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Sales Managers don't need Training, do they? - Increasing Sales Effectiveness Opportunity 3

Written by: Peter Michie

Article Overview: After proving themselves as great sales people, most sales managers are promoted with several attaboys & warm wishes, but without any training on their vital new role. This article uses 2 surveys to prove that the majority of Sales Managers absolutely need training on their Management Role.

Sales Managers don't need Training, do they? - Increasing Sales Effectiveness Opportunity 3

Sales Managers don’t need Training, do they?

After proving themselves as great sales people, most sales managers are promoted with several attaboys & warm wishes, but without any training on their vital new role.

If this is your situation, consider the following survey results…..

1. Summary of Views On Sales Managers by their Sales Team Members

Source of Views
Before proposing any progam to our customers, PERFORMAX very often conducts a Needs Analysis Survey of their sales force. As a bye product of surveying about 3,000 sales people on about 60 questions, some interesting conclusions, or opportunities for improvement emerged:

Sales Feedbacks on Themselves
18% of respondents did not have documented sales goals, and of the 82% of respondents who did:
1. 23% felt their targets were unfair;
2. 50% were forecasting that they would not reach their annual sales goals;
3. 85% had no documented plan for reaching their goals;
4. 73% had no account strategy for their top five accounts.

Sales Feedbacks on Their Sales Managers
Most respondents gave their managers high ratings in the areas of their personal selling skills.

But they gave sales managers poor marks for their management skills - more than 33% rated their managers at less than 50% in their management capabilities.


2. Summary of Views from Sales Managers on Themselves

Source of Views
During the introduction to workshops of our For Sales Mangers Only Workshops, PERFORMAX always solicits inputs from participants on the question: What are the top challenges you face that will affect your ability to make your main $ Goal(s)?

Here is a synopsis of some of the most repeatable answers to this question (from about 4,000 Sales Managers):
 Recruiting/Hiring/Retaining of good sales people
 Product deficiencies & lack of New Products/Solutions
 Fierce Competitors, especially new smaller ones
 Not enough time and focus for self and sales team
 Delivery problems and delays
 Billing errors and problems
 Economic decline with slowdowns in several markets
 Too many Boss directives and meetings
 Lack of authority to make decisions
 Too few leads from marketing
 Relatively Inexperienced Sales Staff needing lots of management help
 Heavy Focus on "what" (results needed) versus "how to achieve results."
 Ability of sales people to sell value and call highI
 Poor or unknown Company Strategy & Plan
 More knowledgeable and demanding customers
 Ability to increase activity levels of our sales people
 “Bottom of the Funnel Feeding Frenzy” by Senior Management
 New Selling Models needed/not accepted
 Slow Decision Making at all Levels
 Role of Sales Manager changing… more of a Marketing Manager
 Sales Pipeline/Funnel inadequate
 Threats of War and Terrorism Spreading
 Support not Supporting
 Commoditization of Products & Services
 Sales Training not aligned with Task at hand
 Sales forecasts keep slipping
 Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD)
 Poor Time Management & Focus by Sales Reps
 Sales Reps chasing poor or any Opportunities
 Many Reps unable/unwilling to generate New Opportunities
 Too much Management; not enough Leadership
 No Common process to qualify and reconcile accounts
 Need tools to identify coaching/ motivation opportunities
 Customer Budgets slashed
 Sales Reps not spending enough “Face Time” with Customers or Prospects
 Too few “Sales Producers”
 Personal Positive Attitude

3. Conclusion
Since addressing items 1, 3, and 4 in Section 1 above are clearly sales management responsibilities, as are the feedbacks from sales people on their managers, there is a huge opportunity for improved Sales Effectiveness in most sales forces by selecting the right people to be sales managers, and ensuring that they are well trained and competent as managers.

By the end of our workshops, the majority of participants fedback that we have helped them with most of the issue listed in Section 2 above.

The sales managers who we have trained had an average of 6.5 sales people reporting to them, so if you can increase the effectiveness of the manager by 10%, the leverage opportunity is huge!


Peter Michie, Founder of PERFORMAX

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Article Tags: account strategy, analysis survey, challenges, conclusions, deficiencies, delivery problems, main goal, management capabilities, management skills, participants, personal selling, poor marks, products solutions, respondents, sales goals, sales managers, survey results, targets, team members



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