Your sales team may already think you are a good sales manager. Perhaps there’s room for you to become a great sales manager. Here’s what it takes to be a great sales manager.
Great sales managers know their subordinates’ career goals.
A great sales manager’s job is to get subordinates to the next step of their career. Remember, some people want to continue as sales professionals and not advance to another job. Others are looking to get into management or get cross functional training. Do you know which members of your team want to stay put and which ones want to advance? To be a great sales manager you must have that conversation so you know the answer.
Have the conversation during the time you spend in the field. There is plenty of time to talk during travel time. Not all your conversation needs to be about your specific customer accounts. Learn enough about your sales team so you can advise how to get them to where they want to be and how they can be the best at future work.
You develop the individuals in your team.
Your job as a great sales manager is to develop your team. Some already are talented sales professionals. Others need more skills training. A great sales manager provides training for the entire team that makes them stronger while recognizing individual training needs.
This group and individual approach recognizes that you will need to be firm in some cases while backing off in others. One example is the use of new selling tools. Some members of the team will adjust and adapt quickly. Others need more guidance. A great sales manager notices who needs what and gets all team members to be able to function at the basic level. And yes, a great sales manager has to tell the ones who won’t make it in sales that there are other careers better suited to them.
A great sales manager doesn’t play favorites, but also recognizes who does what is needed to accomplish goals. Yes, some people work less and accomplish more than other people who put in more time. I’ve found that the ones who put in the time are usually the ones who get results. The business of sales is to recognize that results count. Reward the people who produce results.
Great sales managers remove obstacles.
You’ve probably seen a lot of wasted time in large corporations. You might have seen wasted time in smaller organizations as well. Great sales managers do all they can to avoid wasting their sales team’s time. What information do you require that doesn’t need to be gathered? What meetings can be avoided? Think like your sales team members or ask them what can be removed or avoided.
I attended one group meeting to reduce the number of reports generated. The sales team unanimously chose to eliminate one report. The sales manager, not a great one, said, “But I like that report.” He overrode the group. He was an obstacle. Be sure that you are not an obstacle to your team.
Not all sales managers are intuitively great sales managers. They, like the sales people they manager, can learn to be great. Develop your team and get out of their way. That’s great advice to become a great sales manager.