Sales Management Vs Sales Performance
Sales managers/directors are ineffective. The delusional that believe they are effective are usually a result of being placed through cronyism or nepotism and therefore protected until the company fails. Raging with understandable insecurity, these sales managers are unable to comprehend the selling process, focusing on managing activities to demonstrate they at least doing something and otherwise spend more time telling the bosses what they want to hear rather than what needs to be done. The fault lies with command and control company structures that a sales culture will not mix with. Managing sales performance is a responsibility of senior leadership but few understand or see the value/responsibility of this role.
Sales management has traditionally been defined with three elements: recruiting, training and managing. Sales forces have come under increased pressure to create results due to the high costs of turnover and resourcing compared to any results of real profitable growth created…whether a compelling product/service is available to them or not. How is your average salaried, benefited, company car, expense account, company trained sales rep performing?…the truth to sold results is poor.
Small or large company, you are simply unable to recruit the best with your own resources efficiently or effectively. A wider net of discovery and much more thorough vetting can and should be done by a professional recruiter familiar with your needs. The savings in lower turnover and higher profitable growth will more than pay for the cost of outsourcing this function. Ineffective hires drain resources, lower morale, lose much less gain sales, prevent a viable channel of client feedback to improve products & services and reflect poorly on senior management. If you handle recruiting internally with a traditional sales manager, your sales force will be a sea of mediocrity and just be a matter of time before complete failure to grow is realized.
Sales training is a more complex issue but still has no business being resourced internally for any company. If you are smart enough to leverage a professional recruiter and understand the need to compensate for the best experienced available for your needs, you avoid fundamentals training and hopefully have embraced online technical or product training for cost effective results. Books, tapes and seminars are universally a waste of time, as have not/do not change behaviors and at best provide a few expensive laughs but no results in profitable growth…way too expensive in time or money for any company. Hire experienced related field sales agencies with successful track records, compensate them fairly and then get out of their way as they know where to go and what to do with the understanding and assurance of commissions rewarding their performance efforts.
Sales managers love to manage; unfortunately they do more harm than good. Companies often promote an excellent sales rep, taking effectiveness off the street and then make them conform to boring the reps at meetings, require distracting/inaccurate non value reporting, induce unproductive conference calls, task forces/campaigns without results, then train on the latest fad…essentially anything but do what they originally hired to do best: sell! The worst of the bunch are cronied in by inbred management with no selling skills or even empathy to those who can obtain results. Often senior management is unwilling to accept accountability so they saddle sales managers with account loads that completely distract resources that should otherwise help reps grow their own portfolios, further damaging morale, increase turnover and overall weaken growth prospects. With rare exceptions, sales needs to be outsourced to agencies that know your markets, know how to recruit experienced performers in the related field and will consistently deliver higher growth profit margins than you have historically accomplished.
Companies often get distracted by quick fix sales growth tactics but have any honestly worked? Name me a book, tape, seminar, CRM tool that has worked…if you think you can than why is this market so fractionalized with no leaders in the pack? If any were effective, truly they would be exploding in growth. Great leaders are always voracious readers…not the one gift book at Christmas wonderment that gets regifted to the sales reps, or the “expert” who is lots of laughs and is hired at great expense to “motivate” the sales team. The joke is on management as true selling professionals see through the charade, resent dollars being spent on the flavor of the day ideas and will not stay if compensated the same as underperformers (also known as cronies of the cronies) with the resulting lack of confidence and respect from customers as well.
What then can management do to create profitable growth? Outsource recruiting. Leave sales performance to a dedicated sales agency. Training best left online to just your product knowledge. Let the thousands of hucksters of sales solutions feed at the trough of your competitors while you focus on making the best product/service for the best value in your markets.
The vast majority of surveys and studies are simply not to be trusted when trying to quantify sales management. White papers funded by vested interest providers, think tank studies tainted by executives telling them what they want to hear rather than what actually happening, trade magazine articles that do not match up with any real/practical experiences. Unfortunately buyers have limited resources generally so they often fall victim to the latest buzz, entertainment, bid, relationship, etc…thus keeping the sorry lot of sales forces alive in these fractious markets.
Sales management is a career fraught with frustration, caught in the squeeze between command and control bosses, fickle client channels and a sea of mediocrity in sales performance. Selling is certainly a noble profession, though often maligned and for often good cause. For the few who get it, sales can be very lucrative, personally rewarding and differentiating as a true professional experience. There is a limited future in sales management or companies who believe resourcing internally serves a cost effective growth role. What do you really want: Sales management or sales performance?
Harry Gorden, President, Transportation Management Services, Inc, a transportation management agency with over 35 years sales experience, providing consulting to the equity, capital management and supply chain communities as well as no cost referrals for manufacturers/distributors seeking the right fit transportation management support. Inquiries welcome at: hmgorden@comcast.net
