Selling Power is covering topics near to our hearts this Valentine’s Day. A Primer for New Pharmaceutical Sales Managers discusses some of the challenges facing new sales managers and provides 5 key tips. Obviously the context is the pharmaceutical industry, but these challenges are consistent throughout industries.
I couldn’t agree more with this statement from the article:
“The biggest mistake new pharmaceutical managers make,” Williams says, “is failing to properly evaluate the sales team’s strengths and weaknesses prior to developing and implementing a firm plan of action for the team’s sales improvement and increased goal attainment.”
Amen to that statement. In fact, we see this error play out amongst existing sales managers also. But how do you determine the team’s strengths and weaknesses? More on that later.
The article also points out that you have to adjust your management style, albeit slightly, for each salesperson. Unfortunately, many sales managers prefer to lead by staying in their own style and replacing salespeople who do not conform to their ways. Many times we find that a long-standing sales manager has created a “clone” team – salespeople that share his or her own style, skills, talents, etc. These are not the strongest teams we evaluate.
The strongest teams we see are the ones with many different styles and skills and a sales manager who knows how to handle each salesperson individually. Some sales managers develop an understanding of each salesperson’s abilities through observation and bloody noses. But that is where we come in. We can accelerate a new sales manager’s understanding of his or her team and lessen the bloody noses by evaluating each salesperson’s abilities and providing that information to the new sales manager.
We are presently working on a new offering based on this topic so please look for more information coming from us soon.