Stop Behaving Like a Manager
Gary is CEO of a billion dollar company in the US. He’s wildly busy, but two days every month, for over 20 years, he has spent time in the field, making sales calls with his salespeople.
These aren’t drive-by visits; he will spend enough time with each staffer so that he gets to know the individuals personally. He knows about their families and their interests. To Gary, a person is a person, not just a sales rep.
Consequently, his staff loves him because he values each rep as an individual, and the company is one of the fastest growing in the country.
[Note: If you know a new sales manager, do them a big favor and share this session with them. If you are a new sales manager, please read on.]
You’ve been successful as a sales rep and now you’ve been rewarded with a promotion to sales manager. The only problem is no one has trained you for the job.
This is a common scenario. Most salespeople get promoted quickly without any thought about whether they even know how to be a manager.
If you were a team member on Friday and became their manager on Monday, it’s important that you think first about how you want to behave before you do something that derails your opportunity.
It helps to start with humility. Just admit that you don’t necessarily know what to do for your new team. With that admission, you can start to avoid the mistakes made by managers who start doing what they think a manager should be doing.
Generally, there are several traps that new managers can fall into:
Some let the promotion go to their head. They go ‘over the top’ with their new authority. Now that they are the boss, they become “bossy,” enamored with wielding their new power.
Others go out of their way to curry favor by being ‘one of the boys.’ They go overboard to prove they haven’t changed. They downplay their new authority, so the team continues to like them.
Some will jump in and want to take charge, changing everything they hated about the previous regime. Eager to prove themselves, they move too quickly and unsettle the team.
Still others become distant and aloof, consumed with self-importance and busy-ness. They withdraw suddenly from previous relationships and reorient themselves away from the field. They begin managing from the throne.
Occasionally, some new managers take the job out of a sense of duty. They are told that “no one else is available,’ and they drag themselves to the task, wishing they were still free and on their own.
And, we see many sales managers - even those with years of experience - making two fundamental mistakes:
They manage their team as a group, instead of a collection of unique individuals. They treat everyone the same, in spite of the fact that everyone is completely different.
They manage others the way that they liked to be managed. Adhering to the Golden Rule might seem like a good strategy for sales managers, but it’s blind to the fact that each member of their team has their own unique way of working, developing their skills, and motivating themselves to succeed.
Companies make it easy for new managers to make these mistakes, because they rarely train them for their new responsibilities. They promote managers with the faulty assumption that since they were good salespeople, they will be good managers.
Instead of being trained, new managers are told to “go make sales happen.” They leap into action like they did when they were selling, moving deals forward by doing it themselves. They cross over boundaries and step on their team’s toes to close sales. At best, they get a few deals to close, but they disempower their team. At worst, the team resents being dominated.
So, what should you start doing instead?
First, realize that your team are your primary customers and your job is to work through them so you can nail the company targets. Your job is to serve your customers so that they can serve their customers.
Once you’ve taken this mindset to heart, then see what happens as you take these steps:
Discover what your manager is expecting of you. Ask to define your role and the deliverables in detail. Know what good looks like from their perspective.
Write out what you want from your new role, what you expect to do to get it, and what you’ll need from your team. As a manager:
How do you want to be?
What do you want to do?
How do you want to feel?
Now find out what your team wants and needs from you. Spend at least an hour with each person and listen for 80% or more of the time.
Learn about your salespeople personally while keeping your relationship with them appropriately professional.
A suggestion: keep notes in your logbook or tablet on each member of your team. List everything you know about them – hobbies, interests, children, plans, and dreams. See the difference this makes day-in and day-out.
Showing interest in the people on your team, treating them as individuals with different motivations, and being open to what they say are the best actions you can take to form the kind of trusted relationship required to build a high performing team with you as the captain.