Sales and marketing -- Information

The three most common mistakes sales managers make

by Dave Kahle

In most organizations, sales managers are the essential bridge between the company’s sales goals and the realization of those goals.

Sales managers are the conductors who carefully orchestrate the tentative entanglement of the salespeople with their management. 

Unfortunately, it is often the most under-trained job in the entire organization. Instead of providing information on the best practices and processes of the job, most companies hope their sales managers will learn enough during their days as a field salesperson to provide some roadmap as to how to do this job well.

Only a small percentage of untrained sales managers ever really figure it out, arriving by trial and error and after hours of study at the best practices of an effective sales manager. The overwhelming majority find themselves caught up in the urgencies of the moment, the tempting details of all the transactions, and the continuing onslaught of crises.

The net result? Few salespeople are effectively managed. Certain common mistakes often arise out of this unhealthy situation.

1. Lack of a focused sales structure.
This is such a foreign concept to many companies that the term itself is unfamiliar. The structure of a sales force consists of all the articulated and unspoken rules, policies and procedures that shape the behavior of the salesperson.

It consists of such things as:

• the way sales territories are defined;
• the way salespeople go about their jobs;
• the way markets and customers are targeted;
• the way salespeople are compensated;
• the methods the manager uses to communicate with the salespeople;
• the expectations for the sales force;
• the training and development system of the company;
• the expectation for information collecting by the salespeople;
• the frequency and agenda for sales meetings;
• the sales tools used by the salespeople and countless other such things.

A highly focused, well designed sales structure can be one of the company’s greatest assets, as it ultimately shapes the behavior of the sales force.

Why do you have the sales compensation plan that you have? Is it because you crafted a strategic plan that directly compensates the sales force for achieving the company’s objective? Or, is it because it’s the plan you inherited?

Many of these structural issues -- spoken and unspoken rules about how the salesperson does the job -- have evolved by the salespeople in response to their own specific situations.

And most sales managers are oblivious to the impact of these decisions on the productivity and effectiveness of the salesperson. 

2. Lack of regular and systematic
direction and feedback for the salespeople.
The relentless attraction of the urgent, and the demanding shouts of the transaction, like the pleading of a toddler, have a tendency to overwhelm the time and attention of most sales managers.

Sales managers often have the best of intentions. For example, they may need to do a set of performance reviews by the end of the year. But there is this big presentation in one account to attend. Another account wants to complain about some issue to the sales manager. Yet another needs the manager’s touch to smooth some feathers. And they really do need to spend some time in the field with the new salesperson. 

And, and, and. The demands of the urgent force regular face-to-face discussions about expectations and results to the bottom of the to-do list.

As a result, most salespeople are left without direction and provided with little feedback on how they are doing. Of course, distributors publish sales numbers, but there are lots of reasons why a set of numbers can be up, down or sideways beyond the impact of the salesperson.

What do you expect of this particular salesperson? And how well is he/she doing? 

In most surveys of what salespeople really want from their managers, direction and feedback are often at the very top of the list. It's one thing to talk about some account or some deal, it’s quite another to speak to the core issues of performance.

Sales is an isolated job. It is not unusual for a salesperson to spend as much as 70 percent of the work week by himself. All that isolation often leads to anxiety and self-doubt which expresses itself through complaints and finding fault with the company.

All this negative energy can be prevented by providing the salesperson with regular direction, specific expectations and regular feedback.

3. Lack of an organized training and development system.
No profession in the world expects the serious practitioners of that profession to figure it out by themselves.

Quite the contrary. Every profession has determined some minimal acceptable course of study, and typically has some event which signals the entry into that profession.

It is for this reason that teachers, Emergency Medical Technicians and ministers are licensed; that attorneys must pass the bar exam; accountants must pass their certification exam, and so forth.

Unfortunately, this is rarely true of salespeople. Only in top companies is there some required course of study for entry-level salespeople, and some event which signifies the successful completion of that study and their entry into the profession.

So, why is it that the overwhelming majority of sales managers do not require regular and systematic involvement in continuous development events for their charges? It may be that they don’t see their salespeople (or themselves) as professionals. Or, it may be they never thought about it that way. 

While there are as many other management miscues as there are sales managers, these three are the most common. Address them, and you’ll be well on your way to outstanding success in sales management.

Dave Kahle is a consultant and trainer who helps his clients increase their sales and improve their sales productivity. He speaks from real world experience, having been the number one salesperson in the country for two companies in two distinct industries. Dave has trained thousands of salespeople to be more successful in the Information Age economy. He's the author of over 500 articles, a monthly ezine, and four books. His latest is 10 Secrets of Time Management for Salespeople. He has a gift for creating powerful training events that get audiences thinking differently about sales.

His Thinking About Sales Ezine features content-filled motivating articles, practical tips for immediate improvements, useful resources and helpful tips to help increase sales. Join for NOTHING on-line at www.davekahle.com/mailinglist.htm.

You can reach Dave at:
The DaCo Corporation
3736 West River Drive
Comstock Park, MI 49321
Phone: 800-331-1287 / 616-451-9377
Fax: 616-451-9412
info@davekahle.com
www.davekahle.com