How to Become an Effective Sales Manager

Mr Cellophane is a Sales Manager reviewing the forecast of  3 of his reps, and each one of them is forecasting 1M$. His forecast is therefore 1+1+1 = 3M$, which is fine because it is Mr Cellophane’s  goal this quarter.

Mr Cellophane is a transparent Sales Manager, he adds little value to his business and to his reps,  Mr Cellophane has poor control over his business, and by the way,  he will miss his forecast and his goal by 400K$...

Ms Drilldown, in the same situation, inspects her reps thoroughly, asks them “tough” questions about their deals and about their activity. Thanks to her inspection skills Ms Drilldown is more predictable than Mr Cellophane : Ms Drilldown will forecast and will achieve 2.6 M$ this quarter.

The Problem is that Mr Cellophane and Ms Drilldown’s both missed goal...

Only Mr Stretcher will forecast and will drive his team to overachieve the goal. Mr Stretcher is a  successful Sales Manager who consistently applies “LA FORMULE”  : 1+1+1=4!™

Which Sales Manager would you like to become ?

A struggling Sales Manager  will handle business in a way that  is unpredictable, and is reflected, in the long term, by consistent  inaccurate forecast (too optimistic or too pessimistic, either way reflects poor control of the business)

A better Sales manager  will handle business in a better way so as to provide a more accurate forecast, but consistently below goal, which reflects good “drill down” skills, and good scrubbing of his Reps’s own forecast, but also can reflect  little influence on his people by coaching them into filling the gap with the revenue goal.

An Effective Sales Manager does both by identifying gaps between 4cast & goal, and then by getting her people to act at filling this gap and eventually making things happen to make/beat goal. She does it thanks to her value added inspection skills.

Great Sales Managers always ask themselves  before a 1-to-1 with their rep: What do I want to achieve today with this rep, What behavior change do I want to drive, What questions do I need to ask ?, How must I ask those questions in order to be effective ?

Only YOU  have the answers, or should I say, the questions…

Sales Management Outsourcing is in sight

Not so long ago, sales as a profession was  looked at as an art;you “had it” or you did not “have it”. Sales people were mostly trained internally. Xerox, IBM, DIGITAL EQUIPMENT and so on were training their new hires extensively both on their products and on how to sell them. And there was only one way to sell - their way. 

Then slowly, as time went by everyone agreed that whatever industry you were in, sales was also a process, a science, a numbers’ game. You had to make a proposal in order to close a deal,  you had to have a first appointment in order to start a sales opportunity, you had to prospect to get a first appointment, etc...Then suddenly a whole new world opened: 

You could start measuring and influencing the effectiveness of the process. How many appointments did you need to close a sale? What was your bid/win ratio? Why was this opportunity outside of the length of your usual sales cycle?

You could start developing your sales people by looking at their ratios, identifying their strengths for each step of their process : farmers/hunters profiling began, external sales training companies started to train on sales skills, on the sales process and on sales reps assessment. 

Finally, because processes can be measured, because we can define the inputs and outputs of a process, companies started looking at cost effective ways to  completely outsource some of those processes to outside experts who could do it cheaper, better and faster.

Lead generation and appointment making companies became the outsourcers of the prospecting activity for their clients. With a good script related to your business, the right metrics for appointment generation and skilled people trained on cold calling/ marketing, you could totally outsource the first step of your sales process. 

Now what if what was possible for sales people then is becoming possible for sales managers now? what if your front line sales managers could also follow a process instead of just “winging it.” 

What if we were able to actually identify the best practices of successful sales managers and understand what it is that they do that makes them consistently blow past their number. What if we could track on a daily basis the effectiveness of their habits? what if we could reverse-engineer some of these habits and turn them into processes with clear inputs/outputs and  metrics (sales manager productivity metrics). 

Then a whole new world would also open to sales managers and to small business owners who could outsource some of the SM processes that they neglect to an “assistant coach” - a part time sales productivity manager, who could make their dream of having everyone making goal becomes a reality.

I see this happening already, it's only a matter of time and of processes...

WHY TOP Sales People Can Become TOP Sales Managers

These days, I am getting tired of all these articles and discussions I see where the main point seems to be  “STOP promoting your best sales people to become front line sales managers. You are making a huge mistake. Top players never make great coaches. If you are a great sales person then you are doomed to become a lousy front line sales manager because sales people are “wired” differently than sales managers...etc...etc...”

It sounds like the better sales person you are, the less chance you have of being successful as a sales manager because these 2 jobs supposedly require very different skills...

I have seen many sales managers fail at making that transitional step and there was a time I was tempted to think this analysis had some substance, but today I could not disagree more.

Over the last 10 years, the skills I have seen the BEST sales managers apply with their team to drive growth and successfully assess and influence their reps on a daily basis are PRECISELY the same skills they were using when they were selling to their customers : questioning skills, listening skills, and influencing skills.

The other thing I hear all the time is that TOP sales reps are the worst coaches which is why they can not become TOP sales managers who need to be excellent at coaching.

Again, I could not disagree more today.

Great sales people and great sales managers have a lot in common, including coaching skills.

If you are a TOP sales person today in a VALUE selling environment,  there is a great chance you are a master at CONSULTATIVE selling because this has become the only way for you to survive as a sales person in this buyer’s market economy.  You can’t push your solution fwd,  you have to make it fit into your prospect’s problem and you have to discover these problems first (which is why you need to be a great questioner and listener, ...)

Well, guess what ? Coaching is all about consultative selling. Renowned Author Steve Schiffmann, America’s corporate sales trainer and author of numerous sales books, says that his definition of selling is “finding out what your prospect does, where he does it, when he does it, how he does it, who he does it with, why he does it that way and then - and only then- helping him/(her) do it better”.

Well, my own definition of coaching (a rep) is  “finding out what your rep does, where he does it, when he does it, how he does it, who he does it with, why he does it that way and then - and only then- helping him/(her) do it better.”...

Sales managers need to apply the exact same skills as sales people, but to very different clients...their REPS!

The main reason TOP sales people do not always become TOP sales managers is not because of skills mismatch, it is because of PROCESS mismatch and lack of TIME  and SUPPORT before, during and after the transition into the new job.

Managing, or leading sales people, is not about managing your reps’ sales process, that should be your reps’ job! For you as a sales manager there is a whole new dimension and a whole new process by itself that will eventually help you manage  yourself more efficiently on a daily basis.

The process of leading sales people is something that most sales managers and their own managers do not fully grasp yet. Without help from their VP sales guiding them to apply the same skills (their strengths at selling) to very different habits (sales managers habits) and to very different clients (their reps), RISING sales managers’ only hope is leading by example as their best coaching technique  and you are left trying to get a mom teaching  her kids the habits of brushing their teeth by showing them how well mom brushes her own teeth (good luck ...).

Sales management has unique management challenges  because sales people are unique people to manage and the ART of influencing sales people -to do something different-  is the same as the ART of influencing prospects -to buy-. If you don’t believe me, try hiring  an “experienced manager” not coming from sales and put him/her in charge of a couple of hungry sales people and see what happens...

Sales management, however,  is also a SCIENCE - the science of sales management productivity - and as such,  has its own processes and therefore its own metrics to help sales managers stay on track. 

Now, the good news is that the art of leading sales people can be mastered and the science of sales productivity can be taught. The recipe is simpler than you think. Cooking it right starts with the sales manager : it requires focus from him/her on understanding, practicing and reenforcing these new habits with his/her sales team and ends with dedicated support from his/her VP of Sales in terms of time, coaching and budget for external help when needed (that’s me...).

So if you are a very successful sales rep who wants to become a sales manager for the right reasons (not because your ego only demands it, that’s not good enough...), then don’t lose hope because YES, you certainly have the skills to  do it and if  you benefit from the right support  it is worth becoming a TOP  sales manager instead of just an average one : the rewards for you and for your company are : a team who is ready to follow you anywhere because you make them successful year over year and +50% to your TOP LINE (difference actually measured with the comparable performance of average sales managers (also called reactive firefighters...)).

So, who wants to start cooking?

PS : The recipe for “HOW TOP sales people become TOP sales managers” -  available here

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