Manage your sales team for maximum performance

We are in a growing economy.  So our company is in an environment that is improving.  Are we maximizing our sales potential in this environment?  Is our sales area being managed for maximum sales growth?   In order for us to maximize our sales potential, we need to provide our sales team with the tools and resources they need, compensation, training and a manager who can strategically lead them in a way that captures the sales potential.

One of the most important contributors to outstanding sales success is having the right sales manager in place.  This sometimes doesn’t happen because we use promotion as a way to reward our star sales people.  We don’t have the appropriate incentives in place for our star sales people and so reward them with a promotion.  When we know they are not the best person to lead the sales team.  This also happens because we hire the wrong person outside the firm to lead our sales area.

When we look at selecting a sales manager for our team, we need to focus growing people for this position who have the right strengths (the right bundle of  talent, knowledge and skills).  In other words, when we select these individuals to be sales professionals on our team, we are already looking at their strengths to see if they have what it takes to go to the next level.  Then we focus on growing them into the sales manager that we need.

This is also true if we are looking outside the firm for a sales manager.  Sure we look for the appropriate education and experience.  But we look deeper than that.  We look at their talent, recurring patterns of thinking, feeling  and behavior.  This tells us if they have the innate ability to function well in the sales manager role.

When individuals are hired into a sales manager role, one of their universal complaints’ is that they don’t receive much training, if any.  (In our “The One Thing You Need to Know about Great Managing” program, we teach the essential components of great managing.  These skills are necessary to propel your management into improved business performance.)

Once the individual has been promoted or hired, then they need to know how to strategically lead their team in a way that will maximize their effort.  This is not just managing to the sales funnel or the goals that have been set.  It’s deeper than that.  It’s a strategic way of managing that will engage the team and maximize their performance.

To discuss or request a talk be given about this topic, call

Amos B Robinson, Practice Leader (Article Author)

“We help work places become more profitable, productive and happy”

(804)651-5400

www.robinsonbc.com