The Paramount Importance and Complexity of the Sales Management Role

If you’re reading this, you likely are a sales manager. You were an excellent salesperson, perhaps the top sales professional in your organization. Then one day, you were promoted to Sales Manager. Congratulations!

Twenty-some years ago, I had this very same experience. I was exuberant. I had finally been recognized for all of my sales prowess by being promoted to sales manager. The only problem: my sales expertise had nothing to do with my future success as a sales manager.

The sales management role is perhaps the most important role within your organization, and at the same time, it is likely the most difficult and complex. No other role stands so conspicuously at the nexus of a company’s revenue and profitability growth. Likewise, no other role wakes up every day to the same challenge and burden of responsibility that the sales manager wakes up to.

The core responsibility of the sales manager is to develop a high-performance sales culture within their sales organization that enables the achievement of the revenue and profitability growth that the organization requires. Sounds simple, right? Not so fast!

Let’s explore the difficulties of this supremely important role. The sales manager must assess the skill of those currently within the organization, then coach those individuals to maximize their potential and achieve the desired level of performance in key areas, as defined by the sales manager. The sales manager coaches through regular one-on-one meetings, team huddles, sales meetings, ride-alongs and listening to sales phone calls.

Sales team members who are not performing must be coached-up or coached-out. Sales managers must recruit and hire new team members, train them and continue to coach and train them for success.

While the sales manager is conducting these supremely important tasks of coaching, hiring and training, they are being bombarded with issues that many times are outside the scope of their defined role. Sales managers often feel that they are putting-out fires constantly, not able to focus on their primary purpose of sales enablement. Sales managers are often pulled into all kinds of meetings that have little to do with sales.

Many sales managers, on top of coaching their sales team, are responsible for managing important client relationships. These account management activities, though important to the overall sales effort, can prove to be a distraction from the sales manager's primary purpose.

Sales managers are often pulled in all directions and usually are not prepared for the difficulty of the role. If you find yourself in this situation, there are a few things you can do that will help you immediately.

First, ask for the support of your company's top leadership. Organizations many times pull sales managers into a boondoggle of meetings and activities that have nothing to do with sales success. Getting the top organizational leadership on the side of sales will provide you with the freedom and enablement you need to build a high performance sales culture. Furthermore, if you need any resources, training or coaching to empower your success, ask for your organization to invest in your success by providing those needed resources.

Second, rethink all of your key performance indicators and if these are the appropriate targets that your team should focus their efforts on. Come up with a short list of KPI’s (no more than 7) that your sales team can focus on. Identify achievable minimum standards related to the achievement of each KPI for each member of your sales team and work with them in the development of their goals.

Third, prioritize and execute those activities that are core to coaching your sales people and creating a high-performance sales culture. Block-out time in your calendar for ride-alongs and get out in the field with your reps. Conduct regular one-on-one meetings with each member of your team that focus on their achievement of their goals. Plan and lead effective sales meetings that focus on sales skills training, rather than product training. Eliminate or delegate tasks and meetings that are not core to your primary purpose of sales enablement.

Doing the above is neither simple nor easy, but when you develop your high-performance sales culture, you will realize new momentum that will propel your team to achieve new levels of success. Seeing your team succeed will provide you with a joy that only you as a sales manager can experience.

Good selling!