Sales and Sales Management Blog

November 16, 2009

The Last Thing Your Sales Team Needs is a Manager

Filed under: Leadership,management,management training,sales,Sales Management,selling,small business,team development — Paul McCord @ 9:20 am
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Does your sales team need someone to:

  • Monitor every activity in the sales office?
  • Be every salesperson’s best friend?
  • Close the deal for every team member?
  • Set sales goals designed to make them and their team look good?

Over my three decades in sales I’ve seen lots and lots of sales managers.  The vast majority fall into one of these four types:

The Hall Monitor

The Hall Monitor sees their job as one of chronicling activity, taking names, dispensing discipline, focusing on procedures, thinking those are the keys to generating results—or at least to keeping their job.

Hall monitors tend to be oriented to process, are organized, and have a strong sense of discipline.  All admirable characteristics—but they’re misguided.  The Hall Monitor makes a great bureaucrat, a lousy sales manager.  He’ll make sure everyone knows their place and that procedure is followed—at the cost of morale and sales. 

Although the Hall Monitor is focused on enforcing procedure on subordinates, she feels justified in fudging (lying) to upper management when completing reports.  She has no intent of letting her subordinates hold her down or put her job in jeopardy.  If numbers aren’t met, margins aren’t being held, or sales calls aren’t being made, she is fully capable of showing management why it isn’t her fault. 

The Visitor

The Visitor is going places—fast.  Their current assignment of managing the sales team is temporary—and the more temporary, the better.  Their key to moving is getting some numbers to catch the eye of management.

The Visitor cares about no one other than himself and that translates into demanding sales at all costs.  Price is never an obstacle—sell it no matter what.  His message to his team members is get out and get orders and don’t come back until you got ‘em.  His implied message to the sales team is “the quicker you get the numbers, the quicker you get rid of me.”

Need help?  Need advice?  Need coaching?  Don’t ask The Visitor because frankly, he doesn’t give a damn.  If it isn’t something that’s going to help him get the next promotion and get it NOW, forget it.

Have a suggestion or advice to give?  Don’t bother because The Visitor doesn’t care—doesn’t plan on being around long enough to implement it anyway.

The one thing you can count on from The Visitor is a sales goal he is sure he can easily obliterate.  Oh, yeah, management will see those numbers destroyed, guaranteed.

The Good Buddy

The Good Buddy is everyone’s friend.  Managing is a popularity contest that he intends to win.  He’ll be a great drinking buddy, a top notch shoulder to cry on, a guy you can trust to cover for you.  He’ll make sure the office atmosphere is loose, that everyone feels welcome, that the office is a fun place to be.

Discipline?  Well, that’s not something you’ll find in his office.  An insistence on hitting quota?  Something else that isn’t a priority.  Coaching?  Nope.  Lots of back slapping and high fiving, but no coaching.  Decisions?  Don’t expect The Good Buddy to make the hard decisions because he might hurt someone’s feelings. 

The Good Buddy is weak and lets his team members run the office.  Ultimately, most everyone in his office ends up unhappy.

The Super Closer

We all know the Super Closer—the guy or gal who believes they can close anyone, anytime.  They generally have a massive ego, more than likely a strong sales history, an A type personality, and little respect for the others on their sales team.  The Super Closer sees their charges as grunts who know nothing about sales and whose only job is to go out, work through the chaff to find the prospect, then call in The Super Closer and watch the master work.

The Super Closer is concerned with one thing and one thing only—today.  Get today’s numbers, Numbers, numbers, numbers.  By gosh she’s never missed a quota and she’s not going to start now.  If you suckers can’t get the business—and God knows you can’t, she’ll close it for you.  Her sales team doesn’t have to worry about anything except getting her in front of a prospect.

Planning?  Who needs it?  Reports to management?  All they care about are quotas being met and exceeded, so she’ll tell them what they want to hear and then worry about making it true. 

The managers above have developed their own definition of what a manager is because:

  • They misunderstand the nature of their position.  Most companies don’t train their new sales managers.  The assumption is that good salespeople will know what needs to be done.  Consequently, most companies simply instruct new salespeople to call their manager if they have questions, maybe give them a day or two introduction to the reports and paperwork they’ll need to complete. 
  • They believe that today is more important than future days.  Get today’s numbers today and worry about tomorrow tomorrow.  This often comes from a demand by management—stated or unstated—that numbers be met today.  Many senior managers mouth a long-term growth philosophy while demanding numbers be made today so they get their bonus–and to hell with tomorrow (Wall Street anyone?).
  • They aren’t manager material to begin with.  A great salesperson will not necessarily be a great manager.  Often great salespeople make terrible managers.  They know what they are good at and want to continue being the sales superstar but with a management title.  Converting to be a real manager is impossible for some of these sales stars.
  • They can’t make the adjustment from being one of the group to being the leader of the group.  They want the new position but they don’t want their relationships to change.

The Sales Leader

Fortunately, there is a fifth type of sales manager—the real deal.

Currently it is common for sales managers at all levels to be called ‘Sales Leaders.’  Nice title that really doesn’t fit most managers.  A true sales leader is very different from the more typical managers we saw above.

The true sales leader:

  • Isn’t focused on today but rather is looking into and planning for the future with the intent of molding the future instead of being molded by it. 
  • Is looking to coach his or her team members to stardom, not to be The Star themselves. 
  • Manages through demonstration and inspiration, not intimidation or fear.
  • Is a student, open to suggestion, criticism, advice, and continual education. 
  • Leads by being trustworthy and demonstrating integrity and honesty.  His/her team members may not like The Sales Leader’s decisions, but know the decisions are honest and based on what the Sales Leader believes is best for the team.
  • Is a decision maker, not afraid to make the hard decisions and to live with the consequences. 

The Making of a Sales Leader

A Sales Leader doesn’t just happen, they are created, they’re formed, they’re developed.

The development starts with the selection of  the new manager.  Traditionally companies have selected top producers to become the new frontline sales manager.  Sales management is viewed more as a reward for production than as a critical job in its own right.

What makes a great manager isn’t what makes a great salesperson.  The activities are very different.  The relationship building needs are different, the communication, planning, and organizational needs are different.  Unless a company is seeking a Super Closer or a Visitor, promoting a top producer may not be a wise idea.

Although the management problems start with the selection of the new manager, more important is the “training” most new managers undergo—none.

One of the most common training formats companies have is upon promoting the new manager, the new manager is are given a day or two training on hiring and firing procedures, how to handle sexual harassment issues, and how fill out payroll paperwork.   From there, the new manager is told to call his or her manager if they have questions or need guidance.  After the first few questions directed to their manager, they begin to notice their phone calls aren’t returned as promptly as before, their manager’s tone of voice is a little sharper, the answers and guidance more and more abrupt. 

Soon they realize they’re on their own to sink or swin as they can.

No wonder they have no idea how to be a leader.

To create a Sales Leader companies must invest in their new manager.  They must either create a multi-disciplinary in-house management program or hire an outside company.  In addition, each new manager needs a coach—either an in-house coach or an outside professional manager coach.

Each new manager must be schooled in the skills of management, but more importantly must be guided in the roll of and skills of leadership.  Filling out paperwork, creating a sales plan, assigning territories, and resolving issues with shipping are all important, no doubt. 

But far more important to the success of the company and the sales team is getting the most out of team members, developing team members who have the desire to succeed, who are willing to invest the time and effort to be the best.  These aren’t instilled by a manager, they’re brought out by a leader.

The last thing your sales team needs is a manager.  You need Sales Leaders. 

If you want Sales Leaders, do the things necessary to develop them—investing in them is investing in your company’s future success.  Refusing to invest in them is an investment in your company’s failure.

April 30, 2009

Guest Article: “The Three Most Common Mistakes Sales Managers Make,” by Dave Kahle

Filed under: management,management training,sales,Sales Management — Paul McCord @ 7:13 am
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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. The gritty day-to-day interactions between the sales people and their customers are frequently filtered through the perspective of the sales manager on their way up the ladder. And the aspirations and strategies of the company’s management must be imprinted by the realism of the sales manager as they come down from above. Sales managers are the conductors who carefully orchestrate the tentative entanglement of the sales people with their management.

It’s an incredibly important and difficult job. 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 that their sales managers will have learned enough during their days as a field salesperson to provide some roadmap as to how to do this job well.

Alas, 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 and are never able to set in place a systematic blueprint for their success.

The net result? Few salespeople are effectively managed. All parties: executive management, sales manager and sales people, bounce from one frustration to another. Company objectives are met frequently by happenstance, salespeople are not developed to their fullest potential and sales managers lurch from one crisis to another.

Certain common mistakes often arise out of this unhealthy situation. As a long-time consultant and educator of salespeople and sales managers, I frequently see these three most common maladies suffered by sales managers.

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.

Most sales structures, however, haven’t come under the critical review of the company’s management. Typically, the structure slowly takes shape over time. Decisions are often made with heavy input from the salespeople, almost always in response to a single event. These decisions slowly become codified into the company’s written and unwritten structure.

As a result, many sales structures are vestiges of years gone by, the legacy of salespeople who may not even be with the company today.

Why do you have the sales compensation plan that you have, for example? 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?

Why do some salespeople come into the office every week? Is it because you have determined that this is the most valuable use of their time? Or, is it because… that’s just the way some of them like to do it?

Why is it that some of your salespeople are highly organized, with well designed file systems and effective ways to track their interactions with their customers, while others continue to get by with scraps of paper and yellow pads? Is it because you have invested in a system that helps them become well-organized and information-savvy? Or, is it because… that’s just how it’s worked out?

Can you see the point? 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.

I recently had lunch with a friend — an entrepreneur who had successfully started and run a number of businesses. As we were discussing the pros and cons of organizing a sales force for his latest venture, he remarked that he has learned how easy it is to gradually cede control of the company to the sales force. One decision at a time, made in response to the passionate plea of an individual sales person, would form, over time, the structure that governed the sales side of the business.

I was impressed with his insight. That very observation described the number one mistake that sales mangers make – they accept the historically evolved status quo for the structure, and don’t invest time in focusing it to provide the environment for sales success.

2.    Lack of regular and systematic direction and feedback for the salepeople.

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. And another account wants to complain about some issue to the sales manager. Yet another needs the manager’s touch to smooth some feathers, etc. And they really do need to spend some time in the field with the new salesperson. And, and, and… the demands of the urgent once again 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 directionless and provided with little feedback on how they are doing. Of course, we publish sales numbers, but there are lots of reasons why a set of numbers can be up, down or sideways above and 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 “my performance.”

Sales is an isolated job. It is not unusual for a salesperson to spend as much as 70% of the work week by himself. All that isolation often leads to anxiety and self-doubt which often 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.

The old saying, “Out of site, out of mind,” is too often the operational description of the typical sales manager. The salespeople are out there somewhere, doing their thing, while the tyranny of the urgent often occupy the manager’s time.

As a result, salespeople are not nearly as focused as they could be; they default to unhealthy thoughts; and they spend too much time expressing negative energy.

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, etc.

Unfortunately, that is rarely true of salespeople. In only the leading 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.

To even think this way is so outside of the reality of most sales managers that I can almost hear half of the readers of this article snickering over their coffee. “Some standard for allowing people into the job?” Incredible thought. But if you don’t insist on it, you’ll continue to labor with hit or miss sales force where every hire is ultimately a shot in the dark.

No profession in the world expects that once someone has become qualified to enter the profession, they then no longer need to invest in their own development. And every profession has expectations of the practitioners’ regular need to systematically improve himself or herself. Can you imagine a teacher who never attends an in-service training? A nurse who never invests in continuing development? A minister who never goes back to school? A doctor who never attends a conference?

Even if such lackadaisical professionals could keep their jobs, you’d not want them to have anything to do with your family. You’d never put your health in the hands of doctor who hadn’t updated himself since med school. You’d not want your children taught by the teacher who hadn’t learned anything since graduation. You’d never put your lawsuit in the hands of an attorney who had never bothered to keep current.

The examples can go on and on. But you get the idea. The professional who doesn’t regularly invest in his own continuous development is relegated to the dregs of the market.

So, why is it that 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 that they have never thought about it that way.

Regardless of the reason, the reality of this malady is that the quality of the sales force is not nearly what it could be, if only the sales managers required some minimum standard for their entry-level people, and then regular and continuous development of those who were on the inside. The wise sales manager will assemble a system for the education and development of his salespeople.

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.

——————————————————————————–

Self Assessment

Respond to each statement, and then reply by putting a number in the space which corresponds to each of the following replies:

You’re kidding. What’s that? = -2

We’re thinking about it. = 0

We’ve looked at it. No action yet. = 2

Yes, we’re in good shape. = 6

______ We have strategically reviewed the way sales territories are defined.

______ We have strategically designed the way markets and customers are targeted.

______ We have strategically designed the way salespeople are compensated.

______ We have strategically designed the methods the manager uses to communicate with the salespeople.

______ We have a specific set of expectations for each salesperson.

______ We regularly and systematically communicate those expectations with each individual salesperson.

______ We regularly and systematically provide feedback to each individual salesperson on how well they are meeting our expectations.

______ We have a minimal set of qualifications that an entry-level salesperson must meet in order to be allowed to represent our company.

______ We have a process to evaluate the entry-level salesperson’s skills.

______ We regularly inject our salespeople into learning events, and expect that they will continually improve themselves.

Your Total (add each of the numbers above) = ______

Directions: Total your score, and compare the total to the standard described below.

Total number: -20 to 0
Your situation: See, I told you these were common. You’re in trouble. Set aside serious time to rectify this situation. Top priority!

Total number: 0 to 20
Your situation: Not bad. There’s hope. Fix the issues that are weak and you’ll be in good shape.

Total number: 20 – 60
Your situation: Congratulations! You’re in good shape. Do some fine-tuning and watch your sales grow.

 

Dave Kahle, a high-energy, high-content speaker, has a special gift for engaging his audiences and stimulating people to think. He’s a world-class speaker who has presented in 36 states and six countries. He brings a wealth of practical information to his clients.  Dave has acquired his message through real life experience. He has been the number one salesperson in the country for two different companies in two distinct industries.  Visit his website

February 10, 2009

Run Don’t Walk

Filed under: attitude,business,career development,Client Relationships,Closing Sales,cold calling,Communication,goals,Handling Prospect,Handling questions,lead generation,Leadership,management,management training,motivation,Negotiation,Networking,Niche Marketing,Personal Marketing,Presentation Skills,Problem Solving,prospecting,recruiting/hiring,Referral Selling,sales,Sales Management,Sales Process,sales psychology,Sales Resources,sales training,selling,small business,success,time management,top sales experts,trust,Word of Mouth Marketing — Paul McCord @ 8:28 am
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Today’s the day!  Can’t say much till Noon Pacific Standard Time–but it is worth the wait.

Noon today PST, the doors open – on an offer that has the potential to save you thousands of dollars, increase your sales exponentially, and perhaps best of all give you peace of mind in the midst of a downward spiraling economy, massive budget cuts and increased sales quotas!

Watch the countdown to noon here.

Best,

Paul McCord


At noon PST run, don’t walk to here

February 6, 2009

Guest Article, “From Training to Education,” by Nido Qubein

Filed under: business,management,management training,sales,Sales Management,sales training,selling — Paul McCord @ 6:52 am
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From Training to Education
by Nido Qubein

Let me make a suggestion that at first may sound strange, coming from a management consultant. If your company has a training department, do away with it. Replace it with a Department of Education and Development.

The reason: The new business environment needs fewer people who are trained to do things a specific way and more people who are educated to find new ways of doing things.

As Stanley Marcus once said, “You don’t train people; you train dogs and elephants; you educate people.”

What’s the difference?

Let me put it this way: Would you want your teenager to have sex education or sex training ? The choice is clear.

The word education comes from the Latin educo, which means to change from within. Training provides an external skill. Education changes the inner person. Training deals only with the doing level. Education teaches people how to think.

Let me give you an example: I once ordered an apple pie and a milk shake at a fast-food restaurant. The server smiled and asked, “Would you like a dessert with that?”

This young woman had been trained to act. She had been conditioned to smile and try to upgrade the sale by reciting her memorized lines. And she rehearsed them to perfection.

But she had not been educated in customer interaction. She hadn’t been taught to listen to the customer, to think about what the customer ordered and to acquire a feeling for what might appeal to the customer under the circumstances.

Education deals with the feeling level. The ways you and I act are based on our responses to stimuli. First we think about it, then we begin to feel it, then we act based on that feeling.

Ronald Reagan won a landslide election in 1980 by asking people to think, feel and act. He did it with a penetrating question:

“Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

The voters thought about it. They felt uncomfortable about the economy. This feeling of discomfort moved them to behave in the way Reagan wanted them to behave. They voted against the incumbent administration.

Training attempts to add on the qualities needed for success. Education builds them in.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that you should never train people. Training is essential when a specific skill must be learned, or a specific procedure must be followed consistently in a manufacturing process. But training should be part of a broader educational process.

One of my favorite proverbs conveys the wisdom that when you give people fish, they’ll be hungry tomorrow; if you teach them to fish, they’ll never go hungry. Training gives your employees a fish — a specific skill applicable to a specific task. Education teaches them to fish.

Corporations have no choice but to invest substantial resources in developing people. So it’s best to invest in ways that let people grow; that teach them to think for themselves; that create a pool of solid candidates for promotion to higher positions.

My message to clients is clear:

  • Training focuses on teaching people yesterday’s skills.
  • Education focuses on teaching them to develop tomorrow’s skills.

Education without the vision for a better future is only training.

As Charles Kettering said: “You can’t have a better tomorrow if you’re thinking about yesterday.”

We’ve spent entirely too much time in the past teaching people what to do instead of concentrating on how they think and how they feel and how they behave; far too much time getting a job done instead of producing excellent results; far too much time conforming instead of creating.

Yesterday’s thinking looks at the tasks people perform today and asks, “How can we train our future employees to do these things?”

Today’s thinking looks at the kind of people needed to fulfill corporate strategy and finds ways to develop them.

A reporter once asked Wayne Gretzky, the great hockey player, why he always seems to be where the puck is. Gretzky replied, “I don’t do that at all. I always go to where the puck is going to be.”

Executives, too, must go where the action is going to be. We need to look down the road 5 or 10 years and ask “What kind of company do we want to be by then, and what kind of employees will it take to get us there?” Then we can plan educational and development programs to develop such employees.

To carry out such programs, you need behavioral change agents, not trainers. Trainers are easy to find. They are plentiful and inexpensive. Behavioral facilitators are less plentiful, and they’re in strong demand. But they nurture lasting qualities that won’t become obsolete when the next technological breakthrough occurs.

In our company, Creative Services, Inc., we’ve dedicated the last two decades to helping clients transform their corporations from mechanistic organizations into thinking organizations. Mechanistic organizations are like machines, doing the same things over and over. Thinking organizations are constantly alert for new concepts and new methods.

Think about your company. Is it a thinking or a mechanistic organization? Some hints that will help you:

In a mechanistic organization:

New ideas and methods are discouraged because they vary from the mechanical norm: “We’ve never done it that way before.”

Managers and supervisors rely solely on their own judgments, backed by the policy manuals, instead of empowering their people to make on-the-spot judgments that might improve quality and service.

Rigid procedures discourage employees from playing with an idea or a solution during its development.

Communication flows “through channels” rather than spreading throughout the business organization.

Some identifying marks of a thinking organization:

People at all levels can talk directly to people in other departments and divisions, and to customers and suppliers.

Teams are formed across departmental lines, including employees at all levels, to execute new projects or to solve common problems.

Line employees are routinely asked for their opinions and rewarded for ideas that work.

Failures at innovative projects are regarded as learning experiences and not as black marks against the person who failed.

Corporate structures are flexible and therefore able to adapt to the stress of innovation.

Educated, thinking organizations aren’t made up of people trained only to turn screws and wield levers, although those procedures are certainly essential to some jobs.

They’re made up of people educated in such skills as goal-setting, problem-solving and decision-making, communication, conflict management, negotiation, total quality management, time management and teamwork.

Such people, I’m convinced, are not churned out by training departments. They’re molded and nurtured by departments of education and development.

Education must replace training in organizations that succeed in the global marketplace. It’s a prerequisite for survival.

Nido Qubein is president of High Point University, an accredited undergraduate and graduate institution with 3,000 students from 50 countries and 44 states. He has written numerous books and recorded scores of audio and video learning programs including a bestseller on effective communication published by Nightingale-Conant and Berkley. Qubein’s business savvy led him to help start a bank in 1986 and today he serves on the board and executive committee of a Fortune 500 financial corporation with 115 billion-dollars in assets and 25,000 employees. He is also chairman of Great Harvest Bread Company with 218 stores in 42 states. He serves on the boards of several national organizations including the La-Z-Boy Corporation, one of the world’s largest and most recognized furniture retailers. Learn more about Nido Qubein at www.nidoqubein.com

July 11, 2008

Retraining Managers, Penetrating Markets, and Effective Sales Training

Filed under: Personal Marketing,Sales Management,Sales Resources,sales training,management training,prospecting,selling,sales,marketing,lead generation,management,business — Paul McCord @ 7:24 am
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McCord Training has just release a new White Paper titled “Why Your Company’s Sales Training is Ineffective.”  The paper outlines why traditional forms of mass sales training has little positive impact on sales performance-and serious negative impact on the sales department’s budget, and then discusses how companies can maximize their training dollars while increasing the production and effectiveness of each individual member of their sales team.

“Why Your Company’s Sales Training is Ineffective” joins McCord Training’s two other White Papers, “Retraining Sales Managers: The Changing Role of Sales Management” and “Effective Sales Penetration of Markets: Finding and Connecting with Prospects.”

White Papers are offered free of charge to any company by simply filling out a short form HERE and selecting the paper you wish to receive.  Although the papers offer both identification of issues and recommended solutions, they are naturally meant to generate interest in McCord Training’s training and consulting products and services, so if you request a paper, understand you will receive a follow-up sales call.

May 9, 2008

Can Your Company Afford to Maintain Its Management Philosophy?

Filed under: career development,management,management training,recruiting/hiring,sales,Sales Management,selling — Paul McCord @ 6:15 am
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Flip through some random job descriptions for frontline sales managers on CareerBuilder or Monster.  Take a look at the job descriptions for frontline sales managers from a number of industries.  Look closely at the responsibilities and duties the manager is expected to handle.  What do you find?

The Job Duties
If you’ll take the time to look at least a dozen—preferably more—you’ll find a whole slew of duties that frontline managers are expected to perform such as:
•    Recruiting and hiring salespeople–and often clerical staff
•    Training, coaching and mentoring those people
•    Resolving customer issues
•    Coordinating and working with other departments such as shipping, manufacturing, underwriting, finance, etc.
•    Monitoring the local market and competition and keeping management informed of market changes and opportunities
•    Creating and implementing a local sales and marketing plan
•    P&L responsibility for the local office or branch
•    Conduct sales and training meetings
•    Complete reports for management on a weekly, monthly and annual basis
•    Create annual office or branch budget
•    Create monthly and annual sales projections
•    Operate as company’s ambassador to the community by attending community events and maintaining a high visibility in the community
•    Other duties as assigned

And then the kicker:
•    Maintain a high level of personal sales activity and personal production

The first dozen responsibilities listed above are management activities that are—or should be—critical to the growth and profitability of the company.  Most of these activities require someone with strong management, problem solving, and analytical skills.  To properly perform these activities, the individual must have a frame of reference to resolve customer issues, to develop sales and marketing plans, to maximize the return on assets, to properly analyze the local market and competition, and especially, to recruit, train and mentor salespeople.

Only the last item is a purely in-the-trenches sales activity related item.  Yet, as anyone who has been in sales understands, to meet that requirement of ‘maintain a high level of personal sales,” selling must be a full-time job.

The Requirements For The Job
Go further into the job description and you find the ‘requirements’ section, describing the background and experience this individual must have to be considered for the job.  Most typically, that description includes these items:
•    3-5 years direct industry sales experience
•    Proven high level of production, meeting or exceeding quota
•    Strong product knowledge
•    Proven industry contacts and book of business

What’s missing in the requirements for this position?  Of course, not a single word about management skills, aptitude, training or ability.

And how is this individual typically paid?  Usually some combination of base salary, commissions and overrides, or worse, overrides and commissions.

Does It Make Sense?
The above list of responsibilities was gathered from a number of job postings from a number of industries including retail, banking, insurance, securities, medical, software, chemical, consulting, and others.  Most of these job postings listed a majority of the above requirements including the personal production requirement.

Although traditional in many industries, does this combination of duties make sense?  If it does:
•    why are so many offices in these industries poorly run?
•    Why the constant harping by senior management for the offices to keep costs down?
•    Why complaints by marketing that leads aren’t being followed up?
•    Why the complaints by manufacturing and shipping that didn’t know certain things about various orders?
•    Why are commission checks so often wrong?
•    Why is the training and coaching in these companies so poor?
•    Why are so many poor hiring decisions made by the company’s sales managers?

The list could go on.

The reason of course is obvious.  The company didn’t hire a manager, they hired a salesperson to try to keep the herd in line and hopefully end up with the sales numbers the company wanted—and that sales manager is expected to make sure they do through his or her personal sales.

Sales management as so often practiced today is hardly deserving of the term.  And despite the onus being placed on the sales manager by the company, the problem doesn’t lie with the sales manager.  Typically, the company got exactly what they wanted—a top salesperson willing to assume responsibility they haven’t been prepared for in exchange for a title.

Can Companies Afford to Continue This Way?
For most companies, selling is becoming a bigger and bigger challenge.  Competition is fierce, their products are most often indistinguishable from their competitor’s, their markets are becoming more fragmented, their prospects are better educated and more demanding than ever before.

Management as a sideline, although traditional in a great number of industries, is costing companies billions of dollars every year in lost opportunities, bad hires, poor local market decisions, lack of resource utilization and lost sales.

In a complex world with razor sharp competition and astute prospects who often know more than the people trying to sell to them, companies can no longer afford to use management positions as rewards for past production.  Frontline managers are increasingly becoming the focal point of a company’s success or failure.

Many companies have already begun to change their management philosophy and have eliminated the selling manager position and have replaced them with full-time, qualified, and trained managers.  To this end, they have instituted manager training and coaching programs hiring outside companies and coaches to work with their new and existing management staff.

Take Action Now
If you are in a producing manager role, hire a sales management coach to help you prepare for the realities of the changing environment you are entering.  Those items within your job description that haven’t been emphasized in the past are becoming increasingly important.

If you’re a senior manager, consider whether a producing manager is really worth the lost revenue and lost opportunities.  Your company’s selling environment isn’t going to get easier.

April 23, 2008

Technology and Change: How Technology is Changing How Sales is Managed

Filed under: management,management training,sales,Sales Management,Sales Resources,selling,technology — Paul McCord @ 7:11 am
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There is a new debate just beginning to bubble to the surface and it promises to be lively and the views divergent.  Forty years ago computer technology sent a man to the moon.  Thirty years ago computer technology began taking over the running of autos, trucks, trains and the rest of our transportation system.  Twenty years ago computer technology began to change forever how small businesses are run.  Ten years ago computer technology began to change how we shop, find information, and even communicate with one another.

Now, finally, computer technology is just beginning to tackle the greatest mystery of all—what do salespeople and sales managers really do with their time?  How do they really find new prospects?  Who are those prospects?  What do they sell them?  How long is the sales cycle really?  These and dozens of other questions are in the process of slowly being answered.

The technology that is delving into these questions is in its infancy.  Client Relationship Management (CRM), Sales Performance Management (SPM), and Sales Force Automation (SFA) programs are inching their way into every company—even the smallest.  How and why companies use these programs are myriad—and to some extent unknown—not just to the developers of the programs but also to the companies themselves.

Today, there are dozens of programs on the market with many more in development.  Some gather minimal information, others are designed to gather great chunks.  Some focus on compensation management, some on defining the profile of customers, others on defining sales team profiles, and others focus their attention on the performance and activities of individual salespeople.  Some, such as CRM are stand-alone programs while others such as SPM and SFA are typically integrated into CRM programs.

In other words, the sales metrics industry is still searching for its place, its function in the marketplace.

However, the result is going to be a shockwave through companies and in particular the sales department.  For the first time companies will have far more real data on their sales and prospecting efforts than ever.  And the volume, width and depth of that information will continue to grow.

No one knows exactly how these programs will change the way the sales function will be managed.  However, there are a great number of questions that must be addressed—and they must be addressed now as companies, salespeople, and managers struggle to adapt to and work with this technology:
•  What do companies really want the technology to do?
•  What, in the end, can the technology really do well?
•  How do companies integrate the systems into their sales teams and get the support of salespeople and managers?
•  What will managers really do with the information?
•  How will the information be used to change how companies and salespeople sell?
•  Will the information be used for coaching and training their salespeople—or as a club to threaten and cajole?
•  What will this information mean for marketing, production, advertising and the other departments?
•  More fundamentally, which programs work and which don’t?
•  Which programs are salesperson friendly and which aren’t?
•  Which programs gather truly useful information and which don’t?
•  What do real live salespeople, managers and executives think of the programs they are using or contemplating?

The list could go on and on.

The debate about technology and how it will be used and integrated, how it will change the sales function and the people within sales departments, and how it will change companies themselves should be of importance to all of us.  This technology is going to affect every one of us—salesperson, manager, executive, shareholder, trainer, consultant, developer alike.

Yet, the discussion and debate has barely begun.

A new blog, The Management Curve, has just been launched to discuss and debate this very issue.  The blog will tackle the questions above—and much more.

Hosted by Paul McCord, the blog will bring in other trainers, consultants, developers, managers, executives, and salespeople to discuss and debate the impact this technology will have.  The focus of the blog is narrow—how metrics gathering technology will change the way the sales function is managed and ultimately how that will change the way salespeople sell and how that will change the company itself.

I encourage you to visit The Management Curve, add it to your RSS feed reader, add it to your blogroll, save it to your favorites file, visit it often.  Over the next few weeks you’ll find more and more guests coming on and offering their opinions, insights, and positions.  It isn’t a homogenous group—there will be many perspectives and many opinions.  No matter your position on the subject, it is one that is going to have a tremendous impact on you in a very real and personal way.

April 21, 2008

Cutting Edge Business Training at a Cutting Edge Site

Filed under: career development,management,management training,sales,sales training,selling,small business — Paul McCord @ 6:22 am
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Today my friend Lee Salz of Sales Dodo fame launches a new business site designed to help salespeople, managers, business owners, professionals, and other business people increase their efficiency and effectiveness.  Business Expert Webinars offers business only related webinars that cover the spectrum of business topics.

Lee has gathered together an incredible group of over 120 hand selected top experts and gurus from around the world to offer the best webinar training courses you can get are extremely reasonable cost.  These one-hour courses are not the typical “come on” to sell books, DVD’s, CD’s, or anything else.  These are strictly hard-core training courses taught by leading trainers and consultants in their respective areas.

Some of the experts Lee has lined up include Keith Rosen, Jill Konrath, Paul McCord, Patricia Fripp, Dr. Gregory Stebbins, Anthony Parinello, Jeb Blount, Jonthan Farrington, and many others.

There are currently over 700 webinars scheduled through the end of the year with the webinars beginning in May.

Whether you’re in sales or HR, accounting or purchasing, whether you work for a Fortune 50 company or are a one person shop, Business Expert Webinars has seminars for you.  Likewise, if you need training in negotiation, making presentations, marketing, business technology, or virtually any other aspect of business, there are webinars designed to help you become more productive.

Visit the Business Expert Webinars website to get and idea of the incredible offerings there—and I think you’ll be amazed how just how reasonable the registration fee for these world-class webinars is.

March 20, 2008

Guest Article: “Sales Management: How to Manage Independent, Tech-Savvy New Millennial & Help Them Sell Effectively, by Gregory Stebbins

Filed under: management training,sales,Sales Management,selling — Paul McCord @ 6:08 am
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Sales Management: How to Manage Independent, Tech-Savvy New Millennial & Help Them
Sell Effectively
by Gregory Stebbins

Independent, tech-savvy, social, and optimistic ? why are these “kids” so hard to
manage?

Seasoned sales managers are facing challenges managing new Millennial’s, also known
as people born after 1980. These new sales professionals have a different approach
to life. This greatly impacts their ability to sell effectively.

Understanding them and some key events that took place during their youth will help
you manage your Millennial sales team with shorter ramp times.

What is different about the new Millennial sales team?

Their work styles, motivations and view of the worlds, especially the corporate world.

For example Millennials:

- Demonstrate loyalty to their social network and specific managers and members of
the team, but not to the company.

- Grew up during a technology explosion. Their every day reality included video,
cell phones, laptops, and iPods.

- Are addicted to reality television, Google and websites like Myspace and Facebook.
In this world information is available for the asking. That’s why they believe in
putting everything out there for all to see.

- Faced school violence and global terrorism (specifically 9-11). This made them
wary about the world. It also helped them develop a global perspective

- Have the ability to find information about anything at a rate that far exceeds
expectations of management. What they lack is discernment about the accuracy of the
information. If it’s on the Net they tend to believe it must be accurate. They can
instantly communicate this information to their social network via Blogs, Instant
Messaging (IM), personal Web pages and cell phones. Some companies have found out
the hard way that their management mistakes are common knowledge within days, if not
hours.

- Do not know their own strengths and weaknesses because there have not been many
opportunities for self-evaluation or honest, constructive criticism. With hundreds
of possible activities, from soccer to music lessons, Millennials have been
over-committed and over-scheduled.

- Were smothered in praise with constant reinforcement about how great they are.
That’s why they expect recognition for everything, even the most mundane activities.

This creates your greatest management challenges:

- How do you help them understand that there are winners and losers in the sales
world?

- How do you provide constructive criticism without devastating their psyche?

This is new ground for both the sales manager and the new Millennial sales
professional.

Here’s My Simple 4-Step Process to Managing Your New Millennial Sales Team

1. The first time they approach you, work with them to think through at least three
options. Then make the decision for them. Having them consider options is the first
step of developing your new sales team’s ability to reason.

2. When they want your input, make sure they have created three options to discuss.
Help them understand the consequences of each option. Add in other options if they
haven’t considered all of the consequences.

3. Guide them toward the course to action you want. Essentially they will be making
the recommendation, which you are approving.

4. Cut them loose and have them handle a situation on their own. However, also have
them provide a written report. The report needs to tell you what the situation was,
the options they considered and the decision they made. This step won’t last that
long as their need for independence will kick in and they’ll just stop coming to you
with every little situation.

Keep in mind that these new sales professionals are going to need much more coaching
than their predecessors. Unlike other generations, they grew up protected. And, they
interacted with others largely through technology. This created a generation whose
people savvy is very limited. So, guide them and help them understand the nuances of
body language, the uniqueness of each person’s office and what the contents of that
office reveals about the customer.

And remember, when coaching Millennials your focus and approach may need to be
different from others you have worked with. Here’s how…

- Provide structure and give information in bite-size pieces.
- Praise them for their efforts
- Present mistakes as development opportunities
- Use technology freely before and after the session.
- Provide the rationale behind your coaching.
- Sell your Millennial sales team on the idea of discretion

Smart sales managers focus on developing their Millennial’s people savvy. They
understand flexible work roles and create effective virtual teams. They leverage
technology that will help Millennials become a valuable asset sooner rather than
later.  And, most importantly they meet the challenges of working with, not against,
the new Millennial sales team generation.

Copyright 2008, Gregory Stebbins.  Published with permission.

Sales Psychology Expert Gregory Stebbins has helped over 20,000 sales professionals
better understand their customers so they can outsell their competition. Now, with
his new book “People Savvy for Sales Professional” sales managers can help their NEW
sales team understand a simple, yet groundbreaking plan to winning your customers’
trust and business forever. Get your free sneak preview at

http://www.peoplesavvy.com/book.htm

Paul McCord of the Sales and Sales Management Blog may be reached at pmccord@mccordandassociates.com

March 12, 2008

Managing Underperformers to Sales Success

Filed under: career development,management training,sales,Sales Management,selling — Paul McCord @ 8:15 am
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Most sales teams are overflowing with underperformers, from those who are consistently far below quota to those who meet quota but could be performing on a much higher level to some of the top salespeople who haven’t reached their full potential but who just can’t seem to find a way to step up another notch or two.

All of these underperformers are costing the company money—even those top salespeople who have reached a plateau they can’t seem to climb above.  Lost sales, wasted training dollars, discontent and anxiety, and turnover are just a few of the serious issues associated with underperforming sales teams.

Traditionally, managers have focused their attention on those salespeople who are not meeting quota, allowing those who are performing at a minimum acceptable level to continue without being challenged to stretch themselves, to maximize their performance.  Most managers are concerned about production quotas and goals, not maximizing the performance of each individual on their team.

Time is partly to blame for this focus on only those salespeople who are not meeting quota.  But it is hardly the only factor.  In reality, it’s not the primary factor.

Managers concentrate only on the non-quota achievers simply because they don’t know how to help their salespeople fully develop their potential.  That isn’t an indictment of managers—most have never been given a process to help develop their team members.  The average sales manager uses ‘motivation,’ the carrot of a reward, extra sales training in the form of sales books, tapes, or seminars, and anything else they can think of to get their bottom dwellers to reach quota, including the ultimate weapon—the threat of being let go.

Yet, it is the responsibility of every sales manager to work to get each of their team members to reach their maximum potential.  It’s their primary responsibility.  In a very real sense, it’s their only job.

Nevertheless, how do you get team members to maximize their potential if you don’t know how to do it?

Here are four ways to get the process started:

1.  Like any other salesperson, manager, or executive, sales managers need a coach.  The coach should be someone who not only can give guidance and encouragement, but someone who has been where they have been and knows how to get the most from each member of the sales team.  In other words, the coach has to be coach, trainer, motivator, disciplinarian, and confidant.  Hiring or having the company hire a coach for you who knows the process of how to develop sales talent and can help guide you through the process should be a priority.

2.  Whether you have a coach or not, sit down with each member of the sales team and help them create a comprehensive sales and marketing history of their past year’s activity (or any other reason time frame—the longer, the better).

Reconstructing their history will not be easy and it will be time consuming.  Give them guidance in how to construct it, review their progress and give help as needed, but have them do the actual research and reconstruction.

Once the history has been reconstructed, work with them to develop their actual historical ratios—their closing ratio, their marketing ratios, all of their sales ratios.  The more detailed, the better.

Once the ratios have been developed, look for patterns that show where they have been successful and where they haven’t.  A salesperson’s sales and marketing history is a key to discovering how they can radically improve their sales business in an amazingly short timeframe.  Without a solid history, it is impossible to make logical, realistic and significant changes in the way they do business.  In order to make changes based on reality instead of guesswork and hope, they must know how and why they’ve gotten where they are and why they aren’t where they want to be.

3.  Have each team member take a quality sales assessment.  Use the information from the sales history and sales assessment tool to help each salesperson identify their individual behavioral and personality traits, as well as their sales skills.

Each salesperson has their own unique behaviors, their own personality and their own set of developed sales skills.  Sales skills can be learned, changing one’s behavioral and personality traits is difficult, if not impossible.  Yet with a thorough understanding of their strengths and weaknesses, you can help each salesperson find those markets and marketing methods and the sales process that caters to their strengths and minimizes their weaknesses.  Once one has aligned the way they do business to maximize their individual strengths and minimize their weaknesses, prospecting, marketing and selling becomes natural, their success soars, and their self-confidence and job enjoyment skyrockets seemingly by magic.

4.  Again from the analysis of the salesperson’s sales history and the sales assessment, establish an individualized training program that addresses their sales skill needs.  Most companies and managers try to give ‘universal’ sales training.  Everyone will get X training.  Everyone read X book.  Everyone go to X seminar.  Not only is that an ineffective use of time and resources, it is self-defeating.  Training only works when it addresses a need and where the individual being trained recognizes the need.  Forcing salespeople to take training they don’t need or don’t believe they need is futile.  Far more effective in terms of dollars and time invested—and results, is training that is geared toward the specific needs of a specific individual.  The initial dollars invested in each salesperson may be more, but the return will be many times what the traditional training approach produces.

Developing your sales team’s full potential isn’t easy, nor is it without a great deal of effort for both the salesperson and you.  If it were easy, there wouldn’t be vast numbers of sales teams staffed with underperforming salespeople.  Because it takes time, money and a good deal of commitment and dedication, few managers and companies will make the investment.  However, those that do will see tremendous returns.  Not only will they increase their business, they will have a sales and management team with new life and vitality that will seep throughout the rest of the organization.

Finding a comprehensive process to help you or members of your sales team work through their sales business in a logical, systematic process to discover where they are strong and where they need to make radical changes to their business isn’t easy.  As a matter of fact, the only comprehensive guide I know of is contained in my just released book SuperStar Selling: 12 Keys to Becoming a Sales SuperStar which is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and all fine bookstores.

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