Promoted to Sales Manager... Now What?


What do skilled sales professionals and effective managers have in common? Frankly, not much. And when someone successfully leverages their sales skills to earn a management role, it’s not just a new job title — it’s a whole new world.

Many new sales managers will learn the role of leadership the hard way… through trial, errors and a bit of self-inflicted tribulation.

When a good sales executive is promoted to leadership, they are no longer an integral part of the sales team, and the relationships change. Now, you are responsible for hiring the right people, firing the weak links and discipline — all things that make you a target.  No one has experience in these things, if you have no prior experience in leadership.

Many new managers will naturally struggle to adapt, often because they don’t have the necessary sales management skills. They typically get too involved with the direct sales role. As a result, they lose perspective of how to reach sales goals as a team and often make unilateral decisions that disrupt team unity and focus. The better approach focuses on gaining success through unified team effort.

Good managers inspire others to reach their full potential while adding the best people to the team. They hold the sales staff accountable to the agreed-upon metrics and goals. They evaluate performance based on the most important revenue-generating metrics, rather than arbitrary indicators.

But a manager’s most important role is to remove the unproductive activities and inefficiencies  that don’t support sales, so salespeople have a clear path to individual and team goals, thereby achieve company revenue expectations.

Here are a few things you can do if you are new to the role of sales manager.  These tips will get you over the bumps and missteps normal, but frustrating for a newly minted leader:

1. Refine your team. You need to build your dream sales team as quickly as possible. Immediately evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your existing team members while also scouting for the right additions. Determine which teammates have the skills, attributes, and cultural fit to remain on your team. Then, identify individuals who don’t have the necessary skills today, but with some guidance could grow to where you need them to be.

Be forthright and intently focused… those team members who aren’t a good fit need to be removed.  Aggressively interview to upgrade your team. What attributes should you look for in candidates? You need more “hunters” if your company is growth focused and “farmers” to cultivate and retain earned business. Whomever you hire, they should be passionate about the profession of sales.  If someone says in the interview phase, “I thought this job might be interesting” is not the person who will succeed in sales.  While you can teach specific skills and closing techniques, you must hire passion, grit, and drive.

2. Observe firsthand. You won’t know a sales professional until you see him or her sell. Go out in the field with everyone on your team to observe skills, style and potential. Then, use those insights to retrain where needed and, as mentioned, add or subtract reps where necessary.

The sales manager’s role is to help the team members develop their individual skills. By observing the process and providing feedback, a good manager helps representatives become independent and able to solve problems and handle most market challenges.

3. Remove roadblocks. The most important job of a sales manager is to remove barriers to achievement, so the sales team can thrive. Look for every opportunity to empower your sales reps to work as efficiently as possible.

Data/Metrics are important.  However, be careful not to bog the team down will data entry of activities, that they are unable to perform prospect followups in a timely manner. Design your CRM to be efficient, allowing reps to quickly record the vital contact/call data and then move on to the cultivating and closing phases of prospect contact.

4. Meet weekly. Conduct weekly team meetings and one-on-one sessions with everyone you manage. They’re a great way to hear about the opportunities, challenges, and pipeline problems your representatives face. The personal meetings also demonstrate that you respect the people you manage and care about their opinions on an individual basis. When you recognize each salesperson’s unique talents, you can personalize your motivational efforts to match. This way you get the most value out of your team.

As a first-time sales manager, a little awkwardness is to be expected. The learning curve is not that long or steep if you treat everyone the way you would want to be treated.  You will avoid the bruising mistakes many new managers make using these tips.
 ____________________________________

ENCORE! 2.5 LLC,  is a consultancy specializing in sales team and management development. With a 40+-year history of sales, executive leadership development  and business growth in diverse industries, ENCORE! can transform your revenue producing teams into a fine tuned machine.  Care to chat about your needs?  CALL - 267.356.1949 or EMAIL - encore2pt5@gmail.com

Popular posts from this blog

The Essence of Leadership: Humility & Empathy

Image
Article by Steven K. Haught, MBA If you know everything there is to know, then you can take a pass on this article and move on to something more to your liking. Or… maybe your curiosity will get the best of you and you will stick around and read.  After that, who knows what might happen to you. Let's talk about the underlying attributes of genuine effective leadership. What causes a company to experience success?  Is it the leader's brilliance, or the leader's impact on the people that surround him or her?  Impact can of course be interrupted many ways. Quite often startup cultures, particularly tech companies, gets caught up in the bravado of “crushing”, “disrupting”, “paradigm-shifting”, or “becoming the next unicorn.”  Success is a heady business.  Anyone who has experienced this kind of adrenaline knows what I am talking about.   Very quickly and almost without awareness on the part of the leaders, especially the founder, the compan...
Read more

STRATEGIC PLANNING: Develop a Scenario Planning culture

Image
Scenario planning is a must-use process for functional leaders to drive immediate actions, decisions and longer-term strategic planning.  The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a wide range of strategic planning activities. As the focus turns largely to recovery and renewal, functional leaders are increasingly pulled into enterprise conversations about likely outcomes when the way forward is neither clear nor certain. They also have to plan for a range of potential outcomes for their own functions. Scenarios are compelling descriptions of possible futures — not necessarily the most probable ones, but plausible, coherent and substantially different ones driven by the unavoidable barriers facing the business. Business models are evolving frequently, particularly as executives consider which pandemic-related trends will become permanent. This requires a prompt shift in the strategy that defines how the enterprise will play and win — and requires all functional leaders to ...
Read more

EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP: Involve Everyone in Strategic Planning

Image
Real leadership means creating the future, but who has the time? Senior management has to manage the business for profit, yet decision-making for day-to-day stability can stifle new ideas and development.  Many companies, particularly in professional services, have deep expertise beyond the management group, but these staff are often excluded from innovation teams and become more accustomed to taking orders than breaking molds.  Creativity and job enthusiasm suffer, and a critical need goes unaddressed. How to disrupt the stagnation and tap into this huge capacity? The common solution is to rely on strategic planning. This is essential, but only goes so far, setting out an overall road map but not filling in the detail of how to get there. It gives management a chance to feel they are leading the charge and will discuss with the teams so they have a “voice.” But it often has a top-down feel, which for staff can mean a requirement rather than an opportunity. ...
Read more