Becoming A Sales Manager – Managing People

By Thomas Fee

To be successful Sales Managers have to realize that the skills that made them good sales reps are different than those it takes to succeed at managing. If a new sales manager is able to get around their ego, they will realize that they must change to succeed.

As if the learning curve for new sales managers isn’t enough there are other obstacles in the way of success:

· Unusual demands on the manager’s time for non-sales related activities

· Recruiting and development responsibilities which take an inordinate amount of time and effort

· Meetings and administrative duties

· The expectation of becoming “super sales” people in addition to managing

There should be operational procedures that describe what sales managers, are supposed to do. Unfortunately most organizations do not have any such guidelines. It is assumed that the successful sales rep will become a successful manager using the same kind of initiative it took to succeed at selling. Not so! That’s why there are so many incompetent sales managers in the field today.

Becoming a sales manager means thinking and acting differently than you did as a sales rep. It means that however you succeeded is not necessarily the way other will and that you’ll have to understand that. It also means that you are no longer competing with anybody, especially your own employees. Your job is to make them better at selling than you ever were by identifying and working with their strengths, not imposing yours on them.

In short you’ll have to get over yourself and start learning a new skill – that of managing and motivating others to become the best they can be. This means you have to check your ego and attitude about personal success at the door and start focusing on the success of others.

Sales managers are usually promoted for the wrong reason: they were good at selling. Since selling requires a different set of skills than managing, there are inherent problems in becoming a manager. The primary problem, that of ego, manifests itself when a new manager who has been successful at selling sets three expectations that cause others to falter or fail:

1.      They measure all other selling approaches against their own

2.      They compete with their employees rather than coaching them how to perform successfully

3.      They assume that they are better than their sales people, since they were appointed managers

Very few sales managers receive any training before becoming a manager. I know how crazy this sounds, but it’s true. They are given charge of large number of people who are responsible for making the money to run the company without any training about how to manage others. The same companies who operate this way wouldn’t consider hiring a driver who wasn’t qualified or a CPA who wasn’t an accountant.  New sales managers however are expected to run on instinct and imagination. Unfortunately the same kind of behaviors that made them good sales people makes them poor managers.

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So, what can you do if you are in this position? You can start by realizing one thing. There are thousands of successful managers who have never sold anything and you need the same skills that they have when it comes to managing others.

Managing sales processes and the business of sales requires experience in the field, but people management skills are universal. Your job as a manger is to get things done through others. To achieve this you must know how to coach and motivate others to excel.

Build A Development Profile

Instead of measuring sales people by how you would perform, measure them by a set of objective standards. The difference between a winning and losing team isn’t that all the players behave the same. It’s the coaching that makes the difference.

You must become aware of what does and doesn’t work for certain individuals. The challenge for a manager is to make sure that the resources, tools and guidance are provided to help individuals leverage their own strengths and compensate for their weaknesses.

This is done by documenting the development needs of each person and focusing on those areas that need improvement, while letting them run with their strengths. Each development profile represents the continuous improvement program for that individual. You must judge how many elements an individual can handle at given point in time.

Managers are paid to create winning teams. To win, the team must be functional. Lots of teams have raw talent, but never win the championship. It is the manager’s job to make sure everything works together to win. This means coaching each individual and the team, as a whole, to perform optimally.

Your function as a coach is to instill a vision for each member to do his or her best in order to achieve the collective task. You must point the way toward success for each individual in order for the team to succeed.

Directing Others

The most difficult areas of successfully managing people involve face-to-face interaction regarding performance. The ability to significantly influence the behavior of others is a skill that few people master. That’s why there are lots of good coaches but only a few great ones. This is the area where most managers falter or fail either because they lack either credibility or competence.

Successful managers must be able to direct the actions of others without coercion or manipulation. They must be masters of persuasion. The people taking direction from you should want to act on your advice because they believe that it will be in their best interest to do so. This area of management activity leaves room for a wide range of styles and approaches. The best guideline you can use is to be yourself. Don’t try to assume the “persona” of what you think a manager ought to be.

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The first and most obvious necessity for successfully directing others is to set expectations. In most environments expectations are a moving target. Like many other aspects of management, priorities change from time to time, due to influences beyond your personal control.

There are management tools available in every organization that can be used to direct performance. Examples of these tools include: job descriptions, performance appraisals and business plans and territory development plans.

You’ll also need to be able to discern the difference between skills and styles. Many mangers mistake alternative approaches for lack of skill, because they judge everything by how they would do it themselves. To be objective about an individual’s performance you’ll need to understand the various styles that people employ.

There’s old expression, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” As a manager you are responsible to set the course and establish the most efficient steps for an individual to achieve sales success. It should not be left up to them to figure out. You should design this course based on what you can observe works best for a given individual. To do this successfully you must assess each person’s capabilities. Your sales people do not always realize their maximum potential. It’s up to you to help them identify and achieve it.

Here’s where sales experience may help. It is essential that you understand the employees function – but not necessary that you can perform it better than them. You must break down the skills, behaviors and activities necessary for your employees to succeed. It is your job to enable them to perform at a competent level. This means you must show them how to translate behavior into success.

You should develop a plan with each employee that clearly outlines the course for them to succeed. You need to go over every detail of the plan with them personally and coach them through the process of success.

Evaluating Performance

Once the development plan is in place for each sales rep you then shift into coaching mode. You will observe as a manager that everybody does things a little bit differently. In order to be objective, it is important to separate skills from style when evaluating performance. Good managers value and know how to leverage diversity.

Discussing performance is a great time to clarify expectations, reinforce standards, address problems and offer constructive feedback. It is an opportune time to discuss individual potential and the (sometimes difficult) steps along the path to success.

Evaluation should be continual and need not always be formal, but should always focus on what can be improved. Like any good coach, you should always look for the little things a player can do to improve their performance and view the chance to share pointers as an opportunity to motivate that person.

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When delivering feedback, it is a good time to make sure that the sales rep clearly understands the expectations that have been set for them. Introducing this element into the dialogue will help reinforce your message in a positive way. Giving feedback also offers the opportunity to remind the sales rep that everybody is expected to meet or exceed the minimum standards for competence.

This type of reference lends credibility to the coaching by introducing the element of legitimacy. Many of these standards can be found in job descriptions. They may include simple requirements, like: making quota, attending training or timely reporting. They may also be springboards for expanding the employees understanding of what comprises competence and how to achieve it.

Relating performance evaluations to the accomplishment of career objectives can enhance the employee’s perspective. This creates a strong emotional anchor for them by tying short-term performance to long-term success.

Performance problems must be dealt with head on, but you as the manager, must also be able to suggest corrective measures the employee can use. For example, if a sales rep is not making quota, you might suggest areas of their performance that will enhance their chances of doing so. Don’t just tell them they need to make quota, tell them what they might do to achieve this goal. Perhaps they need to do more prospecting, improve their ability to talk to key buying influences, make better presentations or do more account analysis. Be specific about how they can improve performance.

Even in sales most problems are not “deal breakers” unless they are poorly managed. It is your job to point out the areas where a sales rep needs to improve as well as what steps they should take. Discuss alternatives to the problem behavior and agree on a solution. Most importantly, get the commitment of the employee to make it a priority to of correcting the problem behavior.

Don’t expect your people to manage themselves. If they could do that, the organization wouldn’t need you! Avoiding the responsibility of pointing out problem behavior along with prescribing solutions is a failure on your part, not theirs to correct it. As the manager you are responsible to take the initiative.

Characteristics of Constructive Feedback

Many good employees leave organizations simply because a careless comment was made to them or about them. Even more leave because nothing is said to them when an explanation or discussion is indicated. Managing by “letting the chips fall where they may” is a symptom of the worst kind of incompetence. Leaving people to figure out what they’re own problems are, is a completely dysfunctional approach to managing others.

As a manager, you are responsible to insure that communication is effective and efficient with your employees. Giving feedback constructively is one of the ways you do this. Think of it as approaching a prospect. Would you go to a prospect and say something like, “You know, if you had half a brain, you’d see that I am offering you the only sensible solution to your problem, but you are such an

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incompetent boob, you cant; see it.” Of course you wouldn’t do this, but there is no difference between saying this to a customer or telling a sales rep, “Either make quota or you’re fired.” The thing that’s missing in both examples is why and how the other party can achieve their goal.

Remember that you must inform and motivate others to get them to produce the results you both want. Giving constructive feedback to an employee is simple if you know how. Like doing a good job of anything, it requires a little forethought, but is productive if its done right.

Here are some tips about giving feedback to employees about performance:

·         Emphasize what can be done rather than why the problem exists: This way the employee can focus on their performance rather than their problem.

·         Offer advice that the recipient can do something about.

·         Give feedback at the right time: Choose the right time and environment to deliver feedback. Give the recipient every chance to be receptive.

·         Offer feedback as information: Don’t tell the recipient they’d “better shape up or ship out”. Tell them exactly what they must do to achieve their objectives and include steps for them to follow.

·         Conduct a dialogue: The recipient must be allowed to clarify and understand what is expected of them. Discuss with them ideas for improving performance and how that can be done. Be open to their ideas about how to achieve this as well.

Coaching behavior is a dynamic process. It requires the participation of the coach and the player to achieve performance objectives. If the player is not motivated or the coach is not competent, the attempt will fail. The coach is the one, however who must maintain perspective. Players are not as experienced in how or why they must perform a certain way. The coach is supplied to correct this deficiency in the system.

As the sales manager, you are the coach. You can’t go into the game for the player, but you must be there to make sure the player is performing at their best. Every player has a different set of strengths and weaknesses that the coach has to work with. The coach should be able to offer feedback to the player that will enable them to leverage their own strengths and compensate for their weaknesses.

Creating Performance Development Plan

A performance development plan should be created for each individual you supervise. It is the blue print for the professional development of each player on the team. It is specifically designed to identify problem areas and recommend specific steps for the employee to take in order to improve their performance.

The performance development plan breaks down performance into skill categories. Categories should be defined using examples of behaviors and activities that indicate the individual is demonstrating a

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particular skill. For example, under sales fundamentals you might list:

·         Practices the basic concepts of selling

·         Conducts successful sales calls

·         Able to execute the sales process

Assessments for each category should be both quantitative and qualitative. Qualitative assessments are given in the form of comments and observations. A simple rating scale of 10 to 1 (10 being the highest and 1 being the lowest) can be used to quantify your assessment.

Use a Likert scale to allow for a certain range of discretion in evaluating performance.

For instance:

·         0-2.4     = Does not exhibit this skills

·         2.5-4.9 = Needs improvement

·         5.0-7.4  =  Exhibits competency

·         7.5-10   = Exhibits mastery

The plan itself should be divided into three major parts:

1.      Development Needs: This section is designed to describe the areas in which the individual requires improvement.

2.      Development Objectives – This section asks the manager to identify the skills, behaviors and activities the individual is expected to exhibit in order to demonstrate improvement

3.      Development Plan – A list of activities or tasks the individual is directed to undertake in order to accomplish the development objectives

The performance development plan is a working document. It is designed to provide guidelines for discussion about continuous improvement.

The most important aspect of managing performance improvement is to prioritize. Don’t try to work on too much at one time. Establish which are the few most important areas and work on those first. Don’t’ move on until you are satisfied that the employee has demonstrated improvement in those areas.

Managing sales performance, from a people standpoint, is not mysterious. It is a process of identifying those skills, behaviors and activities required to perform their function successfully and coaching people about how to implement them. Anything other than doing it right will only provide hit and miss results. Good management is being able to perform these functions and helping your people to achieve their best.

If you don’t already have one, you should develop a performance development plan that lists the primary skills, behaviors and activities of each type of employee you supervise: sales, pre-sales,

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marketing support, etc. For each category you should have some range of numerical rating to provide an overview of each individual’s performance.

Don’t create too many categories. You should be able to define the basic elements of competency in 10-15 categories of behavior. Within each category of behavior you should further describe a few elements that comprise competence.

Each of these elements is part of what constitutes the criteria for the overall numerical rating. In addition you should provide a section that allows for comments and observations about each element of competence.

At the end of the form, you should have a “Development Plan” section. In this section you should note:

·         Overall comments and observations

·         Describe the areas in which the individual requires additional development

·         Describe the specific skills, behaviors and/or activities the individual is expected to exhibit in order to demonstrate improvement

Finally, include a section that lists the: proposed dates, activities or tasks, responsible parties and results for each element of the development plan. Decide on a follow up schedule with the employee and commit to discussing their progress at those times or any time they need help.

It’s not enough just to tell people they need to make quota. The challenge of the sales manager is to advise his or her people about how they can best go about doing this. This means that the manager must know enough about each sales rep to help them perform the tasks and make their numbers. Any manager who doesn’t take this responsibility personally shouldn’t be managing others.

Becoming a sales manager offers many new and different challenges that will require an individual to learn things that their sales experience hasn’t taught them. For sales managers, who have been successful in sales, this will often be the biggest struggle of their career.

About the Author:

Thomas Fee is the founder of Performance Management Consultants™. Performance Management Consultants™ is dedicated to providing the next generation of professional development enhanced by technology and coaching to enable users to change their behavior resulting in improved performance.

They have developed numerous programs and processes to enhance the skills, behaviors and activities of managers, sales, client service and pre-sales (SE) professionals. Performance Management Consultant’s™ programs address the specific challenges faced by those working in the areas of business practice known as Customer Relationship Management and Complex Sales.

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