A few months ago, we reviewed “Nine Dumb Things Sales Managers Do” and “More Dumb Things Sales Managers Do.” Those errors, while annoying, didn’t usually mean the failure of the entire sales effort, and possibly the entire company. By contrast, here are six truly FATAL errors that sales managers make:
- Fatal Mistake #1: Hiring the wrong people and leaving them in place. Not everyone can sell. Unfortunately, some sales managers hire people who have no natural talent and then keep them on, hoping that they’ll somehow acquire it. Over time, destroys the ability of the entire team to compete.
Fix:
Give every candidate for a sales position a personality assessment to confirm that they have the basic chops; and fire the ones who show, by their performance, that they don’t. - Fatal Mistake #2: Failing to train reps in the sales skills they need. Sales reps need to know how businesses in their target industries operate, how their firm’s products help customers within that industry, as well as sales process knowledge and relationship building skills. None of these are genetic; training is required.
Fix:
Expose sales reps to a variety of training options and create a a specific education plan to overcome each rep’s weaknesses. - Fatal Mistake #3: Failure to control sales and marketing costs. In the quest for rapid revenue growth, sales managers often lose track of how much money it’s costing to make each sales. Even worse, they “invest” in programs (like pricey ad campaigns) that can’t be measured for effectiveness.
Fix:
Remove funding from all activities that don’t have a measurable effect upon sales. Then implement a commission structure that pays according to profit rather than revenue. - Fatal Mistake #4: Promoting the best reps to the sales manager role. Sales reps focus on building relationships and closing business, but managers must focus on developing the potential of each employee. That’s frustrating to sales “stars” who often prefer to simply “close the deal” on their own.
Fix:
Keep top sales people in sales positions and hire people with sales management talent for sales management jobs. - Fatal Mistake #5: Failure to establish an appropriate division of labor. Many companies expect the same sales rep to 1) create a brand image in the prospects’ minds, 2) locate likely candidates for the product, 3) develop the account and make the sale, and 3) handle the ongoing relationship. Yeah, right…
Fix:
Separate sales and marketing personnel by natural talent and work on the following four functions: 1) raising awareness, 2) locating qualified leads, 3) closing business with qualified leads, and 4) account management. - Fatal Mistake #6: Failing to have a repeatable sales process. If you rely heavily upon the natural talent of your sales reps to develop and close business, eevery sales rep ends up “re-inventing the wheel” because there’s no way to share what’s worked in the past (and what hasn’t).
Fix:
Create and document a realistic and workable sales processthat describes the various stages of the customer relationship process, from prospecting to qualification to pursuit and closing.
The above (except #3) is based on a conversation with the near-legendary sales trainer John W. Asher, chairman and CEO of Asher Training, Inc. Fatal error #3 is my own observation.
READERS: Is that the right list? Are there any truly FATAL errors that I’ve missed?
