Imagine your goal is to lose weight so you sign up for a 1 year membership to one of the large health clubs in town. You pay the steep initial fee and the monthly amount. In the first 6 months, you go to the club and workout a total of 5 times for 30 minutes each time. Suffice to say, you have not lost the weight you expected to lose. In fact, you have actually put on 5 pounds in those 6 months.
You could call the club and complain that you have not lost the weight you had intended to lose. They will probably pull up a record of your visits and mention that you have only visited the club 5 times in 6 months. They might also mention that all of the equipment is there in the club for you to use. They might also mention that they are open 24/7. At this point, you would have difficulty looking externally for an excuse.
Now let’s apply a similar situation to a sales manager. Suppose they spend their time working on their own accounts, sitting through management meetings and meeting with their own team once a week. If a new salesperson, with many skills and talents, joins the team and does not perform well, one place we have to look is the sales manager.
Many sales managers prefer to hire salespeople with experience in their industry or market. I am convinced that one of the major reasons for this approach is that the sales manager believes they will not have to spend as much time training this experienced salesperson. This approach would work if every competitor approached the market in the exact way (same value proposition, market niche, product/service offering, etc.).
Obviously they do not. A strong salesperson with direct industry experience still needs consistent interaction with their sales manager. I don’t think sales managers consciously decide to ignore new salespeople, but I do believe they underestimate the amount of time needed to properly ramp a new salesperson into high performance. Much like the health club, successful sales management requires frequent, consistent work with each member of the sales team.
Sales managers have to be a motivator, a coach, a disciplinarian, a guide, a psychologist, a sales star, a communicator…I could keep going, but you get the point.
The one thing they cannot be – absent from involvement.