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.
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Great article – taken the liberty of sharing it.