Selling Power has a short, but valuable article titled The Two Things You Must Do Well to Succeed as a Sales Manager. I’ll cut right to the chase:
1. Manage the Sales Process
2. Leading the Salespeople
That is it. Sounds simple but rarely do we see it in action. Instead, we normally see some variation of this:
…managers are compensated primarily on their salespeople’s sales revenue, which leads many managers to jump in and act as “super closers,” taking over the relationships in the most critical accounts – and in the process, often undermining the motivation of their sales reps.
Super closers – I like that. Most sales managers were top salespeople who were promoted into the manager role. They revert to what they know best and that is selling.
Thus when a rep needs help with an opportunity, the manager falls back on what he knows best and can do the quickest: he swoops in to fix the problem.
A suggestion we often offer to sales managers and it almost universally questioned: Let the salesperson fail. Now, we’re not talking about letting a salesperson clumsily lose a golden opportunity. No, instead, coach them up on a small opportunity but let them handle it themselves. If the succeed, great. If they fail, spend the time to perform the postmortem on the opportunity to make sure they learn the lesson.