Great sales reps will eventually be promoted to Sales Leaders. Yup, that’s the typical career path: you’re good at what you do, then you’re great, and then you get promoted to lead others who do what you did before. That’s true for most roles, not just sales.
The hardest part when you are recently promoted to management is deciding what you need to stop doing from your old role so you can start focusing on the unique goals of your new role. Hey, I get it… it’s hard to step back from the thrill of talking to clients and hunting down the close. But that’s not your job anymore, that’s the job of your rep for that account, and your new job is to support them to be great at it.
One of the skills that you hopefully learned in sales is to ask great questions and then listen carefully to the answer. This silence-and-listening skill becomes even more important to you as a sales manager. When you go in a sales calls with your reps, I highly recommend a pre-call plan where the rep will map out how they will handle the sales meeting and telling you what they expect from you during the call. In that sales call, the rep should guide the conversation with the client, the rep is in control. You as the sales manager should be listening, observing, and taking notes for a successful post-call coaching with the rep.
Here are a few tips on how to coach your reps. The first step is to identify their level of expertise and competence. For simplicity, put them on one of these three categories: junior, core, and advanced. The way you lead them is not according to your leadership style, it is according to their level of competence (same concept from my other blog entry on delegation).
- Junior reps require specific instructions so your style should be directive (“do this, try that…”).
- Core reps can handle a lot more on their own, so your style should be coaching (“what’s your plan, how will you get there, what obstacles do you expect…”).
- Advanced reps are very proficient and have probably solved similar situations before, your style should be goal-stretching (“what’s the next big goal, how can we improve, where will they be in 2 years…”).
Depending on your industry and your company, some sales managers double up as the senior relationship liaison with a large account – it is of great benefit to have senior-level connections between the account and the vendor. It is key to keep in mind that the purpose of these senior “pairings” is to align visions and not to solve the current transaction. The frequency of these meetings might be low – once a quarter or twice a year – but what goes up is the long-term impact of those meetings.
The sales function of the sales leader shifts to maintaining a healthy discipline on pipeline management by the sales reps, regularly tracking activity and steering priorities to meet the milestone targets. Another function is managing internal relationships that support the success of your sales reps, with operations, finance, legal, and product management.
In short, your success as a sales leader will depend on your ability to help your sales reps be successful.
I leave you with one thought/challenge, what do you need to stop doing from your old sales rep role, and what do you need to start doing as a sales manager?