{"id":1490,"date":"2008-03-28T11:00:39","date_gmt":"2008-03-28T16:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/03\/the-essence-of-sales-management\/"},"modified":"2008-03-28T10:59:10","modified_gmt":"2008-03-28T15:59:10","slug":"the-essence-of-sales-management","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/03\/the-essence-of-sales-management\/","title":{"rendered":"The Essence of Sales Management"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is a tough topic because there isn&#8217;t a cookie-cutter sales manager template that fits for all companies.\u00a0 Our experience has been that smaller-sized companies tend to expect the sales manager to carry a significant quota while larger companies expect the sales manager to manage without carrying a personal quota.\u00a0 The department quota\/goals are a different story.<\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, ManageSmarter.com offers up a well-constructed guide to sales management titled <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.managesmarter.com\/msg\/content_display\/sales\/e3ia7525c7eaec6f17110a42745812a533a\">Executive Guide: Improving Sales from Managers to Salespeople<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A point that often gets overlooked in companies is the essence of strong sales management.\u00a0 This excerpt sums it up nicely:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>4. <strong>Track where your management team members are spending their time<\/strong>. As previously stated, good managers let their top people operate and focus on turning their &#8220;B&#8221; players into &#8220;A&#8221; players, their &#8220;C&#8221; players into &#8220;B&#8221; players or managing them out. There should be signs of steady improvement of sales staffers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That truly is the gist of sales management, isn&#8217;t it?\u00a0 This area is a pitfall for which we have seen more than one sales manager fall into.\u00a0 The team is not hitting their numbers and the sales manager is expected to close business himself.\u00a0 If this manager used to be the top salesperson, he or she often will revert to closing their own deals to protect themselves.\u00a0 The incredible downside to this approach is that the rest of the team continues to falter and fail.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the time there is a culling of the herd when it comes to the salespeople.\u00a0 The sales manager is usually insulated through a handful of terminations before the Turk comes for them (to borrow a football phrase).<\/p>\n<p>It is for this reason that we encourage our customers to have the sales manager manage the team.\u00a0 At the most, they should only have a handful of accounts.\u00a0 Anything more and they will be dealing with customer items disproportionately to improving their sales team.<\/p>\n<p>One last point from the article:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>1. <strong>Provide managers with information on their salespeople<\/strong> that is systematic and both objective and subjective. It should give them actionable insight into what areas need to be improved and how to do it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.selectmetrix.com\/Developing_Sales.html\">This is an area in which we can help.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a tough topic because there isn&#8217;t a cookie-cutter sales manager template that fits for all companies.\u00a0 Our experience has been that smaller-sized companies tend to expect the sales manager to carry a significant quota while larger companies expect the sales manager to manage without carrying a personal quota.\u00a0 The department quota\/goals are a different story. Nonetheless, ManageSmarter.com offers up a well-constructed guide to sales management titled Executive Guide: Improving Sales from Managers to Salespeople. A point that often gets overlooked in companies is the essence of strong sales management.\u00a0 This excerpt sums it up nicely: 4. Track where your management team members are spending their time. As previously&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/03\/the-essence-of-sales-management\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[30,4],"tags":[474,475,1750,477,476],"class_list":["post-1490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-onramping","category-sales-management","tag-developing-salespeople","tag-growing-salespeople","tag-sales-management","tag-sales-manager-priorities","tag-sales-manager-role"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-o2","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1831,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/01\/were-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":1490,"position":0},"title":"We&#8217;re Back&#8230;","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 6, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Ok, we never really went anywhere, we just took the holidays off and enjoyed a time of relaxation.\u00a0 Now the new year is upon us along with what I consider the best selling time of the year.\u00a0 From now until Memorial Day, companies are implementing plans, purchasing equipment\/services and focused\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Economy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1636,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/06\/accountability-is-the-key\/","url_meta":{"origin":1490,"position":1},"title":"Accountability Is The Key","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In recent weeks we have been dealing with a handful of sales managers who all have a different approach to the position.\u00a0 They are all in different industries, but their sales all have many similarities. One of the sales managers has progressed the best so far with his new salesperson\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Leadership&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Leadership","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/leadership\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/05\/holding-sales-reps-accountable\/","url_meta":{"origin":1490,"position":2},"title":"Holding Sales Reps Accountable","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 13, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the most important responsibilities for any sales manager is holding their salespeople accountable. Some sales manager only truly approach this topic at the end of the commission cycle when the rep is underperforming against quota. This approach is better than nothing (which I have personally experienced). This article\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":850,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/04\/the-case-for-selling-systems\/","url_meta":{"origin":1490,"position":3},"title":"The Case For Selling Systems","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"April 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Some companies believe selling systems are restrictive.\u00a0 Other companies view them as methodical and clumsy.\u00a0 I, for one, am not a fan of the sequential step approaches that require this question be asked first, followed by this question and so on.\u00a0 Those approaches drip with insincerity. But a selling system\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":747,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/03\/hire-fast-fire-fast\/","url_meta":{"origin":1490,"position":4},"title":"Hire Fast, Fire Fast","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"From Dick Costolo's Ask the Wizard blog: Briefly, the \"No False Positives\" school of hiring says that bad hires are worse than no hire because bad employees infect the company with all sorts of issues. Better to march on with nobody filling an important slot than to bring in a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1432,"url":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/02\/why-do-salespeople-quit\/","url_meta":{"origin":1490,"position":5},"title":"Why Do Salespeople Quit?","author":"Lee Fratzke","date":"February 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've read\u00a0in many articles, blog posts and white papers that people take a job because of the company and quit because of a manager.\u00a0 I have talked to many salespeople about why they are looking for a new opportunity and\u00a0the vast majority do come down to their manager.\u00a0\u00a0But there is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. The path to wp-cache-phase1.php in wp-content/advanced-cache.php must be fixed! -->