Sales reps are in the spotlight all the time
Any blogpost, book or discussion on the topic of sales performance is always very sales-reps-centered. Are we hiring the right people in our sales teams? Do we help them develop the right skills? Do the training and tools we provide them with help them to achieve their top performance? Are our people motivated by our compensation schemes?
The fundamental element we're missing
Different approaches are being tried, and time and money are spent in the quest to improve sales employees. However, improvements, if they do occur, are rather difficult to sustain. Do you care about your front line sales managers enough?
Their job is to get the most out of each person on the team. Unfortunately, this role is often forgotten when it comes to initiatives aimed at performance improvement. Do you support them in their core responsibility? That is maximizing the performance of each colleague on their team. Sometimes even the sales managers themselves aren't aware that this is the key part of their job.
What you need to do
You need to engage line managers in the design and implementation of all tools, training and programs you're preparing for your sales people. Ongoing reinforcement and coaching from front line managers is crucial for sustainable improvement, as an article on the business2community.com website reminds us.
- Make sure line managers understand that their first priority is their people and their performance.
- Train and equip them for their job.
- They need to set performance expectations, coach and develop their colleagues, and address performance issues early.
- Help them to figure out which things they should measure to understand where there are performance issues. When they have these insights, they need to drive specific action and engage with their team.
- Their personal success must be wired to the success of their team.
-jk-