So, let's assume you have become a sales up manager, congratulations, well done. Many sales managers come from the sales ranks. Some folks make that transition very easily, others not so. So, my big question is, will you be happy as a sales manager? In his book 'Seven Steps To Success For Sales Managers, a strategic guide to creating a winning sales team through collaboration, Max F Kate's explains that the first step towards career satisfaction is addressing the one thing you can most influence, and that is yourself. You wouldn't think of starting a sales campaign without goals, objectives, procedures, ground rules, and training. The same applies to self-management and career satisfaction. It is a sad reality that it's lonely at the top. It's a maddening, lonely process trying to activate your people, and satisfy your boss at the same time. The objectives, the people, paperwork, procedures, the challenges are legendary, and your control over these are limited. The rewards are great, but so are the costs. In the past decade there have been huge shifts in corporate America, sales managers face increasingly big rates of change. Customers have become more demanding and price sensitive, thanks to all this online information. If they don't like your price, they'll find a better deal online. Combined, global competitive pressures, and shaky economic conditions, and you have companies cutting costs at unprecedented levels. On top of cutbacks, you have baby boomers phasing out of the work world, and being replaced by millennials, who present a whole new set of managerial challenges. These changes have resulted in a new volatile mix of economic, technological, and sociological issues that result in some thorny problems. The number of sales people overseen by managers, are steadily increasing every year, multiplying the sales manager's workload. Budgets are strained resulting in cuts to training, and administrative support to sales managers. Goals and quotas are rising exponentially. Sales managers must oversee a new generation of workers, new management techniques are required. So, it is the paradox of our time at a point when sales managers are being asked to do more and more, they have less and less to work with. So, no wonder, many studies of sales personnel are showing decreasing trust for sales managers ability to effectively lead sales teams. Chances are you were a good sales rep, or you would not have been elevated to this exalted managerial position. But, nobody cares anymore, do they? No matter how long you've been on the job, the expectations are the same. All your people want to know is that you're going to take care of them. All your boss wants to know is that you're going to deliver good numbers. The fact that you were a good sales rep possibly might even work against you. In fact, it's estimated that 85 percent of sales superstars fail as sales managers. There are a few reasons why salespeople don't succeed as manager's. Number one is the loss of freedom. A good sales rep has the freedom to set their daily schedule to come and go, to be in the office when necessary, and his sole responsibility is making sales. When he moves from a sales rep to a manager, freedom is replaced with responsibility. The manager takes on the burden of sales rep and his boss. A manager is also shackled by paperwork, team objectives, deadlines, and company directives. Reps, who yearn to be the boss to set the agenda and make the rules, quickly discover that they have significantly less autonomy than they did as a salesperson. The next factor has to do with teaching, or I might say the inability to teach. Frequently, we assume that sales reps know how to sell, and therefore, they can teach it when they become a sales manager. Not necessarily. The biggest part of teaching is not knowing the topic, but knowing how to get your students to learn. Much of sales is intuitive behavior, reading people, timing, body language, and these are concepts that are very difficult to teach. The bottom line is that sales people are doers, they're not teachers. It takes a huge amount of self-discipline, energy, and patience, to analyze one's steps to success, and then convey them effectively to subordinates. Another factor is deferred gratification. A sales rep works hard to make a sale, and sees the outcome immediately. The sales managers sees outcomes, but these occur over weeks, sometimes months. Management takes a huge amount of patience, a virtue in short supply among salespeople. Another factor are unrealistic expectations. So, you were successful as a rep, so, you will expect the same from your people, right? As a sales rep you had a I can do it approach to challenges. You did, and in fact, you did it and achieved success. Your success gave you expectations for your performance as a salesperson. That consistently led to even more success. Unfortunately, the set of conditions that made you successful as a salesperson did not exist in sales management. You can't expect people to be like you or as successful as you. If your expectations don't change, disappointment can quickly set in. There's also the tendency to do it yourself. As a sales rep, if you didn't do it, it didn't get done. Right? Sometimes this thinking leads to managers to micromanage even to the point of selling for their reps and the result is just chaos. For the manager, it means less time managing. For the sales rep, it means frustration and fewer opportunities to become effective sales people. In sales management, you simply cannot do it yourself. You have to do virtually everything through your people and to be honest, this can be a little frustrating. Another factor is the failure to adopt to a "big picture" view. Changing your viewing lens from microscopic to panoramic. The nature of sales requires concentrating on one customer at one time to make the sale. The nature of sales management requires a panoramic view of the sales team,the customer base, the market, and dozens of other components. Another factor is the independent nature of salespeople versus managers dependence on salespeople to reach goals. As a sales manager, you're no longer the gunslinger who seeks shooting his way to success. You're more like a four-star general in the War Room coordinating troop movements. Your success is dependent upon your people. There's also the propensity to sell instead of facilitate. There is this tendency for new managers to come on board with a dozen preconceived concepts and to begin selling them to their new customers, that is sales reps, and their sales team, and their bosses. Essentially, they are continuing the sales process that made them successful. Unfortunately, the conditions and dynamics of managing a sales team are totally different. Now, it's more important to become a facilitator instead of a salesperson. That is, to utilize the energy and talent at your disposal. The manager is no longer the lone wolf who has to come up with the big idea and sell it but rather the person who extracts big ideas from his or her sales team and helps them to sell it. This requires a change in mindset from the knee-jerk reactions of continuously selling to one of coordinating. So, the first step in addressing the one thing that you can most influence, is yourself. Managing yourself so that you can manage your people and therefore manage your successes and your career. Self-management entails an honest inventory of your strengths and weaknesses. More importantly, it requires the discipline to build on strengths and improve weaknesses. Strong leaders have a high degree of self-awareness. They know their strengths and what complimentary strains they need from others. They avoid being surrounded by people like themselves. Similarly, strong leaders are self developers who seek information, training, and feedback on ways to be a better leader. They don't wait for a company-sponsored training program but they proactively seek self-improvement. So, what is the takeaway? I'd like you to consider these as rules of the road. Number one. Learn to accept responsibility and don't mourn the loss of freedom. Along with responsibility, comes awesome power and results. Number two. Remember you were not born a teacher and much of teaching is knowing how your students learn. Number three. Get used to deferred gratification. There's a greater sense of accomplishment waiting for you at the end of the process. Number four. Keep your expectations in check. Rome was not built in a day and neither will your sales organization. Number five. Recognize you cannot do everything yourself. The art of management is the art of delegation. Number six. Your focus is no longer just on the customer but on the market and your organization. Number seven. Remember, you aren't a gunslinger but a Four-Star General. Your success is dependent upon your people. Number eight. You facilitate, not just sell. This requires a change in mindset from the knee-jerk reaction of continuously selling to one of coordinating. So, there you go. Some advise that we've pulled together from a lot of our research and all that sort of helps you to think through the lifestyle of being a sales manager. These are good points to keep in mind and to remind yourself particularly as you make that transition into sales management.
