The CEO rarely has any experience of sales management. The boss typically has a finance or maybe operations background. That’s probably because sales managers, (and the sales guys they started out as) have a different skill set.
Getting the best out of others through collaboration, communication and compromise isn’t what sales people typically do. They’re independent, individual and self reliant. They can seem difficult, fast and loose, disloyal. Sales people aren’t team players, or at least proper ones aren’t. That’s why they don’t often get the top job and why CEOs don’t understand sales and sales management.
The personality of the sales guy is dictated by the nature of the role. It’s the only one where inputs are irrelevant. What counts is the output numbers – orders, revenue, margin, cash. That’s how they get paid, and fired if they don’t make those numbers. A career in sales is living on the edge. Track record counts for little. What matters is the next quarter.
No wonder sales people can seem argumentative and challenging. Everybody wants them to be, with prospects, with the competition, and even with difficult customers. Asking them to turn into collaborative team players as they walk in the office is like King Canute asking the tide to turn. It isn’t going to happen.
Sales Managers sit in the middle. They’re the shock absorber in the system. Taking the heat from the C suite on everything the sales guys do. Taking the heat from the sales guys about ineffective marketing, unrealistic pricing, poor customer service or late delivery. In every business, the rubber meets the road with the sales team, and the sales manager navigates a way through everybody’s failings to keep the wheels turning. Without good sales management, turnover of sales people is high, revenue disappoints and low margins show up in the bottom line. And the one who ends up paying for that is most often the CEO, with his or her job.
The CEO wanting to make his business tick should spend time with sales management, because the sales managers are the ones who really know where the theory doesn’t stand up in day to day practice.
The CEO needs to value, and support sales management. Unfortunately s/he usually does the opposite. It’s much easier to go along with the inside crew – marketing, operations, customer service and finance. But those colleagues don’t make the world go around. They just ride on the backs of the people who do – the hunters, fighters, producers, otherwise demeaned as sales people,
The CEO needs to understand sales management – the processes, systems, and tools used, the challenges and how they’re addressed.
The CEO needs to understand the end to end process, from targeting to account development. That’s the best way to understand where problems are. Lack of sales isn’t usually the sales management’s fault. It’s mostly likely in the product, pricing or marketing.
Unfortunately its usually sales management who gets the blame.
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