This is the last article in the series on unproductive habits. Thus far, we’ve considered how a variety of habits cause managers, employees, and organisations to be unproductive.

In this installment, we’re going to look at one specific group of employees: sales managers.

There are two broad categories: A failure to train sales teams and a failure to do what’s most important.

Failure to train sales’ teams

In this category, there are four habits that many sales managers have and which cause their teams to fail.

Failure to teach them to listen

The best form of teaching is modelling. It’s doing as you say. If you’re constantly interrupting people or finishing their sentences for them, then you’re teaching your sales team members to do exactly the same thing. Effective listeners don’t say much, especially at the beginning.

That’s because they’re learning.

If you’re talking, your prospects won’t attempt to talk over you, or at least not very much. They’ll let you wax long, tell you that they have another meeting after a few minutes, and then suggest you “have a nice day”.

The best sales people, whether team members or managers, or the best listeners on the planet. Teach your team to be among them by leading the way.

Failure to teach them about the product(s)

You may be one who assumes that it’s the responsibility of team members to learn about the product(s) they sell, and to a certain extent, that’s true. Thing is that as you’re the manager, you should know more about the capabilities of the product(s) than any of your team members. Not only must you know the most, you must also know what similar products your company is competing with.

And you should know the characteristics of each one, too.

Armed with that knowledge, you can create material to supplement the training that you give on those products, and then encourage team members to come up with a game plan for defeating the competition. You abdicate your responsibilities as a manager, however, if you pass the buck on this.

Failure to teach them how their job contributes to the organisation’s success.

It may seem obvious to you that it’s what people sell that gives the company the revenue that it needs to operate profitably. And although there’s some truth to that, the fact is that not all sales teams contribute an equal amount.

Therefore, you should be able to explain clearly the exact role your team plays and the value that it contributes to the success of your organisation. The reason this is important is because people want to know that what they do makes a difference; that it matters. And it’s when their jobs are so disconnected from the company that motivation flags.

It’s possible that they’ll figure out some of this on their own; but if the company is large enough, then it will be up to you to connect the dots.

Failure to teach humility with confidence

This is a rare, but essential combination. Normally you find humility and low self-esteem together, or confidence and arrogance. Neither combination will persuade anyone to buy anything.

The first one casts doubt on the efficacy of the product; the second on the honesty of the sales person or team. And it’s because you’re the manager that the responsibility for teaching people how to be both humble and confident, falls. If you’re a good manager, then you’ll already have done so.

Failure to do what’s most important

The second category of unproductive habits is the failure to do what’s most important. This takes the form of being too busy doing who-knows-what to monitor the team.

Little or no accountability

One unproductive habit is to hold team members to very little or no accountability.

How is this possible?

It happens when you only check the numbers at the end of the evaluation period. For example, let’s say that every quarter you have to report your sales results.

Do you know how everyone’s doing on a monthly basis? Do you know where they are in the sales process on a weekly basis? You don’t have to be a micromanager; in fact, it’s better if you aren’t. But it’s reasonable for you to know where everyone is.

If someone from senior management suddenly asked you what percentage of sales targets had been achieved in a given month, and it wasn’t the end of the quarter, you’d want to have a better answer than, “I’ll get back to you”.

Failure to stay on top of the sales’ call format

It’s possible that your organisation has a prescribed sales’ call format, and in that case your job principally would be to make sure that people followed it. But it’s more than likely that your sales team members each have their own way of doing things.

You need to be on top of what methods are being used because you may find that one technique is incredibly effective, or you may uncover one or more flaws that are causing people to lose sales.

If you’re not on top of these formats, then you won’t know.

There’s another thing.

You need to be aware of those who are most likely to manipulate prospects into buying something, whether they need it or not; who is struggling to close; who has trouble getting the call going; and who leads with price, or some other deal-killer, for example.

You must stay on top of all this so that when things go wrong, you’re right there with a solution.

Failure to stay on top of sales’ team challenges

Some managers, whether in sales or any other part of the organisation, don’t keep records or the ones they do keep are disorganised or incomplete.

Sales teams should be making a note of all of their calls, action taken, action to be taken, dates, etc; and you as the manager also need to know when these things are taking place.

You also need to keep a note of those who make the most excuses or who give up the soonest, who lack urgency, or whose track record is a bit up and down. And you need to know who is most likely to follow-up too soon or not at all. It’s impossible to spot a trend unless you have graph-able data.

Failing to train your sales teams and failing to do what needs to be done will guarantee that your teams are unproductive. Management is a skill. You have to learn how to do it in order to be effective at it. Competence in a non-supervisory role is not guarantee that you’ll make a good manager.

Productivity in your sales team depends on your habits. If you’re not getting the results that you want, then you should start by looking at your habits. It’s likely that if you change them, then the rest will take care of itself.

If you need to be more effective as a Sales Manager – email me