Would Your Employees Pay Your Managers To Coach Them ?

Unhappy with some portion of your revenue generation?  Lack new business development?  Customer retention a problem?  Sales team turning over too often?

Whether you are a sales manager or an executive who employs sales managers, there is only one place to look:  The Mirror.

Salespeople fail for many reasons; lack of fit when hired, lack of training when they joined your team, lack of development in product knowledge are just a few.

But most often they fail from a lack of coaching and training.  They are not one and the same, and your first line sales managers are the key to growing your team, and growing your revenue.  They usually have a couple of chances each week:  A weekly team sales meeting, and a weekly focus meeting with their sales manager.

Most sellers hate both.  Not only wouldn’t they pay their manager for their time, most would avoid these meetings if they could.  So where does the problem lie?  With the sales team or the management?  I blame management.

Many sales managers lack the training they need to be great at their jobs.  Many of them were excellent sellers, but managing sales and selling are two different jobs.  Many sales managers have had little or no training in sales management.  

If you are a sales manager, ask yourself:  Do your sellers look forward to your weekly focus meetings?  Do you help your sellers move the sales through the funnel?  Are you just counting the sales, or are you developing plans with your team to increase sales?

Are your weekly sales meetings interactive, creating a learning culture and giving your sales team useful information each week?  

Last of all, have you asked your sellers how you can improve your interactions with them. 

You see, they are paying you for their weekly meetings.  They are paying with their time and attention.  Are they getting their money’s worth?  

If you would like a copy of a free short course on doing better weekly focus meetings, and an excel template you can use to keep you on track, email mdoyle@TheSalesMD.com and put ‘Focus Meeting” in the subject line.  We’ll send you a link where you can download an online module on how to structure and approach weekly focus meetings.