Balancing Act

The Lead - Balancing Act

Whether you’d like to admit it or not, managing sales people can be a tricky endeavor. I say this as a person who has been an individual contributor as well as a sales manager. The personality who thrives in the highs and lows of achievement and failure, is unique. It’s my belief that this uniqueness, can also make us “difficult” to manage.

Here’s the first thing to understand - a good sales person has an entrepreneurial edge to them. There’s a freedom to control your own destiny in a sense. There’s problem solving, and a chase. Many of us at our core want to be set loose on the world, ready to hit our goals through sheer determination.

Here’s the second thing to understand - we tend to think we have it under control. Oversight can feel constraining, too much looking over our shoulder makes us feel like we’re doubted. That freedom we desire is being ripped away from us.

So today I want to share a few thoughts on how we hold these things in tension, knowing that every person and situation is unique. How should you manage your salesperson? Especially if you yourself do not have a sales background.

Setting the Right Expectations - The groundwork you lay before your sales person even starts working with you is absolutely critical. They need to be clear on the roadmap to success, the mile markers along the way, the support they can expect to receive. How much of a playbook for success are you handing them? Or do you expect them to build the machine? For your sake and theirs, you need to be as clear and reasonable as possible. So much can go wrong before even getting started.

Consistency - I won’t advocate for “You MUST” meet weekly with your sales person. I don’t think there’s one size fits all from a meeting cadence perspective. But checking in with your sales person has to be consistent. You can’t be hands off and then swoop in to overload your team, then fly away again. Whatever cadence is right for you, follow it.

Part two to consistency is reviewing performance. Back to the expectation setting, there has to be clear metrics around not just results but activity. If outbound is part of the equation, this is especially true. Slumps happen, but we want to see consistent effort. Don’t just ask for KPIs when things aren’t going well, stay on top of the numbers.

Clear and Vocal Support - I’ll warn you, this may come off a little mushy millenial to some of you and that’s fine. Your sales person needs to know you have their back. We get rejected a lot, it’s hard work. They need to know you’re in their corner and you’re there to knock down roadblocks with them. Think about the upside down triangle, or the concept of servant leadership. My belief is that mindset for sales people outweighs just about anything. As a leader, you have the ability to foster a healthy mindset but also to really negatively effect it if your approach isn’t supportive. Does this mean no accountability? Of course not.

An Invitation to Own It - Not to sound like a broken record, but this largely goes back to my first point about expectations. A good sales person who wants the freedom that comes with success, has to have healthy ownership of their results. Here’s what I mean - if you set the expectation that they’re going to get x amount of leads per month, then it’s easy to pass off ownership if those don’t come in.

On the flip side - if you want a certain amount of doors closed each month the sales person needs to own how that gets done. Allow experimentation, creativity. You can set someone up for success while also giving them room to go try, fail and succeed.

In it’s best form, the managerial relationship with a sales person should be one where both sides know what success looks like, and there’s healthy room to make that happen. Too much or too little can lead to unfortunate outcomes even when the results are good. Ultimately, you have to be able to read the situation and adjust within reason. Taking a one size fits all approach won’t work.

This topic warrants a lot more depth and discussion, but I hope this sparks some thought around how to manage your sales person well. Maybe next week I’ll flip the script and do one for the sales people out there.