Who Wants to be a Sales Manager?
Sales Management has been the dominant topic in many of the discussions I've had with industry colleagues this week. Sales Managers have spoken with me about Sales Management skills and techniques, salespeople and sales trainees have asked me about how to become Sales Managers. Dealer Principals have discussed various Sales Management practises with me.
One of the questions that's been asked notably frequently this week is how Sales Managers can work effectively with ambitious salespeople who declare that they'd like to be Sales Managers but haven't yet shown any aptitude or self-improvement in the direction of Sales Management.
This question reminds me of a great exercise that a football coach of mine gave us one year. For many years, I'd witnessed coaches diplomatically wasting time and effort every week ( before, after and yes, even during games ) trying to justify their selection decisions and match tactics to a whole host of people with varying degrees of commitment to, knowledge of, and interest in the team ( all of them with less than the coach's commitment, knowledge and interest).
One of the better coaches I've played under started the 1997 season like this: a week before the first game of the season, he issued all of the players and the other 'interested parties' with a team list and asked all of us to select the team, with each player in position, for the first game of the season. He posted a list of criteria to consider in our selection, including a focus on winning, fitness level, skill level, position suitability and experience, training attendance, pre-season commitment, etc. He explained that we had to justify every inclusion decision and every exclusion decision. We also had to be aware of the probability of accusations of bias for selecting our mates over other players.
My first observation while completing my 'homework' at the time was how complex the decisions were. The second observation was how time-consuming the process was. When we brought our team selections back to Thursday training, the coach read each person's selections and criticised only one selection of each person's. It made everyone realise that they had overlooked at least one factor in their decisions. He then asked each person what he had learned and although the answers varied, I don't know of anyone that questioned the coach's decisions that season ( We had a relatively successful season, making the finals after finishing bottom of the ladder the previous year ).
How does this relate to the Sales Management of ambitious salespeople? Well firstly you can delegate simple management tasks to these salespeople. That may provide them with enough experience to know that they don't want to be Sales Managers full time. If, however, they excel at the tasks, it could be the start of grooming them for management over time.
One of the questions that's been asked notably frequently this week is how Sales Managers can work effectively with ambitious salespeople who declare that they'd like to be Sales Managers but haven't yet shown any aptitude or self-improvement in the direction of Sales Management.
This question reminds me of a great exercise that a football coach of mine gave us one year. For many years, I'd witnessed coaches diplomatically wasting time and effort every week ( before, after and yes, even during games ) trying to justify their selection decisions and match tactics to a whole host of people with varying degrees of commitment to, knowledge of, and interest in the team ( all of them with less than the coach's commitment, knowledge and interest).
One of the better coaches I've played under started the 1997 season like this: a week before the first game of the season, he issued all of the players and the other 'interested parties' with a team list and asked all of us to select the team, with each player in position, for the first game of the season. He posted a list of criteria to consider in our selection, including a focus on winning, fitness level, skill level, position suitability and experience, training attendance, pre-season commitment, etc. He explained that we had to justify every inclusion decision and every exclusion decision. We also had to be aware of the probability of accusations of bias for selecting our mates over other players.
My first observation while completing my 'homework' at the time was how complex the decisions were. The second observation was how time-consuming the process was. When we brought our team selections back to Thursday training, the coach read each person's selections and criticised only one selection of each person's. It made everyone realise that they had overlooked at least one factor in their decisions. He then asked each person what he had learned and although the answers varied, I don't know of anyone that questioned the coach's decisions that season ( We had a relatively successful season, making the finals after finishing bottom of the ladder the previous year ).
How does this relate to the Sales Management of ambitious salespeople? Well firstly you can delegate simple management tasks to these salespeople. That may provide them with enough experience to know that they don't want to be Sales Managers full time. If, however, they excel at the tasks, it could be the start of grooming them for management over time.
posted by Sean at 5:28 pm
1 Comments:
Hi Sean,
Water finds its own level!
Leaders tend to emerge. Sales Managers need very different skills to Sales People.
Sales People are responsible for one person. Sales Managers are responsible for many.
Sales Managers have to be fair and balanced. The team is the customer now.
A responsible and fair sales person is one you would look for to groom for Management.
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