Dare To Become A Sales Manager!
Embrace challenges that make your sales team better and stronger
Sales managers face modern-day hurdles in the tech-driven realm of sales and marketing. Within fractions of a second, modern-day commerce demands mastery of the digital realm applied with the intentionality of conversion in every single mouse click.
The sales manager possesses the power of conversion. More than just hitting monthly sales targets and giving out analytical reports, as a sales manager you are tasked to deliver conversions that matter. You are the spearhead to a well-trained sales team assigned to meet the needs of every prospect.
It is a fast-paced era where we live. The availability of information can be accessed anytime and literally everywhere. The irony is the faster we travel eons into the future today, it still is a challenge for salespeople to embrace forward thinking. More of our kind have become social dinosaurs so to speak.
This is not the way.
Beyond busy schedules and countless other things that make it difficult for your sales team to adapt in sales and marketing, it is of utmost importance to keep track of the reasons to improve our game. How?
Polish up your strategies. It’s part of our mission as sales managers to formulate ways to make sure our team is up to speed, well-geared, and fired up.
Fret not ‘cause we’re with you on that.
Weaving Your Strategy
How your team moves in a sales campaign matters. From prospecting to conversion, strategies come into play and that’s exactly where the skills and training you have imparted as the sales manager become significant. Proficiency in dealing with the modern day client requires mastery of the craft and cutting edge knowledge of the playing field. Without further ado, here are some hurdles that obscure the way to sales domination and how we can overcome them!
Joining Forces With Recruitment
How your team moves in a sales campaign matters. From prospecting to conversion, strategies come into play and that’s exactly where the skills and training you have imparted as the sales manager become significant. Proficiency in dealing with the modern day client requires mastery of the craft and cutting edge knowledge of the playing field. Without further ado, here are some hurdles that obscure the way to sales domination and how we can overcome them!
Finding people fit for a job is always a challenge. The profile of the person you are looking for is almost always a needle in a haystack. But we can’t be too choosy for our comfort, that’s why teaming up with HR in finding the best people to form your sales team is a must!
It won’t be a breeze, and it will never be easy, but hiring skilled and dedicated people with the assistance of HR will help weed out the candidates worthy of becoming part of your top-notch salespersons.
Remember this:
Hiring does not solely depend on the recruiting team. As the sales manager, you face challenges and work through solutions with your team daily. You are responsible for making the persons within this team work towards a worthy goal. Leaders are great followers and motivators.
Synergy Is Key
There are people skilled in selling out there that may be a dime a dozen but knowing who to work with and form part of your team falls on your choice. In running the course of finding the right “fit”, there will be parameters that need to be set. These parameters will determine the character of the potential sales people you will have as members of your team and eventually develop toward a better synergy.
Refining the hiring process and going through the ebb and flow of interviews and candidate selections can be tedious at the outset, but with sheer will and an open eye for pure talent that matters often uncover diamonds in the rough. Be clear on who you want, what you want them to bring to the table and lastly, team spirit always counts.
Gear UP!
There is no truth to soft selling. Chances are, your clients have tired of hearing the same sales pitch from the competition. That, and the fact that every piece of information is within but a click of a mouse. Accessibility is all over the internet and brand awareness keeps your leads, prospects, and clients keen on their ready objections. Of course, the usual apprehensions of our clients and consumers is set on default.
There is no other way to face this challenge but to take it head on. Gear up and get your lines ready, have those options and offers handy whenever possible, and stay on top of your game. You’re the sales manager, and you do not cower in the face of possible rejection. Instead, you maneuver through the challenge with proper motivation and a killer business acumen.
This Is Not A Drill
Sales skills training should never be routine. Honing your collective skill as a sales team with you in the lead requires fine tuning your moves to the latest strategies for better outcomes. Effective implementation of what you have learned as a sales manager should trickle down to each and every member of your team. Mapping out a sales plan can only be accomplished with the right attitude toward skills training.
Once you feel that training is disrupting your daily function, you’re on the right track. This is the type and kind of disruption that can only bring forth better results. Training is essential in becoming a formidable sales manager, and equally efficient when absorbed by your team.
In providing adequate training, you help your sales representatives get comfortable in handling prospects’ resistance or uncertainties, giving them the full gear to march with you towards your sales goals.
Execution of strategies depend largely on how much you and your team have learned in training. Preparation is vital and results essential. As a sales manager, your mindset affects the outcomes of your sales team. Before you set them up to face their challenges, be sure that they are capable of carrying out the drill.
Crafting Synergy
As with anyone who’s part of a team, sales managers should never work solo. As a sales manager, you must align with other departments of the company, especially with marketing. The power to provide a smooth transition is in your hands, but you cannot simply hog the limelight. Since it’s the marketing team that does lead generation, you need to work hand in hand to ensure a solid pipeline.
Working Large With Big Teams
Remember that proper coordination can impact customer acquisition and even retention. The success of a sales manager’s performance relies on how well they’ve built synergy among different teams and how efficiently they execute the process. Your role as a sales manager revolves around a greater circle. When you properly coordinate outside your department and heartily maintain these relationships, you can all work together to achieve goals and milestones that greatly contribute to the company’s success.
Keep your aim straight for the bag of gold by keeping your customers content and satisfied and boosting customer loyalty. That retention rate will stabilize when you love your job the right way. It’s not always a walk in the park, but hey, it’s a whole lot better than strolling in the sewers.
Augmenting Potentials Through Coaching
Being in the higher rank grants you the opportunity to bring people to a better position. They might not feel empowered to do their daily routine and that’s where you use your energy to make the difference. From reaching out to different people to expounding the minute details of products, it becomes taxing for salespeople to turn their humdrum daily tasks into something exciting. These are the situations where you as the sales manager employ your coaching skills.
Leveraging The Power Of Technology
Everyone loves technology. It has become a part of your life, almost impossible to ignore.
The proper use of technology can save us time and money, beneficial in getting results efficiently. In these challenging times when everyone has adapted to the new normal, video conferencing has been life changing. Leveraging the power of tech to maximize sales and close deals is power within the scroll and click of a mouse.
Take the case of companies that typically use a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. It manages internal and external processes and is a foundational program in sales to boost profitability..
Your role is to encourage the use of the available technology for maximum cost efficiency. Arming your people with the apt technology and right frame of mind can address crucial concerns in gathering and converting data for sales productivity. Leveraging the power of technology means that as sales managers, whipping up sales representatives to focus on selling and producing better deliverables can mean utilizing what your company and your employees already have.
Fortify Morale
Coaching puts heart in the daily routine salespeople do. Technical training strengthens their capabilities to show product expertise and mastery. Sprinkle product mastery with effective coaching and it ushers people to intentionality, leading them to maximize their potential.
By boosting their morale, they become self-aware problem solvers and growth seekers that are all beneficial for your team and your company.
Passion makes a huge difference. Coaching your team brings your people to be the best at what they do and even stand out among competitors.
Would You Dare To Become A Sales Manager?
Now that you’ve mastered these tasks, it’s time to focus on putting intentionality in everything you do. Use these challenges for a better purpose. Remember, evolving as a company intertwines everyone to reach greater heights.
Despite the hurdles, a thriving business is the ultimate purpose why you continue to conquer the challenges. Become a sales manager and rally your team towards conversions and positive outcomes.
Onward to battle, we CHARGE!
