This week, I’m going to outline my nine commandments of sales leadership. Ignore them at your own risk.
1. Never abdicate your responsibility.
A few days ago, I was having lunch with a friend of mine who is the president of a medium-sized company. He is not a client, but he does have a sales force and, from time to time, we talk about sales related issues.
In this conversation, he mentioned in passing that his vice president of sales operates with a philosophy of, “As long as my people hit their numbers, I don’t care how they do it!” I asked my friend, “Would you accept that operating philosophy from managers of any of your other departments? What if you are VP of operations said that? Or your CFO?” “I’d look for a new manager” was his reply.
Not only do sales leaders have the right to expect their sales people to do things in a certain way, they have an obligation to do so. It is a central part of their job description as sales leaders. They are leaders, not administrators.
2. Do ride-alongs right.
You’d be surprised at the number of sales leaders who virtually never travel with their salespeople. But that is fodder for another time.
As a sales leader, you must travel with your team. And when you do, be careful not to neuter your salesperson by allowing yourself to be positioned as “Mr. Big.” You must coach your salespeople on how to position yourself when you are going to be traveling with them. Give them the words. If you don’t, more often than not, the conversation your salesperson has with his or her customer sounds a little bit like, “hey my boss is going to be in town doing some ride-alongs, would you mind if we stopped by and paid a visit?”
3. Teach language.
Words are to selling what numbers are to accounting: the building block of the discipline. If you really want to endear yourself with your salespeople give them the words to say for their most difficult customer interactions.
Once you gain credibility with them this way you will be able to then start working with them on shedding their traditional sales language in their other, everyday customer interactions.
4. Hire wisely – not well.
Just before swallowing hemlock Othello, in a classic soliloquy, laments that he has, “loved not wisely but too well.”
Sales leaders often attempt to hire “well” instead of wisely. Hiring well simply means following traditional hiring practices in the world of sales. In other words, too many sales leaders place way too much stock in a candidate’s claimed track record and way too much stock in a candidates’ claims of the number of customers and contacts that he or she will bring along into the new job. These claims virtually never pan out.
Hiring wisely means hiring integrity, energy, passion, business savvy, a sense of curiosity.
5. Don’t overburden them with data entry.
I have written often about the dos and don’ts of CRM software. In short, use CRM as a vehicle for capturing contact information, and activity summaries. Don’t try using CRM as some sort of executive dashboard and forecasting tool. And don’t even try convincing them how good it will be for them.
6. Be careful with activity mandates.
I walk a very fine line on this one as either extreme can be problematical. Establishing no black and white activity expectations is bordering on irresponsible leadership. Yet at the other extreme mandating unrealistic activity expectations will, in a sense, give you the desired outcome. You will get your activities. Salespeople do know how to work the system. But you are not likely to get the results you were hoping for.
7. Reject immediately all “false alternative” arguments.
This is the argument posed by salespeople that takes the form of, “What do you want me to do, [ ] or close sales?” You can fill in the blank with: go to the training class, weekly reports, sales meetings, etc.
8. Make them accountable for resources.
You must empower them to say no to chasing bad business. But you also have to make sure that your salespeople aren’t soaking up resources of others in your organization on various sales related activities such as demos designed, engineering, proposal development and whatnot. If company resources don’t belong to the salespeople – and they really do – salespeople are naturally inclined to spend them freely.
9. Be an asset, not an administrator.
I close with this most important exhortation of all: be an asset to your team. Too many sales leaders evolve into administrators. When you’re having a pipeline discussion with your folks don’t just ask them about expected close dates, help them develop the strategy on the account, help them develop the language they need to position a particular interaction. Be part of the process of helping them win, not just counting their wins and losses at the end of each month.
