When a sales manager receives a promotion, it’s typical that they were a successful salesperson. However, many of the skills which make a manager succeed as a sales rep are contrary to the skills necessary to be a successful sales manager. Organizations know this and they take great strides in preparing these newly appointed apprentices for success—notably in the form of training.
A common and well appreciated type of sales management training is “leadership training” which is designed to develop self-awareness and greater insight about the manner in which sales managers relate to their teams and subordinates. Although leadership abilities play a crucial, there’s also another type of training, quite often left out—“sales management training.”
In principal, the most significant roles of sales managers are to manage, coach and steer sales people in the right path towards attaining a common objective. Company executives and sales leaders are responsible for setting up a company’s vision and overall business strategy, and sales managers are tasked with implementing and executing these objectives. Without the crucial role of sales managers, a company’s vision and objectives will never achieved. But at the same time, sales managers are required to be fully equipped with the right set of skills and tools to guide their teams towards attaining these goals.
A common question to ask would be—why are leadership training programs frequently used to train sales managers? Having played leadership roles myself and participated in numerous leadership training programs. I can attest to the fact that not only are leadership training programs enjoyable, but they boosted my self-esteem and the knowledge I’ve gained from them is priceless. The only setback from most leadership training programs is that they are somewhat squishy.
By “squishy” I mean that the knowledge gained doesn’t ideally lead to execution. I may discover that I’m result driven and my fellow team members are amicable. However knowing the attributes of my team doesn’t constitute me knowing what they should be doing daily to attain their personal goals. Despite being an introvert or intuitive extrovert, I still need to use my management skills to drive the team towards achieving common objectives. Although knowing how to relate inter-personally with my team is an important aspect, but this ability alone doesn’t put me in a better-suited position for my intricate and fast-paced role.
The whole notion behind this article is because I believe that, although sales managers to need training on leadership, but it shouldn’t be at the cost of management training. The bottom line is that sales managers need strong management skills the most for them to be successful in their roles.
The next time you plan a management training to build an efficient working team for your staff, select a program that will enable sales managers establish what their sales people should be doing on a daily basis, and how sales managers need to utilize their time productively.
About the author
Hi, my name is Scott Epp and I help people breakthrough their BIGGEST challenges so that they can live their life purpose with passion and abundance! I have been coached by some of the world’s best performance coaches and now I have been blessed to have helped 1000s of people on stage, in groups and one-on-one to breakthrough and achieve success in life. There is so much more that can be shared about beliefs, including how to develop highly effective empowering beliefs. I am a Sydney Life Coach and Sydney Business coach so if you live in Sydney we can meet one-on-one. Otherwise I coach a lot of my clients on the phone or via Skype. If you want to master your beliefs then click here to schedule a free one-on-one with me.