The New Sales Manager’s First Quarter

So you decided to take the promotion to sales manager,

and begun to manage your team. 

Now the task is finding ways to manage your management.

This isn’t easy, but will always be easier during the first quarter than at any other time.  

Get it right and you’ll be on your way to genuine leadership.  On the other hand, get it wrong and you’ll struggle to be in charge of anything.

The management I’m referring to is the senior “team” – CEO, CSO, CFO. COO, VP’s and Directors.  These guys will all have their own individual agendas, ideas on what “sales” should deliver to the organization.  And they’ll all quietly think they can do your job better than you.

They are just busting to get involved in forecasts, proposals, delivery scope, cash, contracts, liabilities and risks.

The new sales manager can’t fight this interference.  He has to find a way of using it, getting support for his team and shepherding the organization toward more sales, at better margins, with lower costs.

The first quarter is the time they’ll give you the most slack, and it’s the only time you’ll get away with not making the number.  So better get on with it.

The challenge comes in three dimensions:

Grab Authority

Prove your expertise, and reinforce the managements lack of it, with process, strategy and detail.

Explain to everybody, at every opportunity, each deal in forensic detail.  Confuse and bore them with complexity – alternative approaches, spin off opportunities, and risks.

Show how your process navigates the team through complexity, how you stay on top of each deal with plan, act, review, and how you know when to cut losses on deals you aren’t going to win.

Give Them a Role

Explain how they can make a contribution.  Involve them in reviews, in bid/no bid decisions,  introduce them to the prospects, having assigned them roles and specific deliverables and review their performance afterwards,

As the “architect” the more success you share, the more credit you’ll get, so be generous,

Set Expectations as Low as Possible

The biggest mistake a new sales manager can make is the one he/she is most likely to make.

This seems the time to confirm your celebrity status.  When they start asking you to pull rabbits out of hats, finding deals to increase the quarter numbers, you’ll want to do that.

PLEASE DON’T. You’ll just rape the next quarter and the next, and the next.  You’ll be digging a hole for no reason.

If anything you should “push” deals out to next quarter.  Keep deals locked in your desk,  hold stuff back.  You’ll need them soon enough.

Lastly you’ll need some “war stories” to demonstrate how uncontrolled management intervention can hurt businesses.  These can be dropped into conversation as asides, or used as more obvious training material.

This way you can put unruly managers in their place, without really challenging their authority. You’ll also get a few laughs and earn credit for empathy.

Start with My Worst Sales Call, Ever

and I Didn’t Think We Would Win

- both true stories.  I know, because I was there.

You’ll have other ideas.  Please leave a comment, and add to the conversation.

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Tagged as: Chief financial officer, Management, Organization, Sales, sales management