<\/p>\n
- \n
- Coaching<\/li>\n
- Holding their team accountable<\/li>\n
- Motivating<\/li>\n
- Recruiting<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Then there are secondary competencies to master. For example:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Participating in the organizational structure,<\/li>\n
- Contributing to the strategy,<\/li>\n
- Putting together a forecast,<\/li>\n
- Legal and financial literacy, and the most important,<\/li>\n
- Pipeline management.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
In the end, there are three things that distinguishes elite sales managers from others<\/strong>. Before getting into that, let\u2019s dive a little deeper in the 4 core competencies\u2026<\/p>\n
Coaching<\/span><\/h2>\n
Coaching is probably the sales competency that distinguishes good sales managers from others.<\/p>\n
Why?<\/p>\n
Coaching is about making your salespeople better. In fact, just the act of coaching often, regardless of the quality of the session, improves sales performance<\/a>.<\/p>\n
When a sales manager coaches, they can provide support and help to their sales reps effectively. That means, adding value to the conversation with their salespeople to get them to think differently and tackle calls and opportunities the right way. For example, do the rep have a definite next step or are they able to identify the right next step?<\/p>\n
50% of a sales manager\u2019s time needs to be committed to coaching his or her sales team. Sales coaching<\/a> is a daily activity. Sales Managers must meet every one of their reps each day for pre-meeting coaching sessions<\/a> and post-meeting debriefings<\/a>.<\/strong> These coaching sessions are short: between 5 and 7 minutes tops.<\/p>\n
What should they coach on?<\/h3>\n
They can help with pricing, putting together quotes, and technical sales questions (tactics and strategies for a sales call, a meeting, a specific opportunity).<\/p>\n
Beyond tactical support, sales coaching needs to focus on a person’s weaknesses. For example, which sales DNA<\/a> deficiencies can be addressed during coaching sessions?<\/p>\n
How to tell if a sales manager\u2019s coaching is working?<\/h3>\n
At its core, there are two elements of successful coaching: is the coaching helpful and does it add value?<\/p>\n
Remember, the goal of coaching is to grow and improve the reps\u2019 sales competencies. To help them get opportunities that they wouldn\u2019t be able to get on their own.<\/p>\n
Questions you can ask:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- Is the coaching improving the win-rate of the salespeople?<\/li>\n
- Is the coaching helping reps win against the competition?<\/li>\n
- Is the coaching assisting reps to have higher quality conversations with prospects and clients?<\/li>\n
- Is the coaching encouraging reps to focus on the right activities and the right opportunities?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
How can a sales manager be a good coach?<\/h3>\n
For one, they need the core technical sales competencies – strong consultative selling competencies, a strong value seller competency, and a strong qualifier competency for example. They also need a healthy posture.<\/p>\n
Those strong technical competencies allow them to support their team on tactical issues.<\/p>\n
They also need strong sales management competencies.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, most sales managers aren’t aware of all that\u2019s required to coach effectively and how to connect with underlying weaknesses that affect sales performance. For one they tend to advise more than coach, and two they\u2019re don\u2019t role play<\/a> and lead co-development sessions<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Holding their team accountable <\/span><\/h2>\n
Accountability in sales<\/a> is about setting clear expectations and setting consequences if goals aren\u2019t met. And to that, a sales manager needs two things.<\/p>\n
- \n
- First, an excuse-free sales culture, which a lot of sales organizations don\u2019t have. An excuse-free sales culture means making sure everyone on the team is taking responsibility for their actions and results as well as focusing on the right activities and not spreading themselves thin.<\/li>\n
- Second, the activities that fill the funnel. Are salespeople doing the actions they need to fill their respective pipelines and are their managers holding them accountable for removing opportunities from their pipelines that aren\u2019t qualified or aren\u2019t going to close? <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Why accountability in sales matters<\/h3>\n
Accountability matters for three main reasons:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Accountability impacts other facets of sales managers responsibilities. For example, it\u2019s difficult to have good coaching sessions if everyone is making excuses.<\/li>\n
- Ultimately, accountability is what allows a manager to look at the gap between where a rep is and where they should be and not accept excuses for that gap and develop an action plan to bridge that gap.<\/li>\n
- Finally, accountability allows the sales manager to raise the bar, raise expectations, and demand more from each rep.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Those three items impact pipeline management<\/strong>. Earlier I mentioned that pipeline management is a competency sales managers need to master. Accountability allows a sales leader to manage the pipeline by holding reps responsible for:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Removing opportunities from the pipeline that don\u2019t belong there,<\/li>\n
- Placing opportunities at the right stages,<\/li>\n
- Doing the right activities to fill their pipeline,<\/li>\n
- Following the steps of the sales process,<\/li>\n
- Filling out the CRM,<\/li>\n
- Making sure the pipeline is balanced and that there\u2019s movement.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Motivating<\/span><\/h2>\n
Even the best salespeople have good days and bad days, and that\u2019s where sales managers need to act when looking to help motivate reps.<\/p>\n
Often, managers think \u201cI need to motivate them\u201d and is almost synonymous with cheerleading.<\/p>\n
But cheerleading isn’t motivating.<\/strong> Motivation needs to have a basis and a foundation to rest on. That’s because motivation is sales isn\u2019t about compensating for lack of desire<\/a> or commitment<\/a> or willingness to succeed<\/a>. Those three elements lie within each salesperson and are unrelated with having a bad day or a bad stretch.<\/p>\n
What is motivation in sales?<\/h3>\n
Sales motivation<\/a> is about being able to act on the right thing at the right moment by connecting personal goals to professional ones.<\/p>\n
Your sales force and each of its members are complex and aren’t always motivated by merely following their commission structure. Your sales managers must take the time to understand what drives each rep<\/a>. To be able to do this, it is imperative that sales managers understand each one\u2019s motivations<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n
Sales managers should be able to answer the following questions for each team member: <\/span><\/p>\n
- \n
- What is the representative\u2019s BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)? <\/span><\/li>\n
- What makes this person get up in the morning? <\/span><\/li>\n
- What does this person do in his or her free time? <\/span><\/li>\n
- Where does this person see themselves in 10 years? <\/span><\/li>\n
- How can I (the sales manager) help this salesperson reach his or her goals?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
How to motivate salespeople better<\/span><\/h3>\n
There are a variety of tactics to encourage people, but they should rest on two critical factors:<\/span><\/p>\n
- \n
- Connecting personal and professional goals is the only way to motivate a salesperson sustainably.<\/span><\/li>\n
- A salesperson\u2019s type of motivation<\/a> – extrinsically motivated or intrinsically – will impact what they respond to.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Recruiting<\/span><\/h2>\n
- A salesperson\u2019s type of motivation<\/a> – extrinsically motivated or intrinsically – will impact what they respond to.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- What makes this person get up in the morning? <\/span><\/li>\n
- What is the representative\u2019s BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)? <\/span><\/li>\n
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