Monday, April 28, 2008
Sales Managers — Spanning out of “Control?”
Many organizations are getting flatter and cutting costs. If this has resulted in you having more salespeople on your team, what tactics are you using to ensure you are giving them the support they need?
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2 comments:
Interesting topic. I won't post as a manager, but of one who is supervised by such a manager, who went from a small group to over 30 sales professionals in 20 different markets.
Our sales "coaching" has turned into a catch-all inquisition, where the entire group is "coached" about sales goals. This includes the ones who are succeeding. Monitoring of activities for the entire group has increased four fold.
In my opinion, it is better to coach directly those individuals who need it, and support the successful sales people to the extent possible, but not sink the who ship.
I see lots written about sales training, but little written about bad or just "wrong" sales training! I have spent 30 years in an industry that rountinely takes individuals who will work hard, want to succeed, love the product, and sell a product that Americans love. As a rule they produce early (prior to being "trained"), but then fail miserably. Why? They are recipients of the some of the world's worst (just ask any consumer of this product!)sales training. The industry "experts" deliver it, management delivers it (not maliciously, they just don't know any other way)and the result is ridiculously low productivity and massive turnover (50 to 70 percent depending on what you choose to believe). Bad training is worse than no training. Sales techniques that were effective in the 50's and 60's are laughable today - which is why these sales people are laughed at and ridiculed by the media and the public at large. The industry? Retail automotive sales. Sales training is important, selling is skill based, not trait based. But too many are "trained" to fail. It is a travesty. Please, help your readers differentiate true modern selling skills from the tactics and strategies that do nothing but usher them out the door feeling themselves failures. It's not always the sales consultants fault, too often it's management's and the training they choose to provide. There, I feel better!! Have a great day...
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