Sales Management Training
"To
survive in Sales Management, you need to be bullet proof
and able to walk on water (almost!)"
Any sales manager (worth
his salt) in direct selling has got to be friend,
motivator, psychologist, mentor, disciplinarian, teacher,
mind reader and more.
He has to live and
breathe the highs and lows of his team. He gets blasted
from above when the results are down and given grief from
below when things aren't going too well. Plaudits are
rare.
Sales management is a
multi-faceted role that is pivotal to the success of the
company. And yet the strange thing is that around 85% of sales managers are just good salesmen
who have been promoted.
"Well done, George - you were the top salesman last year -
you're in charge now."
So George does his
best. He feels great now that he's been promoted
but.....sales management is a vastly different
skill .....so, how does he learn?
Trial and error,
that's generally the answer. But George learned what he
knows now from his manager, who learned his skills from
his manager,
who learned his skills
from his manager etc.
So, he's already
struggling with techniques that may be way out of date and
the skills he learned as a salesman applied to selling - not managing.
And it's a fair bet that George's job description was
something like:
Title : Sales Manager
Function : Manage!
Without extensive
training, the likes of George will "manage", but in
essence the word "manage" will take on the much lower
interpretation, as in "just get by".
No doubt he will give
it his best shot and hold it together for a while but, when the team hits a bad patch, George will hit
the panic button.
The signs of all this
are easy enough to see very early on, in areas such as
Sales Meetings. Many times the weekly or monthly meeting
takes on the sinister undertones of a witch-hunt with
everyone feeling jittery....
Manager : "You
guys have produced another poor result this week -
conversions are way low."
Owner : "And the lead cost is still very
high."
Salesman : "Lead quality is worse than
ever."
Manager : "Perhaps it's just poor
selling."
Salesman : "I've given every lead my best shot."
Owner : "I'm paying high commission and I
expect good results. These leads cost over £80 each to
obtain."
Manager : "Each salesman has had around 8
leads each this week and converted around 1:3."
Owner : "That's 8 leads x 9 salesmen x
£80 = £5760 this week to secure only 24 orders.
That's........"
Manager : "That's £240 per sale!"
Owner : "And that's before we add the
cost of the salesmen, overheads etc."
Salesman : "It's a tough market and given
the poor quality of the leads, I think that the conversion
rate is pretty good."
etc....etc
There is always a danger that a minor internal war will break out
as each party gets increasingly defensive....and
this
sort of "conflict spiral" only
goes one way.......down!
The owner is tearing out the remainder of his hair; the
manager is panicking because he's
first in line to shoulder the blame and the salesman's
morale is grounding out on every call.
Today's direct selling marketplace is very different to
that of 10, or even 5 years ago. Rely on the same
old, outdated sales training techniques you've been using for
years, and you could end up in the conflict spiral!
Make sure your
sales team are working with the right tools. Contact
DSM
sales training now to find out more
about
sales management training techniques for today.
In this section:
l
Sales Training
l
Sales
Training for "Newbies"
l
Advanced Sales Training
l
Sales Management Training l
Sales Consultancy Services
l
Sales Management Training
with.....
Direct Selling Masterclass
Sales Training UK....
....Selling
it like it is!
