Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/80263
How Proactive continued ties—special pricing, problem-solving, etc. Therefore, they do not see sales managers in a leadership, directional role; they see them in a maintenance and management role. Another important point is that com- panies also assume their sales managers do not need any salesmanagement train- ing because they've been a successful salesperson. But the reality is that the job of a sales manager is one of the toughest in any company. Most busi- nesses take their best salesperson, an expert doer, and promote them into sales management. Then, without any kind of training, that new sales manager has to figure out how to shift from per- sonally doing everything to being aman- ager whose primary role should be to guide,coach and lead others to do what needs to be done. Because of this thinking, a couple of things have evolved. No. 1, sales man- agers are required to carry territories. When I ask owners why they have their salespeople carry territories, they say that's the only way they can justify their salaries, which means they do not put any value into a manager's role as a coach. Q:What's the problem with carrying in which it makes sense? territories? Are there ever instances A:As a rule of thumb, if there are three If you don't do a good job communicating all of your value and uniqueness fairly early in the selling process, and the sales manager only gets involved after the proposal has been issued, the only issue left to deal with is price. up by other efforts—whether those efforts be a salesmanager carrying their own accounts or other responsibili- ties—the more overwhelmed and less proactive that manager becomes. I've seen sales managers in charge of pur- chasing or something else that has noth- ing to do with sales. QuestionsYour Sales Manager Should beAsking transactional and proactive manage- ment? Q: Can you give me an example that illustrates the difference between tional manager only asks two kinds of questions—"what"and"who"questions. "What do you have that you're going to close?" and "Who are you going to be working with next?" Both deal with issues in range and final efforts after the proposal has been initiated. A proactive or selling-process manag- A:When a salesperson comes into a or less sales reps reporting to aman- Q:You also noted thatmost salesman- appropriate ratio? pros is most likely a max per sales ager, a manager will probably carry ter- ritory because unless the reps are new or it's a unique situation,managing three reps is not a fulltime job. manager.However, if you're adding new salespeople (new to selling, not just your company), then more than six out- side reps reporting to a sales manager will push that sales manager back into the reactive transactional sales manage- ment role. Having said that, it's not a finite number as much as it's a variable scale, and the two ends are reactive and proactive. The more time that is taken agers have too many reps.What's an A: Ten to one for experienced sales 1 2 FEDA News & Views er moves up stream and gets involved earlier in the process by asking selling- process questions, or "how" and "why" questions.Howare you going to sell that account?Why are you doing it thatway? Their goal is to impact the sale earlier in the process, so they can improve the results at the end of the process. If you don't do a good job communi- cating all of your value and uniqueness fairly early in the selling process,and the sales manager only gets involved after the proposal has been issued, the only issue left to deal with is price. At that point, it's too late to talk about value dif- ferentials. It's the first 20 percent of the selling process that really determines your competitive differential and the value perceptions of your customer compared to the competition. That's why it's important for the sales manag- er to get involved before the proposal is issued. A sales manager who says my door is always open is a reactive manager sales manager's office, the transac- because the assumption is the salesper- son has enough vision to knowwhen he or she is in trouble.The problemismost sales reps don't know they're in trouble until they've lost the sale, so I often sug- gest to sales managers to ask their reps to be prepared to discuss specific accounts during weekly meetings. And the kind of things they should be talk- ing about is future plans.What multiple moves are they thinking about imple- menting down the line?What are they trying to accomplish? Are they calling on the right people? How are they get- ting higher, wider and deeper? Higher says you're getting to the person that's the decision maker.Wider says are you getting to the influencers thatmight be outside of the department, and deeper says are you talking to a customer's frontline. What are the challenges they're facing and how can your prod- uct or service help them? There are a lot of salespeopleworking very hard on the wrong things. between how a proactive manager and a transactional manager handle a crisis. You use it to talk about the terms future- focused and history-focused. office and says there's a problem Q:There's another great example you often give regarding the difference A:Yes. If a salespersonwalks into your with the Johnson account, your first question will be what happened.That's a history-focused question. Your next question will be a today-focused ques- tion: "How are you going to solve the problem?" It's a third future-focused question thatmostmanagers do not ask: "How do we prevent this from happen- ing again?" or "How many other accounts do you have exposed like this?" or "Why did this surprise you?"or "What kind of different information con- trols do we need to put in place?" continued on page 14