Hospitality Sales & Management International


Image by LunaWeb

Sales Management – Teach, Coach Or Leave Alone

A common hurdle for Sales Managers is learning how to actually ‘manage’ their sales team. Much like a football coach, it is your job to assess the talent on your team.

A good way to begin assessing your team is to evaluate each player, and assign them to one of three categories. This will allow you to focus the proper attention on the appropriate team members. There are three basic types of sales people.

Those you Teach:

This type has very little, if any sales training. Whether a ‘rookie’ or a ten year veteran, they survive on raw talent. Blessed with a disarming demeanor and a ‘gift of gab’, these folks make an honest living in sales. Arming them with some basic tools of the trade will do wonders in getting them off the practice squad and into the game.

For starters, schedule weekly sessions to go over scripting and roll playing exercises that cover common client interactions. Allow these players to ‘sit in’ on a few of your client consultations. If you have a video camera, tape their client interaction (with their knowledge, of course) and review it with them to correct common mistakes.

Those you Coach:

These are your starters. They consistently meet their sales goals. However, they seem to set their sights too low and ‘take plays off’ when they are ahead.

For this group, motivation is the key. Track their conversion rates for leads to sales. This will stress that every opportunity counts. Inspire friendly competition with weekly or monthly rewards such as “Lunch on the Boss” or a ‘Get Out of A Meeting Free” card. Meet with them weekly and give them a good ribbing if they start to slack off. Don’t worry, they can take it.

Those you Leave Alone:

The MVPs! Every sales manager has a list of ‘go to’ team members. They regularly exceed expectations and are self-motivated. It is important that you not over-manage these star performers.

Remember that professionals in this category are confident in their ability and know what they bring to your team. If you stifle them with burdensome reports and meetings, or with doing things ‘your way’, they will demand a trade! If they aren’t broken, don’t try to fix them.

In conclusion, using these profiles will help you build your team into a winner! And just like Vince Lombardi said, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing!”

(C) 2007.

Sales Managers Must be Good Coaches

If you’re not satisfied with your sales status look to the coach of your team – your sales managers. Here’s a way to check how good they are.

1. Does your sales manager know where his/her sales will come from by account, by product / service for 2008? Or is it about, “Here is my number. Let get out there and sell, sell, sell.” Ask each one to explain where the sales for 2008 will come from.

2. Does your sales manager know how to motivate each of his sales people? Yes, money is key, but money goes to the family. Money is about survival. But what really get the sales person going. See if your sales manager can answer this question about his sales people.

3. Does you sales manager coach and mentor. Coaching is telling his people what to do, i.e. get to the ultimate decision maker. Mentoring is showing them how to do it, i.e. show how to use your main contact to network you to the ultimate decision maker.

This requires discussing sales call plans and pursuit strategies. Then making sales calls together – not for the sales manager to sell, but to observe, give feedback and lay-out a behavior modification plan. How often does you manager do this with each sales person.

4. Does you sales manager turn-over and recruit effectively and timely. In other words does he purge the bottom 10% each year and constantly seek new recruits. Most managers are reactive. When someone leaves, they then seek a replacement. Unfortunately, because of 1-3 above, the better people (maybe not the best) leave and then the manager starts recruiting. This leaves you with the poorer performers and the new hire becomes what ever was available.

Like a college football coach, your sales manager must be good at recruiting good talent and then showing this raw talent what to do and how to do it. Don’t ever get sucked into the “experienced sales person”. Experience only means someone has been doing it before. It says nothing about how good one is, especially selling your products and services. That’s where the coaching and mentoring becomes critical. As in football and all sports, coaching and practice is critical and ongoing.

5. Finally does your sales manager hold your sales people accountable? That is when a forecasted sale isn’t made, is there a discussion that holds the sales person’s feet to the fire? Are there consequences as well as rewards? As my old football coach use to say, “I don’t want excuses, I want results or else you don’t start.”

Now it’s your call. Is the person responsible for the most important element of your business – sales – capable and doing what it takes to get you where you want to be? Or do you need to step up and take actions of training your managers or hiring new ones – and then training them. If professionals like Tiger Woods and every other athlete needs coaching, your sales managers do as well.