Are you a new sales manager? Read on…
How many times have you seen someone promoted to sales manager just because they were the best salesperson? It’s more common than you think and the best sales people don’t always make the best sales managers.
The end result is that they end up failing or leaving, or both. So the company has lost two people in reality as their best salesperson bites the dust and the sales manager now needs to be replaced too.
So what should a new sale manager do to really make a difference in his or her new role? Here’s a few things to consider once the ink has dried on your new contract.
No one likes to be sold to badly, in fact it could be said that people quite enjoy being sold to professionally. So do the same with your team. Don’t sell ideas and innovations to them, make them want to buy into your ideas. Treat them like family, a real team and lead by example.
Your team will feel much more involved in things if you actually involve them in things. Sounds simple but in fact asking them their opinion on various matters is not the same as simply doing what they suggest to make them happy. You still have to make the final decision and decide which way is best, as you are carrying the can for any decisions. But consulting your team rather than simply telling them will give you a greater chance of buy in.
In business things change and they always will. You cannot change that element of working life. However, if you don’t tell your team what is changing and why then when the change happens they will simply draw their own conclusions as to what is happening. In other words, they’ll make it up. It is human nature to speculate and you can avoid this by telling them the reasons for why things have to change in the first place. Remember, you can’t over communicate!
Sometimes you may be asked to direct your team to do something that you may not agree with. So if you don’t agree with it then at least have an attempt to ‘go into bat for your team’. Fight their corner and make a stand for them. You may not win but they will see that you have their backs and their best interests at the forefront of your thinking.
Creating and environment in which people are motivated is often easier than motivating individuals themselves. That said, you must be careful not to have favourites and show equal attention to each member of your team. Be aware of how they need that attention though, sometimes a quiet word is better than shouting from the rooftop how well someone did and risk embarrassing them
Feedback is vital and should be given at every opportunity. Make it positive and accurate. Know how your team like to celebrate and if you have a good win then make sure everyone is involved in the celebration.
Maguire Training deliver many different sales and commercial courses and one of the trickiest situations to manage is your sales meetings. Maguire have an on-line course that can help you to manage sales meetings effectively and you can click on the link below to find out more.
