Tweet

Avoidale Mistakes Made By Sales Leaders

Guest post by: Greg van der Linde

Article Overview: Sales reps must be managed effectively. Sales leaders have to understand their reps’ capabilities in order to place them in an ideal sales environment where they can have a positive impact on the company and sales results. Sales leaders who can successfully identify their reps capabilities will be able to utilize their talents in the proper context. This will create a more efficient sales team while working within the context of their sales skills.

Avoidale Mistakes Made By Sales Leaders

Utilize Sales Rep Capabilities

Sales leaders must understand the capabilities of their reps. They have to know their strengths, weaknesses, and preferences to put them in situations where they can be successful. Creating ideal environments will allow reps to use their capabilities effectively and yield positive results in terms of sales and revenue. Too often, reps are forced into an environment and promoted to positions that are not a fit for them or the company. Sales leaders should take the time to consider the best situation for all of their reps.

This is especially crucial when:

• Mistake 1: Promoting Top Sales Reps Within The Company
• Mistake 2: Assigning Average Reps to Difficult Sales Accounts

Mistake 1: Promoting Top Reps within the Company

Sales leaders should carefully consider the merit of promoting their top rep. They have to consider the pros and cons of the entire situation to determine if promoting the top rep is in both the company's and the rep's best interest. Sales leaders must determine if the top sales rep has the correct skill set and is capable of doing the job effectively. A common error made by sales leaders is assuming a top rep will translate into a top sales leader.

Promoting a top rep could create two serious issues:

• A weakened sales force: The result of losing a rep that brings in large sums of revenue.
• An ineffective sales leader: The result of having a n inexperienced and unqualified individual in the position.

Tops sales reps are difficult to come by. They make up a very small portion of the sales team, and bring in a considerable amount of revenue for the company. They know how to sell and can create sales opportunities where other reps cannot. Top sales reps are a vital asset. However, sales leaders have a tendency to promote their best reps when given the chance.

Sales leaders cannot just promote their top reps. While there is merit as to why a top rep would be promoted to a position such as sales manager, they are not necessarily the right person for the job. Sales leaders should promote the right person who possesses the following qualifications for the job, rather than just the top sales rep:

• Traits
• Tendencies
• Skills
• Education
• Situational knowledge

Top sales reps do not easily convert into good sales leaders. There is a huge disparity between the skills of a sales rep and sales leader. Selling does not equate to managing. Top reps often have a tough time communicating their selling successes. They tend to work on a level that is different from other reps and have a tough time explaining their actions and decision during a deal. These selling skills are innate, and are unconscious competencies. It is next to impossible for these individuals to accurately communicate how they best utilize their unconscious competencies. This lack of communication is the exact opposite of what is expected from sales leaders.

Sales leaders fail to realize that when they promote their top reps, they are weakening their sales team. They are essentially reducing their sales power and revenue earning potential brought in by that rep. Once a top rep is gone, they are not easy to replace. Developing the skills to become a top rep takes times. Sales leaders often times do not have the required lead time to wait for development; they need sales revenue now to achieve their sales targets.

Sales leaders must be able to work with reps and help them develop their skills through coaching. Newly promoted top sales reps often do not receive adequate training opportunities for coaching, mentoring, and development, and therefore struggle in the pressure-filled leadership position.

There is a large disparity in skills required between being a top rep and a sales leader. If a top rep is promoted, there must be a transition process in place ('coach the coach', key account transition, etc.) to allow for adjustment in terms of both the sales team and sales leader (CRM, etc.). Sales leaders must have the right skills, capabilities, and tendencies to successfully lead a sales team.

Mistake 2: Assigning Average Reps to Difficult Sales Accounts

Sales leaders have to understand the sales capabilities of each of their reps in order to put them in the best environment for them to sell successfully. This will help B & C level reps with:

• Growing their potential
• Building confidence
• Progressively developing their skills over time

This situation will benefit the reps, sales leader, and the sales company over time. (Link to A,B,C tiered level reps)

Buyers, in a similar fashion to sales reps, are at different levels. It is in the best interest of sales leaders to attempt to align sales accounts so that top reps deal with more challenging and complex accounts, while B & C level reps work with less challenging, more transactional accounts. Of course, each situation is different. This environment is an ideal that will not always work in practice. However, making an effort to create ideal situations for sales reps will have a positive impact on sales results. This is especially effective when sales leaders progressively challenge and reward their reps by assigning them to more complex accounts with greater opportunity, and increase their sales goals as their reps gain confidence and develop their skills.

Often times, B & C level reps struggle to sell to savvy and experienced buyers in complex selling environments. They do not have the skills, experience, and may not be able to meet the buyer's needs effectively. Additionally, experienced buyers could also take advantage of the situation and get reps to make unnecessary concession to close. Therefore, it is essential for sales leaders to assess the skills of their reps to ensure they are in a sales environment that suits their skill level.

Sales leaders that engage in regular coaching sessions know each of their rep's specific capabilities, and are therefore better able to properly assign reps to the appropriate accounts using account management best practices. These coaching sessions also help sales leaders determine whether to manage a rep up or out.

Bottom Line & Business Impact:

Sales leaders cannot fall into the trap of promoting top reps based on their sales numbers. Nor can they fall into the trap of assigning reps to accounts that are above their skill level. When accounts are poorly assigned, sales leaders risk facing the repercussions of having an ineffective sales team that struggles, fails to reach their potential, and does not achieve their sales goals.

Related Articles
  Eliminating the Fear of Failure
  Recovering From a Mistake
  Failure Is An Option
  Should we encourage mistakes on our team?
  Leadership Assessment #9 – Admits Mistakes
  Do You Have What It Takes To Become An Industry Leader?
  Qualities of Excellent Leaders: Leading an Organization to Triple Digit Growth
  Make No Mistake, We Should Make More
  LEADERS CREATES LEADERS AT ALL LEVELS.
  Common Costly Mistakes When Selling A Product Online
  Bite and Snap at the Heels of Your Competition
  It's Results That Define Leadership
  Lesson #1: “If you get knocked down, get back up again”
  Fail in Favor of the Customer
  Are You Genuinely A Leader Or Merely A Manager?
  CEO Speak Out
  Attracting Holding Good Trade Show Traffic
  Blogging
  Ten Characteristics of Leadership
  Using Mistakes Successfully

Article Tags: assigning accounts, capabilities, key accounts, promoting reps, promotion, sales environment, sales rep capabilities, sales rep utilization, sales reps, sales skills, skill utilization



Related Forum Posts
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
Re: HI EVERYONE - HI All, I'm back too.. Was on a hiatus creating an online product. Made myself accountable for that by getting customers to pay for it first while I created it with them.
enRoute ads - 10 days with my new salesmen - Hi Guys, As some of you may know I hired a sales person for my business. I picked him amongst 50+ interviews, so I did do my due diligence. For any of you who have had experience with outbound sales reps in your company could you please shed some light on these statistics and let me know what you think: Days Employed: 11 Calls Made: 200 Average length of call: 3 minutes Sales: 0 Closing Rate: 0 Previous closing rate at Astral Media: 5% He is selling billboards instead of radio, for an unestablished company vs. an established one There seems to be large gaps in calling made in his daily log, on average he is making 20 calls a day. I am going to try to increase this by providing him with calling lists versus him creating his own. (I will keep you posted on this). I am just wondering, in your experience, what kind of regiment do you have your cold callers work on, 6 hours? 4 hours? 7 hours? And did you notice a curve occur with closing rates as time progressed and experience increased? If so when did you notice this begin to occur, I have him on a 1,500.00 NON-RECOVERABLE sales draw salary which ends in 6 weeks (approx).
Re: March 21 Triple Crown Update - Congratulations to the first three Leaders in the Forum category. Keep it up.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Pay Per Click Advertising

What Type of Business Should I Start?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.