Anatomy of the Modern Sales Manager a Blueprint for Identifying

Anatomy of the Modern Sales Manager A blueprint for identifying, hiring, and developing top Sales Managers INTRODUCTION Changes in technology, business culture, and customer expectations are changing the ways that companies build and maintain sales organizations. The same forces that are transforming sales organizations are also changing sales management – how it is defined, measured, and how the larger corporation views the sales management function. In this paper, we turn our attention to best practices for identifying, hiring, and developing top sales managers.

Defining Sales Management

THE MANY HATS OF SALES MANAGER Among corporate jobs, that of sales manager arguably is the most complex, simply because they are required to wear so many “hats.” In most companies, sales managers must play many or all of the following roles:

Coach: Strategist: Politician:

Help sales personnel develop Use experience and Effectively marshal the both basic selling skills perspective to help guide the company’s internal resources, and the business acumen sales process and to warn both inside and outside the required to understand larger of potential problems in the sales team. business issues. customer account.

Communicator: Educator: Recruiter:

Communicate the needs of Ensure that the entire Attract personnel who have the sales team to the rest of company learns from both the raw talent to sell while the organization and ensure wins and losses how to building a “stable” of potential that the best opportunities get better serve prospects and candidates. priority. customers.

Closer: Technologist: Forecaster:

Provide tactical help in Select CRM applications and Provide top management customer-facing situations direct the customization of the with viable estimates of to ensure that key prospects system to fit both the needs of future revenue while taking become customers. the sales team and the rest of responsibility for fulfilling the company. those forecasts.

Given that the job is so complex, it’s no surprise that many myths and mistakes get in the way of sales manager success.

2 11 COMMON MYTHS OF SALES MANAGEMENT The average tenure of a VP of Sales is only 18 months – significantly shorter than the average tenure of other VP-level and C-level executives. The root of the problem lies in the following popular misconceptions, or myths, about sales management and the process of hiring them:

1. Myth: General management skills are 5. Myth: Job interviews can identify sales sufficient. management potential. Fact: Management positions are different Fact: The typical job interview increases enough that no one individual can fill all of the chances of choosing the best candidate them successfully. Running a business, for by less than two percent. In other words, example, requires a variety of specialized flipping a coin would be only two percent skills that are quite different from those of less reliable than basing your decision on running a sales organization. an interview.

2. Myth: Sales management failures result 6. Myth: Similar-seeming individuals will from the “Peter Principle.” succeed at similar jobs. Fact: Eighty to ninety percent of management failure is due to a mismatch Fact: Duplicating success may seem like a between the person and the position, rather good idea, but this is only possible through than a manager upwardly climbing to his or a comparison of large enough samples of her level of incompetence. top performers and weak performers to find the factors that consistently distinguish 3. Myth: Great sales managers are born winners from “also rans.” that way. Fact: Some management skills, like 7. Myth: Sales managers should be “jacks intelligence, conceptual ability, leadership, of all trades.” and charisma are probably based on Fact: While companies continue to demand genetics. Others, such as effective that sales managers be able to play many communicating and business acumen can roles, research reveals that the most critical be acquired with practice and experience. factor for predicting success in any job is usually as important, or more important, 4. Myth: Anyone can be a great sales than all other factors combined. manager. Fact: Basic management skills can be 8. Myth: Personality is more important than refined and improved by twenty to fifty job skills. percent, but no more. Thus, a poor decision- Fact: Many consultants and testing firms maker can become average, but is unlikely maintain that certain personality factors help to ever be exceptional. ensure management success. However, solid statistical research from many objective sources shows little correlation between any personality factor and any specific job.

3 9. Myth: Sales management failures don’t 11. Myth: All sales organizations are have a pattern. measured similarly. Fact: Research consistently shows that Fact: According to research conducted people fail in a job due to factors different by Jason Jordan, there are several from the criteria used to select them. hundred different metrics that various sales Companies that identify these “failure organizations use to measure themselves. points” and build them into the selection process can reduce hiring mistakes by as much as twenty five percent. These myths are so ingrained that they 10. Myth: All sales management is similar. constrain the ability of top management to make appropriate decisions about Salespeople and sales leaders both Fact: sales management, as well as the ability have management responsibilities, however of sales managers to redefine their own, the types of management are quite different. rapidly changing profession. Salespeople manage territories, accounts, and opportunities. Sale leaders manage people.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF MANAGERS To counteract these myths and come up with a more useful definition of sales management, it’s first necessary to apply some intellectual rigor to the subject of management in general. Chally’s research shows there are four generic types of manager in the modern corporation:

Line Manager: These managers (primarily Profit Center Manager: These managers have C-level and VP-level executives) accept full responsibility for a smaller, discrete, or accountability for bottom-line results and have autonomous business unit. With total authority the final authority to make decisions. They seek for bottom-line results, they operate much like to minimize and control risk through focusing entrepreneurs and their management style on improving competitive advantage, while tends to be “hands-on.” Their goals, and often looking for major improvement through constant their compensation, are based on shorter-term refinement. growth or profitability.

Staff Manager: These managers (typically a Sales Manager: The overarching goal of the department head) take a “project” approach sales manager is to provide revenue and profit to building new value. They maintain a high from a sales team. These managers focus on level of competence in an important business building, refining, and staffing a selling function. function and manage a staff that provides They spend little to no time directly managing expertise or specialized information that customer accounts. While they are in frequent increases the function’s value and influence in contact with customers, their focus is on keeping the organization. in close touch with the market, and on training and developing the skills and productivity of salespeople.

4 How to Hire a Sales Manager

7 COMPETENCIES OF SALES The Risks of Promoting Sales Stars MANAGEMENT into Sales Managers The primary responsibility of a sales manager The basic skill set required for selling is to build the quality and productivity of and the basic skill set for managing/ salespeople rather than deal either with coaching are fundamentally different. specific customers or internal corporate Top salespeople focus on building issues. Because of this, sales management is relationships, closing business, and not a job that requires general management so forth, while top managers focus expertise, nor is it simply an advanced sales on developing the potential of each role. Therefore, the screening and interviewing employee. process must identify individuals who can While some individuals can do both achieve desired results from sales teams types of labor equally well, such through deal strategizing, coaching, and paragons are relatively rare. Because leadership, rather than through individual of this, Sales Executives make a huge contribution. By leveraging four decades mistake when they set up a position in of research, Chally has identified seven Sales Management as a “reward” for competencies that predict the success of a good sales performance. When such sales manager. a “reward” takes place, the sales team 1. Engages Others in Learning and (and the company) loses a top sales Assesses Understanding performer and gains a mediocre (at best) sales manager. Sales managers must be able to train salespeople on products, applications, Wise sales executives keep top and (more importantly) on the basic sales salespeople in sales positions, but also techniques required to sell products and identify and build an alternate career services more effectively. This activity is path that will increase the earnings of different from traditional classroom training those sales stars while raising their in that the course itself is not nearly as recognition level. When sales managers important as the results produced or are needed, effective sales executives changes accomplished. The emphasis is locate candidates (internally and entirely on activities and knowledge that externally) who have demonstrated helps improve sales skills and efficiency. management and coaching talent. Such training tends to be hands-on role- playing rather than dominated by course materials or PowerPoint presentations.

5 2. Coaches Others and Provides Timely than evaluating themselves and others on Feedback effort (i.e., tasks completed) or process Studies consistently show that the greatest (i.e., tasks in series), they stay focused tool sales managers have is coaching. on revenue; quota attainment, and win Like any good manager, effective sales rates of forecasted deals. They don’t get managers conduct performance coaching distracted or waste time on trivial problems, and career coaching – but they also devote unnecessary paperwork, or personality significant time and attention to two types issues that don’t affect those results. They of coaching that are unique to sales: take personal charge of major issues and, opportunity coaching and call coaching. when they delegate, maintain a tight follow- Sales managers must work within the up routine. context of a sales process that directs 5. Champions Initiatives and Leads Change salespeople to the best opportunities and guides them to practice the behaviors Sales managers need to champion their that will best pursue those opportunities. team’s success, maintain close touch with Effective sales managers spend time in the key issues, and remain alert to potential field and on the phone conducting joint calls. problems and/or opportunities. They need to The best sales managers acknowledge that make suggestions and initiate plans without the primary goal of joint calls is not to do being dependent on upper management the salesperson’s work but instead to better for direction. They work to stay informed, understand what the salesperson needs to demand relevant information, and set up be more successful, both in the opportunity feedback processes, formally or informally, at hand and in other opportunities in the to keep themselves up to date. future. 6. Prepares and Delivers Effective 3. Directs and Manages in a Team Setting Presentations Sales managers must be able to delegate Strong sales managers can communicate tasks to subordinates and be satisfied with through planned, persuasive presentations a relatively narrow span of control. They that are customized to fit individual create timelines and expected results, and audiences. They can remain attentive to then monitor those expected results over the audience’s interest level and prioritize time in order to prevent the need for the the key points that need to be made, while manager to regress into being an individual adapting the presentation to both verbal and contributor. The best sales managers nonverbal responses from the audience. figure out their subordinate’s strengths 7. Focuses on Measurable Outputs and weaknesses and make assignments accordingly. Strong sales managers seek efficient short- term results and are not easily distracted 4. Leads with a Profitable and Efficient from the task at hand. They need to see a Approach task through to completion and are willing Strong sales managers are deeply to expend the effort and repetitive activities conscious of bottom-line results. Rather until that result is achieved.

6 SUMMARY Given the importance of the sales manager role to revenue, hiring cannot be left up to chance. Sales executives need to set up a system that results in the hiring and promotion of individuals who can function effectively in the role of sales manager. This requires defining criteria and using those criteria to screen aggressively for known characteristics of high performance in that role.

In addition, sales executives should ensure that new managers receive training in the skills to manage sales talent and that all frontline sales managers are continuously upgrading their coaching skills.

For more information on how to enable and equip your sales managers to be successful check out our blog: “Enabling & Equipping Frontline Sales Managers.”

About Chally Chally provides industry-leading research, predictive talent analytics, and advisory services to businesses globally. We work with our customers to ensure they have the data needed to grow sales and make informed, evidence-based sales talent management decisions.