
number, about creating value for your clients, then you start by caring
about your salespeople. Show them you care about them individually.
2. Learn to coach.
The
relationship you have with your salespeople should be a good coaching
relationship. Since we’ve already established that you are going care
deeply about their well being, you will already have the platform of
trust that allows you to help your salespeople see their own blind
spots. Good coaching is a careful balance of being non-directive and
helping the salesperson learn some things on their own and being
directive and telling them what you need them to do. Learn to coach the
individuals on your team.
3. Provide continuous training.
You
may have thought that you took care of the need for continuous training
by hiring salespeople with experience. You didn’t. All salespeople
benefit from acquiring new ideas, new skills, and a further grounding in
fundamental principles of good selling. Don’t ever stop providing
training.
4. Serve your salespeople before your company.
The
main challenge for a sales manager is finding the time to invest in
their team. Your organization is going to make serious demands of you.
And what your company wants from you is important. They want reports,
information, more reports, your attendance at meetings, and even more
reports. At the end of the day (or quarter), you are going to be
measured by how well your team does. Serve your team first. Invest your
time and energy there. Be efficient in providing your company what it
needs, but know it won’t make the number go up. Put your team’s needs
first.
5. Be the example.
If you want your sales team to
create value for clients, let them see you create value. If you want
your team to persevere, let them see you persevere. If you want your
team to develop themselves as professionals, let them see you developing
yourself. They are going to be what you are. Be the example.
6. Don’t be the super-closer.
You
may have found yourself in a sales management role because you did well
in sales. Maybe you even closed some really big deals. You will not
succeed in sales management by being the super-closer. You are already
spread to thin, and your quota (read: the combined quota of each of your
team members) is too large for you to make by trying to close their
deals. You may need to help with some “must win” deals, but you aren’t
the super-closer.
7. Create independents.
Your job as a
sales manager is to create “independents.” If your sales team has to
come to you for every answer, you aren’t going to succeed. Your role as a
leader is to create people who can succeed in doing their job well
without your help. This doesn’t mean that you won’t help them. Instead,
it means you help them gain the competency to make good decisions on
their own. The last thing you want or need is dependents. It will make
you feel needed, but it will ruin your results. Make them independent.
8. Focus as much on effectiveness as activity.
It’s
easy to believe that more activity will automatically equal better
results. That’s because there are so many salespeople for whom this is
true. But more poor activity isn’t the right answer. When you look at
low activity, recognize that part of the reason it is low is likely that
the salesperson isn’t effective and lacks confidence. Focus on fixing
the effectiveness problem first. People like doing things they do well.
Good sales management is a careful balance of activity and
effectiveness.
9. Provide air cover.
Your sales
organization is going to do things that make it tough for your team to
succeed. They have good intentions, but don’t always recognize the
effects of their decisions. You have to stand up to the organization and
protect your team when necessary. But, once a decision is made, you
never complain down. You support the decision and you march. Give air
cover when necessary.
10. Remember your lessons.
If
you’ve gotten this far, it’s important to remember what you learned from
your best sales manager. What did she do that helped you succeed and
grow beyond anything you imagined? What made her special? It’s also
helpful to recall what you learned from your worst sales manager. What
did you tell yourself that you would never do if you were a sales
manager? Now is your chance to apply those lessons!
Use these ten
ideas as a list of prompts. Review each item and make an action plan
around each one of them. Then put them into practice as fast is humanly
possible; your team’s success depends upon it.
Anthony Iannarino
is an author, speaker, and entrepreneur. he has been named one of the
top 25 most influential people in sales by both OpenView Partners and
Top Sales World. Anthony writes for the magazines SUCCESS and
ThinkSales, as well as daily at
www.thesalesblog.com.