New Sales Managers: Do you have this determination
Last night I have to admit I sat engrossed again watching Britains Got Talent. Click the link above and discover what kept me enthralled.
It’s one of those programms you hate to admit you watch. Coming as I do from a sales background and being fascinated by people I love to know what drives them, their motivations and desires.
If you have not watched this video do it now. Just click the link. I’ll wait…..
Amazing don’t you think.
Determination and desire are two things we all need to acheive what we want in our life. Wether that’s being a street dancer or managing the best sales team in the company.
If you have a liberal sprinkling of both you will increase your chances of success by >95%
It’s humbling to think that this young guy comes from a not so great area of Manchester in the uk. With not much money to help him. It makes me appreciate what I do have. Its a great lesson that often its not about the resources we have just the mindset we use to bring them alive.
It would be great to hear your comments on this one.
Popularity: 30% [?]
New Sales Managers : When and How to Delegate
Delegation is a skill all new sales managers have heard of though very few of us do on a regular basis.
Especially being new to your role.
If you make a study of truly great sales managers they all delegte to their team.
Why? because it is the quickest way to inspire your team to realise their true potential.
When done well it also acclerates the rapport that can be built between a manager and a team member in a very short space of time.
As an added bonus it saves you time and a few grey hairs in the process! There really is only so much you can do effectively in a day.
Delegation is the basis for a style of advanced management which allows your team to use and develop their skills and knowledge.
If you don’t delegate you risk losing the true value that your team bring. Also you might not discover the guy or girl that has amazing talent and ability in an area you never dreamed of.
So what is the definition of Delegation.:
It is primarily about giving your trust to someone who then has your authority to complete a task.
Sounds great doesn’t it!… and it is. Remember though if something goes wrong, you remain responsible. You are the sales manager: the skill is to delegate in such a way that things get done but do not go wrong.
Objective
The objective of delegation is to get the job done by someone else. Not just the boring simple tasks, but also the decision making and changes which depend upon new information.
For instance lets say you ask your PA or your team admin support to book your travel.
You decide it will be by a ceratin train at a certain time. So he or she follows your instruction to the letter. Good you might think? though not always.
You might end up not getting there because the train was full or the price wasn’t ok.
Much better to give an instruction and allow her or him to use their initiative e.g. Just make sure you get to the venue on time with a flexible ticket.
By leaving the decision up to them they will apply their local knowledge to the task or problem.
Consider this frankly: do you want to be an expert on travel arrangements. No I didn’t think so.
You have better things to do than constructing an instruction to cover all possible contingencies? If not, delegate to someone who gets paid for it.
To enable someone else to do the job for you, you must ensure that: three things are in place:
they know what you want
they have the authority to achieve it
they know how to do it
These all depend upon communicating clearly the nature of the task, the extent of their discretion, and the sources of relevant information and knowledge.
Information
Such a system can only operate successfully if the decision-makers (your team) have full access to the relevant information. This means that you must establish a system that enables an easy flow of information.
It also helps if they all know what each other are doing as well. Openess is definatley the best policy.
Effective control
A classic phobia, of new sales managers about delegation, is that by giving others authority, a manager loses control. Trust me this is not the case.
You got this job for a reason. My suspecion would be that you where pretty good at a number of things.
So train your staff to use the same criteria and skills as you would yourself (by example and full explanations) then they will be exercising your control on you behalf.
Staged Development
To understand delegation, you really have to think about people.
Delegation is all about what you delegate and who you delegate it to. It depends upon individuals and individual needs. Let us take a lowly member of staff who has little or no knowledge about the job which needs to be done.
Lets look at a classic example.
Do you say to Jane your new recruit:
”Jane, I want you to put together a sales presentation at the next sales team meeting on how to get 20 extra calls a week”.
No No No!! Better to Say” Jane I would like you to work with Ian our senior rep on how a new sales representative can get more calls”
“Ian is really experienced at presentations and will show you the ropes. Give me a call on Friday and lets chat through how it is going?”.
The key is to delegate gradually. If you present someone with a task which is daunting, one with which he/she does not feel able to cope, then the task will not be done and your team member could be severely demotivated.
Instead build-up gradually; first a small task leading to some confidence, then another small task which builds upon the first; etc etc.
This is the difference between asking people to scale a sheer wall, and providing them with a staircase. Each task delegated should have enough complexity to stretch that member of staff.
Finally make sure you keep a watch ful eye on the situation. You might be pleasently surprised at how good your delegation skills are and how good a team you actually have.
Be available though not to much
There is a danger with “open access” that you become too involved with the task you had hoped to delegate. One successful strategy to avoid this is to formalise how often you discuss the delagted task.
One way is to allow only fixed, regular encounters (except for emergencies)
Jane then has to think through the issues herself before she comes to you. You can even suggest they draw up an agenda.
Secondly you can refuse to make a decision unless Jane has provided you with a clear list of alternatives, pros and cons, and her recommendation.
This is might seem extreme at first. Though it is one of the best learning techniques ever to accelerate your teams development.
Why?
Because it allows Jane to have a go at the full authority of decision making while safe knowing that you will be there to tell her if what she is doing and thinking are correct.This is a great way to help in the development of decision making skills.
Outcomes and Failure
So Let’s consider your undoubtedly high standards.
When you delegate a job, it does not have to be done as well as you could do it.
Only as well as necessary: never judge the outcome by what you expect you would do (it is difficult to be objective about that), but rather by wether the actual major outcome was acheived. Remember know one does things as you do. Heaven forbid it might even be better.
So what if it doesn’t go as planned. Well if you have followed the suggestions above. You will catch it before it does.
When you are giving feedback. Focus on behaviours and facts . Not judgements.
If Jane has made a mistake. Tell her and show her how to do it properly so you both get the desired result.
You get the job done and develop your team all at the same time. You learn something and so does Jane.
What to delegate
There is always the question of what to delegate and what to do yourself. The long term view is the best.
If you want to manage the best sales team in your company. The best people need to be developed and stretched. The only way to do this is to give them tasks that will enable this to happen.
Your outcome should be to have all of your team as good as you are.
Consider the activities you used to do before you were promoted. You used to do them when you were more junior, so someone junior can do them now.
Tasks in which you have experience are the easiest for you to explain to others and so to train them to take over. You then use your experience to ensure that the task is done well, rather than to actually perform the task yourself.
In this way you gain time for your other duties and someone else becomes as good as your once were (increasing the strength of the group).
In terms of motivation for your staff, you should distribute the more mundane tasks as evenly as possible; and sprinkle the more exciting ones as widely.
In general, but especially with the boring tasks, you should be careful to delegate not only the performance of the task but also its ownership. Task delegation, rather than task assignment, enables innovation.
When all is done for you once you have delegated everything, what do you do then?
You still need to monitor the tasks you have delegated and to continue the development of your sales team to help them exercise their authority well.
There are managerial functions which you should never delegate – these are the personal/personnel ones which are often the most obvious additions to your responsibilities as you assume a sales manager role. Specifically, they include: motivation, training, team-building, organization, praising, giving feedback, performance reviews, promotion.
As a sales manager, you have a responsibility to represent and to develop the effectiveness of your group within your company.
Delegation is a great way to do that and get the job done quicker. With a team that are enjoying what they do because yoiu have trusted them to take responsibility and accountability.
Popularity: 39% [?]
Managing Your Boss
” In seeking happiness for others,you find it for yourself”
Anon
Anyone who has ever worked in any form of customer service relations understands the phrase, “the customer is always right”.
Of course, it doesn’t really mean that they are always correct, but the idea is that you will do whatever is in your power to make your customer happy. The general idea is that they then keep coming back for more.
It has been proven through countless studies that keeping an existing customer is far easier and less expensive than attracting new customers.
Did you know your boss (the big cheese head honcho etc etc or various other names! )is a lot like a customer, too?
In other words, you can keep your boss happy by understanding what is important to him or her.
Does your boss want you to reach a certain sales target or market share. Are they more intersted in people development? Is one product more important than another. Do they want to rise up the organisation and take you with them?
Top tip. Whatever it is that is important to your boss should also become important to you as a manager.
As you set your daily to-do lists and plan your time, you’ll want to be sure to factor in tasks that bring you closer to completing the agenda that is most important to your boss.
Additionally, now being part of the management team means the work you do is meant to make the boss’s responsibilities a little easier to manage.
Think about ways you can make your boss’s job a little easier whenever possible, as it shows you’ve taken the initiative and are dedicated to your position. It also demonstrates that you are willing to go above and beyond in order to get the job done.
Whenever you meet or exceed your boss’s expectations, they are going to see you in a positive light, of course. Top tip!
It shows you are reliable and dependable, not to mention worthy of your management position. Meeting the expectations of your boss shows you understand your work responsibilities and are capable of fulfilling them.
Popularity: 39% [?]
How to Manage Difficult Sales People
A sad fact of life is that not everyone you work with will be cooperative, loveable or even likeable.
In fact, you may have to manage people who can only be classified as downright difficult.
There are a number of approaches to managing difficult people – the trick is to find ways that you feel comfortable with and that are also effective. Getting a great result for both parties
All Managers at some point during their career will deal with a variety of personalities. Luckily, most people are cooperative and operate in a reasonable, rational manner.
There are some employees in every organisation who turn out to be difficult to work near or with. We can all have a bad day and are hell to live with!
What we are talking about here are people that generally always seem to be angry or self centred. These people are generally focused on their own agendas and needs and are unable to see past themselves.
It is interesting in that often their behaviour has been left to fester for years. Without anyone actually pointing it out to them. Yes that is actually true. I remember taking a team over a few years ago and having to deal with the rep from hell! or so everyone said.
What was fascinating was that nobody had actually pointed out to him how his behaviour was effecting everyone on the team. The poor guy was giving all this negative energy out. So what must he have been feeling like.
Being constantly angry is not good for you physiologically let alone your relationships. I digress. Maybe the subject for another post.
Going back to the team you are managing and how Mr or Miss angrys behaviour effects them. Usually you will find increased tension, conflicts, alienation to name just a few.
So far we have talked about the angry guy or girl. Usually quite extreme though in some ways easier to handle. What can be more challenging are the other “difficult” types.
Lets explore a little more
As a generalisation There are three types of difficult people:
1. Aggressive People
2. Victims
3. Rescuers
In order to develop effective approaches to managing difficult people, you’ll need to understand a little about each type of person.
Aggressive People
You’ll notice the aggressive people right away – they are demanding and loud. They rarely listen and they talk over people when they try to speak. The general attitude of an aggressive person is one of being right all the time, while everyone else is wrong. In short- aggressive people are often seen as bullies.
Aggressive people tend to use phrases like:
“If you don’t like it, there’s the door! Don’t let it hit you on the way out.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s wrong. This is right.”
As a manager hoping to work with aggressive people, you’ll want to give them opportunity to vent and speak what’s on their minds first. They are easily angered and will not be able to calm down until they’ve blown of steam. Use your active listening skills to show them you are listening and attempting to understand what they’re saying.
Your job when managing aggressive people is to get them to understand that there is often more than one right answer, that while their opinions are valued – other people have equally valued opinions and ideas and need the opportunity to express them.
Victims
Victims in the workplace complain, moan, and whine constantly. They blame everyone else for their problems and often seem timid or helpless.
Other people also feel depressed being around victims.
Comments victims are heard making include:
“Why do things like this always happen to ME?!”
“There isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done. I never have time for myself. I can’t get it all done.”
“They won’t do their work so I can’t get mine done.”
When managing “victims” you’ll want to listen to all of their complaints because these people complain so often- no one really listens to them anymore. They feel neglected and forgotten.
Give your understanding of what the victim feels and then try to get them to prioritize their problems and work with them to develop a course of action to resolve the problems in order of importance.
If you can help a victim to realize he or she is not helpless, they can become vital assets to the team.
Rescuers
People who are rescuers need to be liked and appreciated by everyone they meet. They will go out of their way to help people and avoid confrontation. Rescuers will say “yes” and never think about the implications of saying yes. They often over commit and then can’t get their own work done because they’re off helping everyone else.
You’ll hear rescuers saying things like:
“I know this is your project, but if I add it to my list it will help take some of the burden off you.”
“Oh just put it on my desk, I can get to that in a few minutes for you.”
“I’ll help you with that!”
To effective manage rescuers, you’ll want to hold them accountable for performing their own job responsibilities – if they have extra time that they use to help everyone else, you can assign them larger or longer tasks to work on.
Understanding these approaches to managing difficult people will help you lead a wide variety of personality types in the workplace.
Popularity: 40% [?]
Managing your Sales Team: It all starts with Communication
Communication is important in any relationship, whether it’s on a personal level or in the workplace.
Effective communication in the workplace is the foundation of a strong sales team, a healthy work environment that people actually enjoy coming to each day, and the ability to more effectively manage people in general.
If the sales team has certain targets and agendas that must be met on a monthly basis- the first step as a sales manager is to be sure that everyone understands what that target or agenda is, and their role in getting there. This requires communication with the team.
If the team is unable to understand what you expect of them – you can guarantee that you will not get the desired results from the team members.
Once the team understands what is expected of them, they’ll need communication whenever they’re unsure how to achieve those expectations so that they can effectively ask for help when needed.
If the team are unable to express their ideas or problems, they are not going to be able to get the assistance they need and again- the work is not going to be completed as expected.
Good sales managers are constantly working to improve their communication skills. Here are some methods to strengthen your communication
skills:
1. Increase your vocabulary and think of different ways of saying the same thing
2. Practice speaking and using different voice tones. Not everything has to be shouted!
3. Learn how to listen. Really listen without interrupting
4. Improve your written communication skills
There are certain words that can be misinterpreted in general conversation, in emails or during a presentation. Along with words, facial expressions are often misunderstood and play a large role in communicating.
You can prevent miscommunications by increasing your vocabulary, asking people what a word means during a conversation if you are unsure, and making sure the people you are talking to understand what you are saying.
If people walk away from a conversation or meeting and have no idea what you’ve just said; or have an entirely different interpretation of what you’ve said, trouble will be the result!
It’s a good idea to ask people to clarify what you’ve said to be sure everyone has the same understanding of the situation and eliminate any misunderstandings.
When possible, take the time to practice speaking. As a manager, you’re often going to be speaking to your team – whether it is one on one or as a group. Particularly for presentations or meetings, take some time to practice what you’re going to say so that you can deliver the message as clearly as possible to avoid confusion.
One trick, and particularly helpful during conversation, is to visualize the words on a sheet of paper before you say them. That way, you can almost “read aloud” the words you want to say. You’ll find you speak much more eloquently and in an easy-to-understand manner if you visualize the words on paper before you say them.
Learning to listen is as important, if not more so- than having the ability to speak your words clearly. Conversation is useless if you don’t understand what is being said, and conversation and communication requires input and output.
It doesn’t work if someone is providing all of the “output” or feedback, only to have the receiving end completely tune out and not hear anything that’s being said.
As a manager, you may be required to develop training materials or other documents to communicate with your team. If you aren’t able to effectively convey ideas on paper, you’re going to leave room for many misunderstandings.
Managers can improve their communication skills by attending courses on the topic, bringing in communication consultants to work with the entire team for a few days, or by signing up for online manager communication courses.
Whichever method you choose, communication is one of the most important skills a manager must have, and all management begins with effective communication.
Popularity: 74% [?]
How to run a successful sales team meeting
How to Run A Successful Sales Team Meeting
Meetings are an important part of most corporate structures; but especially within sales. Many people will moan (sometimes inwardly!) over scheduled meetings because over the years they’ve sort of got a bit of a bad reputation.
We’ve probably all attended a meeting and then left when it was over- scratching our heads and wondering exactly what was accomplished from that hour of time. The problem with the majority of workplace meetings is that they are unstructured, completely unplanned, uninspiring and therefore- unproductive.
Here are some tips to help you run a successful sales team meeting; one that your sales team will thank you for and actually leave the meeting knowing exactly what is expected of them and how they’re going to get it done!
1. Have a clearly defined purpose and outcome.
In order for a meeting to be successful, you must have a way to measure the results. Don’t have a meeting for the sake of having a meeting, in other words, schedule meetings to generate a specific outcome.
2. Set an agenda (and stick to it).
Before the meeting, an agenda should be created that outlines what each member of the sales team plans to discuss, in line with the planned outcome of that particular meeting. You’ll want to plan the best way to use the allocated meeting time while still giving everyone ample opportunity to say what they need to say.
You will need to have some flexibility with your agenda as you can never completely predict how much time you may need on a certain topic, but having the agenda and distributing it to the sales team before the meeting helps everyone get focused and stay on track.
3. Engage the participants.
One reason meetings tend to fall short of their planned outcomes is due to the participants each attempting to take notes about what is being discussed. You may find it works better to assign a note-taker to each meeting, or simply record the meeting and have someone transcribe it into written form afterwards for each participant.
That way, everyone can be actively engaged in the discussion or presentation of the meeting, and not focused on trying to write down everything that’s being said.
4. Be a Clock Watcher
Time flies when you’re having fun – and it’s been known to get away from people during a meeting, too. Take a tip from Google: when they hold meetings, they literally project a four foot tall image of a timer on the wall. The timer counts down the time left for a meeting or time for discussion of a particular topic within the meeting.
It adds some pressure to keep the meetings moving as planned on the agenda. While you don’t necessarily have to have a wall projection of a timer; you may want to keep an egg timer or clock visible to everyone at the meeting to help the sales team stay focused and on task.
5. Use Visual Aids
A large percentage of the population consider themselves to be “visual” learners. If they can’t see it, they can’t understand it. Visual aidsshould be used in meetings to help people “see” what you are trying to explain to them.
Visual aids can be things like flip charts, video presentations, slide shows, or transparencies, among others. The best visual aids:
Designed simply Contain few words, often with bullet points
Make only one point per visual (one point per slide or per page on a flip chart for example)
May be props or actual products
These tips should help you run a successful sales meeting with your sales team. Proper planning before the meeting ensures the meeting will have focus; careful actions during the meeting result in progress towards the desired outcome of the meeting.
Using these five keys should give you some new ideas about how to elevate your meetings from what people consider a “waste of time” to what is considered time well spent.
Popularity: 72% [?]
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