Unfortunately, of all the job titles and positions in a typical B2B sales force, the first line sales managers are the least trained for their positions.
Most have never been educated in the best practices of effective sales management. As a result, they default to the habits and practices they saw when they were salespeople. They mimic the models of the sales managers for which they worked. Alas, most of their models were also never educated in effective sales management.
As a result, sales management practices vary from one extreme to another, depending on the individual manager’s vision of himself.
There is a continuum from micromanager on one extreme to non-manager at the other.
Some see themselves as super salespeople – the most competent of all the salespeople, and the one who needs to go with the salespeople to close big accounts, and smooth flustered relationships. Others become administrators, busying themselves with reports, meetings and a continuous stream of clerical functions.
Some identify with the salespeople and wouldn’t think of impinging on anyone’s style or system of work. Others see themselves as executives who don’t really have time for the nitty gritty of joint sales calls.
Still others, suffering from a lack of a clear vision as to what their role could be, default to a reactive style of management, where their time is directed to the most compelling of the countless number of issues that cry for today’s attention.
The costs to the company can be huge.
Morale is not what it could be, and that impacts almost every transaction and relationship for the sales team. Salespeople turn over more rapidly, causing a whole series of unnecessary costs. Marginal salespeople continue in roles for which they aren’t suited, resulting in lost sales and disgruntled customers. Unfocused salespeople default to reactive sales styles, dissipating sales efforts...[Read More]
