Part 1: The role of the Senior Sales Executive in coaching their sales managers
Having been a senior sales executive, and a sales manager, for many years, I’ve noticed a challenge for most companies … it’s sales management. Now I understand I wasn’t perfect, according to some of my salespeople, but I hope I was able to impart some knowledge to my staff.
From my experience, sales managers, regardless of what level of experience they have, are always in need of coaching. Even the best need to sharpen their skill set every once in a while. Today’s senior level sales executives need to feel the pulse of not only their business conditions but also monitor the ongoing development of their sales management team. Unfortunately, sales leadership gets distracted from supporting sales development by getting pulled into many supplier meetings as well as becoming the person responsible for putting out today’s fire!
Once someone is promoted to sales manager, the senior executive’s real job begins. You need to take ownership of the continuous leadership and talent development and consistent improvement of your sales management team. Senior execs need to be able to coach “up” their sales managers, make them better every day by ensuring that they understand the value of getting to know their sales people, making the tough decisions and helping them grow their area of responsibility. A Senior exec needs to lead and set the tone for their entire organization. And unfortunately it takes time.
Senior Execs need to:
- develop a regular cadence of expectations with their teams
- Set the bar and stay focused on sales plan execution
- feel the pulse of their customers and be out in front of customers with their sales managers and their teams.
Doing this helps you make decisions with first-hand information, react to market conditions and, most importantly, provideon the job coaching.
Remember, your role, and that of your team, is to generate revenue!
Nevertheless, all good sales teams need a regular cadence of scheduled meetings, with expectations coming into the meeting and deliverables to keep their teams crisp. Meetings can be as simple as a brief weekly huddle, building team work and setting the tone for the week. If your team is spread out use a web conference or a conference call setting. If you run your teams meeting effectively, this is a great coaching experience and it serves as an example for your sales managers to follow with their teams.
It is important to give sales managers assignments that help facilitate their personal growth. Obviously the key focus needs to be on growing business at the end customer, but sales managers also need to develop complementary skills and be in position to generate ideas to make your company stickier at the customer. You need to teach your sales managers to create this level of value. You need to make them think out of the box and feel comfortable bringing you these types of ideas. As a Senior sales exec, you are only as good as your team.
Ask yourself – Do you know what motivates your sales managers, do you know their areas of strength and weakness? Do you have the type of relationship where they feel comfortable coming to you with issues? Do they feel that you care about their success and that you are engaged and helping make them be more successful?
To take share from your competition, and ensure continued growth, coaching.
Copyright © 2015 by John Salvadore
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