I found that what most companies and sales training programs think really matters in sales is wrong. When training salespeople, they tend to propose one of two things: A sales process with methods and tricks that can move you from prospecting to closing, or a set of behaviors and character traits supposedly typical of great salespeople and worth mimicking.
Neither approach gets to the most important predictor of sales success.
If salespeople think of what they do as at odds with who they are or what they want to achieve in life, they will fail. If they are comfortable with it, they will thrive. Nothing matters more in sales than how each salesperson perceives his or her role, and how the act of selling protects, inflates, or undermines his or her sense of self.
Yes, there are underlying traits in every good salesperson—notably optimism and tenacity—that lead to resilience in the face of the adversity. But beyond that, what enables a salesperson to succeed is that they’ve found a match between who they are and what they are being required to do.
Some people are wooers, compelled to win over everyone they meet in an instant. They do well in jobs where they must close a lot of transactions every day and where long-term trust is not important. Others prefer to build networks of deep relationships over time. They might prefer selling products or services with long sales cycles and repeated interactions with the same customer. Some salespeople will be coin-operated, motivated entirely by commission and competition with their peers. Others put a higher value on the friendships they develop in sales and the opportunity to work in a field they enjoy, selling products and services they believe in. Some love selling for the pure thrill of it. Others sell as the means to getting what they really want, whether it is popularity, financial security, or creative freedom.
But the first step for anyone selling, managing, or hiring a sales force is to understand these dynamics between personality, self-perception, and role. Identify the conflicts so that selling feels as normal and natural as it should. Ignore them, and the cost—psychological, organizational, and financial—will skyrocket later.
To Build a Great Sales Team, You Need a Great Manager
By Andris A. Zoltners, PK Sinha, and Sally E. Lorimer
Andris A. Zoltners is a professor emeritus of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. He and PK Sinha are cofounders of ZS Associates. Together with Sally Lorimer, they are the authors of Building a Winning Sales Management Team: The Force Behind the Sales Force.
If you had to decide between having a team of excellent salespeople with an average manager, or having a team of average salespeople with an excellent manager, which would you choose?
Many will argue for the team of excellent salespeople:
“It’s salespeople—not managers—who develop and nurture the customer relationships that drive sales.”
“Replacing one average manager is easier than replacing an entire team of average salespeople.”
“An excellent salesperson doesn’t need managing.”
Others will argue for the excellent manager:
“Excellent managers consistently recruit the best sales talent. ‘First-class hires first-class; second-class hires third-class.’”
“Excellent managers motivate excellent salespeople, develop average salespeople to make them excellent, and keep the entire team engaged and aligned.”
“Excellent salespeople make sales today, but eventually they retire, get promoted, or get wooed away by a competitor.”
Clearly, the best sales forces have both excellent salespeople and excellent managers. A team of excellent salespeople will win sales and make this year’s goal, regardless of who the manager is. But the success of that team will be short-lived. Eventually, an average manager will bring all of the salespeople that he manages down to his level. On the other hand, an excellent manager will bring excellence to all her territories. An excellent manager may inherit average salespeople, but in the long run she will counsel, coach, motivate, or replace salespeople until the entire team is excellent.
In our experience, companies that have winning sales forces start with excellent managers. Most sales organizations focus considerable energy to build a team of excellent salespeople, yet regrettably, they focus too little attention on building the management team, which is truly “the force behind the sales force.” Consider the following evidence.
Role definition
Most companies have a job description for salespeople, and many have a defined sales process specifying how salespeople should work with customers. But too many companies don’t do a good job of defining the more varied responsibilities of managers. Managers must play three roles—people, customer, and business manager—so they get pulled from all sides. We hear all the time about “role pollution” in the manager’s job. Without role clarity, managers execute tasks that are urgent or within their comfort zone, rather than focusing on what’s most important for driving long-term performance.
Selection
Companies devote substantial energy to recruiting the best sales talent, but when it comes to managers, most simply select their best salesperson for the job. Yet what it takes to succeed as a salesperson is very different from what it takes to succeed as a manager. Unless you select salespeople who have strong managerial tendencies, in addition to respectable sales skills, your sales management team will be average at best.
Development
Too often, when sales managers come into their jobs after having been successful salespeople, their company expects them to know how to manage with minimal guidance. Of the $20+ billion that U.S. companies spend training their sales forces every year, very little gets directed toward sales managers. The result is inconsistent competency across most management teams, as new managers struggle to make the critical transition from salesperson, and experienced managers can’t keep up with ever-changing job demands.
Support
Sales managers typically rank third, behind salespeople and senior sales leadership, when it comes to prioritizing sales force support initiatives (such as access to support personnel and resources, and data and tools that enable good decision making and increase efficiency). Rarely do managers get enough support resources for getting everything done—and done well.
Sales managers serve as key points of leverage for driving long-term sales performance. It’s a mistake to underinvest in this group. By building a winning sales management team, you can capitalize on a high-impact, tangible opportunity to drive sales effectiveness and top- and bottom-line results.
The (New) Skills You Need to Succeed in Sales
By Lynette Ryals and Javier Marcos
Lynette Ryals is professor of strategic sales and account management at Cranfield University School of Management. Javier Marcos is a lecturer of sales performance at Cranfield’s Centre for Strategic Marketing and Sales.
The practice of business-to-business selling is in a curious state. On the one hand, commentators and academics are repeatedly telling us that transactional selling is outmoded and