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…