Ever wonder why some salespeople are really good and some just aren’t?
There are of course several reasons for that but I will tell you most often if you want to know why the sales team isn’t performing, look at your sales manager!!
Unfortunately, we don’t really know how to hire the right sales managers so we take a great sales person and make them into a manager. Big mistake!! Most often the skills of a great manager and counter-intuitive to the skills of a great salesperson.
Now is it possible that you could promote your best salesperson and make them a manager and they will be great, maybe…I wouldn’t bet on it.
So how about sales training? The topics trained in your training class, even by the best sales trainers, will not make much of a difference unless sales management is not only on the same page, singing the same songs and reinforcing the methodologies after the trainer has gone.
The underlying problem is that research done by the Sales Management Association (SMA) on Management training found that, of the top seven topics trained, six are targeted to what salespeople do and not what sales managers do. The mindset seems to be if we keep teaching managers how to sell better they will make their sales teams better.
Bottom line- Sales managers don’t need to learn how to be better sellers, they need to know how to be better managers!
The most important training for sales managers, according to the SMA comes down to these 5 topics;
- Hiring Properly Upfront. (37.0% increase) The biggest opportunity to jumpstart sales and create true sales breakthroughs is to hire the right people first.
- Assessing and Coaching Sales Performance (15.6% increase) Managers need to learn how to monitor the KPI indicators and shift them as necessary before they get too far down the hill.
- Funnel Management (13.5% increase) managers need to learn how to help salespeople build their pipeline from additional prospecting activities to properly move them down the sales funnel and close more appropriate business while not wasting time on inappropriate prospects.
- More Targeted Sales Forecasting 13.1% increase) Learning the sales process to create a true forecast. Sales managers do not truly understand how to forecast and because of this deficit, they use the ‘educated guess’ philosophy.
- Planning and assessing the right things (12.6% increase) Sales managers KPIs are often analyzing the wrong things. Managers need to be taught how to address the correct activities and track them for optimal success.
The importance of your sales force is not underestimated by most CEOs, it is just assumed to be run right. And you know what happens when you assume…