✔ Role play: Whether it’s one-on-one, just you and the salesperson or in a group setting during a sales meeting, you can learn a lot about how your people respond to certain situations by role playing. Don’t go easy on them and throw them softballs. Making it easy for them is not a learning experience. Treat them like they’re out in the field and bring up as many real-world objections as you can.
By identifying strengths and weaknesses in each and every salesperson you get a much better idea where to spend your time when you work with them.
If someone is the best prospecting salesperson you’ve ever seen but doesn’t have any new customers, the breakdown for them is obviously somewhere between that initial contact and the close. On the other hand, if you have a master closer who’s not afraid to ask for the sale who’s struggling, it’s likely he isn’t making enough new calls.
I can’t stress enough how much of your job is simply to make each member of your sales team better, and until you know where each person needs to improve, you really can’t do that, can you?
Establishing Your Management Style
As crass as this may sound, your job isn’t to have your people like you. Being the sales manager is not a popularity contest. Now, don’t get me wrong – given the choice of being liked or not, you always want the former. But, it’s not about making your sales team like you.
If you go into each day asking yourself how you can help your sales team improve, be more profitable, and more professional, you’ll be ahead of 90 percen of the sales managers in the world today.
My management style was somewhat laid back. It’s just who I am. It’s what came naturally to me. Could I throw a fit and scream and chew someone out? Sure, if I had to, but I didn’t manage that way. I didn’t like to be managed like that and never liked to be perceived as that type manager.
The bottom line in sales and in life is how do you want to be remembered? What legacy do you want to leave? What is it you’d like your salespeople, other department heads, and senior management to say about you and how you do your job. “He sure screams a lot” isn’t a compliment to your management style.
As you wind your way through your management career, your management style will come to you. Your personality will show through and your own moral compass will take over.
Your first priority is to be true to yourself. Be who you are. Secondly, you must represent your company with the utmost respect, dignity, and honor. Finally, you have to continue to professionalize your sales team and the profession of sales.
You have a responsibility to all those who have gone before you and those who will come after you to conduct yourself in the most professional manner possible.
If you do those things, your style and legacy will be fine.
Valuing the story of the three envelopes
As I close this first chapter, and you get ready to take on what is going to be the most enjoyable ride of your career – the job of sales manager – I want to leave you with a story. A story told to me many years ago and one you can share with the person who replaces you (check out Chapter 16).
The story is about three envelopes.
A new sales manager had just been hired by large multi-national company. The previous sales manager, who was retiring, asked to meet with him privately at an off-site location.
When they met, the retiring manager handed the new manager a large manila folder containing three sealed envelopes numbered one through three.
“What’s this?” the new guy asked.
“Any time you have a problem you can’t seem to solve, open one of these in order starting with number one. It’ll get you out of some tight situations,” the experienced manager stated.
Things went great for the new sales manager for the first six or eight months, then all of a sudden the company lost a contract from its largest customer. Sales were about to be hit and hit hard. The new manager remembered the envelopes, went to his desk, and opened number one. Inside was an index card and printed on it was, “Blame everything on me.”
So, the sales manager went before the board and blamed the loss of the client on the old sales manager. It was his fault for not securing a longer term deal and the new manager was doing all he could to bring on a new customer to replace the former client.
The board was satisfied with that and seemed a bit perturbed at the old manager. Crisis averted.
Close to a year went by before sales hit another snag and went into a slight decline. Wanting to head off any issue, the manager went to his desk and opened up envelope number two. The message inside read, “Reorganize.”
So, that’s what he did. He shuffled people around and told the board he was making the needed moves. Once again they seemed satisfied and even a bit impressed with his being proactive. With his reorganization, sales began to inch back up.
Then almost three years later, problems befell the company again. The top salesman left, taking three of the top four accounts. At his wit’s end, the manager went to his office, opened the drawer, and slowly opened the final envelope.
The message read, “Make out three envelopes."
Chapter 2
So You Got the Job, Now What Do You Do?
In This Chapter
▶ Defining the position of a sales manager
▶ Establishing your management style
▶ Presenting yourself effectively as a manager
Congratulations! You got the job. Now the work begins. And, more than likely, you’re experiencing equal parts pride and terror. You’ve worked many years to get this opportunity and now you feel a bit unsure where to begin.
Or maybe you’ve been a sales manager for a while, but you’re finding yourself running into the same issues and aren’t sure what to do. Well, lucky for you, there’s an instruction manual: this book.
Relax and take a breath. You’ve been given the opportunity of a career that will reward you financially, emotionally, personally, and professionally. You’re about to enter the world of sales