The primary reason for failing as a sales manager seems to be invisible to most managers. This article provides the reason — and a solution to make your sales grow.
Why do sales managers fail?
Ironically, failure as a sales manager usually comes from the same attributes that made a salesperson successful. As a salesperson, you focus on your personal results, not someone else’s. To be a successful sales manager, you must take off the salesperson hat and put on the sales manager’s hat. Your job performance will now depend on the results that you achieve through others.
Some sales managers don’t recognize this fact. Many good managers were only average salespeople. However, their empathy, work ethic, sound judgment, etc. paved the way to promotion. You can be a great manager without being a great salesperson.
As a new manager, start off on the right foot by making sure that you and your boss (or supervisor) are on the same page. Ask questions to make sure that you understand exactly the results your boss or supervisor expects. Because your team’s results impact your job security directly, especially in today’s environment, make sure that these expectations are realistic. Come to a mutual understanding.
Here’s what usually happens next: You invest a lot of time and effort in training a new salesperson. Just when you have them producing results, they get another job offer, relocate, or simply quit for personal reasons.
Then the whole staffing process starts over again:
When you add it up, its a lot of work. And that brings us to the No. 1 reason why most sales managers fail: Training Process Fatigue.
I relate Training Process Fatigue to the childhood experience of cutting weeds. I hated doing it. Not because I was lazy. I just knew those weeds were going to come back. My distaste for the job was in having to do the same thing over, and over, and over, with no sense of accomplishment. I hated it, so I avoided the task whenever possible.
The same principle applies to training sales recruits. You get tired of doing the same training over and over. So you either do a substandard job or just don’t train at all. It’s easy to come up with excuses when we don’t want to do something or at the very least to find something less important to do. This helps us overcome the guilt factor.
The perceived futility embedded in your subconscious mind impacts your conscious action (or lack of action).
Training Process Fatigue syndrome manifests itself in various ways:
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You’re exhausted.
You don’t see the value, so you rarely train.
You look for ways to avoid training.
You get bored doing the same things repeatedly, with no (or very little) sense of accomplishment. So why not delegate this work to someone else who might be even better at sales training than you are — someone who’ll train with complete consistency, every time, without tiring. Sound good? I’ll show you how in a minute.
In the meantime, the best antidote to Training Process Fatigue is to retain your people with outstanding training. The more successful your sales training, the better your chances of retaining good salespeople. So train to increase your sales force (and productivity) rather than to replace exiting salespeople.
To provide outstanding training, start by taking the process far more seriously. Realize that the time and effort you invest in each salesperson up front, will (if done properly) yield long-term dividends. Work hard up front, so you don’t have to work hard long term.
That’s the easiest way to reach your goals.