One of the questions I’m constantly asked is, “Troy, what do you think about having a selling Sales Manager?” By that, they mean a Sales Manager who also carries his/her own sales territory and is measured against a quota, not only for team production, but individual production. My answer is simple – I almost always dislike it.

Or, more to the point, I only like it when it’s a bridge to something else. For instance, I’ve always maintained that a dedicated Sales Manager needs somewhere between 4 and 12 direct reports. Less than four, you can’t support a Sales Manager. More than 12, your Sales Manager gets stretched too thin. But what of those situations where the object is to grow the sales force, but you’re not at the level of needing a dedicated Sales Manager yet? Well, that’s where the selling Sales Manager comes into play – but if you’re going to do it, you need to know the pitfalls and the must-dos. Hence, today’s article.

Having a selling Sales Manager (we’ll call it the SSM) has numerous pitfalls, and you need to be aware of these – whether you’re the owner employing the SSM, you’re the SSM, or you’re the salesperson working for the SSM. Here they are:

• Competing Priorities: Every management position has competing priorities; however, for a SSM, the conflict is built-in. The SSM has to budget time between hiring, training, and developing his/her staff (the Sales Manager side), and protect a certain amount of time for selling (the salesperson side). This is a difficult balancing act, and all but the most disciplined people will struggle with it.
• Personal Production: Production is, of course, important for all salespeople, but for the SSM, personal production can dictate the overall performance of the sales force. Think about it for a minute. If you’re a SSM, and you’re struggling in sales, how can you then coach and counsel performance issues? It’s hard to maintain the moral authority to keep your salespeople accountable for results if you’re not generating results. Hence, the SSM must produce, and ideally should produce at a star level (taking into account the reduced selling hours).
• Stockholm Syndrome: A struggle that many SSM’s have is that they end up thinking more like salespeople than managers. Let’s be clear – a Sales Manager must be an agent of the company, thinking in terms of the good of the company overall. Sales reps are more free to think in terms of their own territories – they are solo performers. “Stockholm Syndrome” comes in when the SSM stops thinking like an agent of the company, and starts thinking like a salesperson. There are times when the Sales Manager must do things that the salespeople may not like, but are in the interests of the company. This is tough for many SSM’s.
• The Compensation Conundrum: How do you pay and incent an SSM? One of the most common mistakes is to create a compensation plan that rewards personal production far more than team production. Let’s be clear on this – for the SSM, time and effort directed toward building and developing their sales force must be at least as valuable to the SSM, from a compensation perspective, as time spent selling – or the SSM would be a fool not to direct most of his/her time toward selling.

So, how do we make the SSM a successful position? Well, here are a few guidelines:

1. Hire the right person. I know, this sounds obvious – but it’s not. The right person for the SSM spot might be different from the right person for either a Sales Manager slot or a Salesperson slot. They need excellent management abilities, precise personal discipline, and exceptional sales abilities (more than you’d normally demand from a Sales Manager). It’s a needle-in-a-haystack proposition.
2. Have a very clear description and expectations. Clarity is even more important here than for a normal Sales Manager. The job description and expectations should clearly delineate how much time and effort should be directed toward selling vs. managing.
3. Design the right compensation plan. As I mentioned earlier, the time spent (and results generated) through coaching and developing the team should be at least as valuable as time spent selling. You may need to play with sales commission and override plans, or put a team-centered bonus in place, to make this happen – but if you don’t, you’re on the path to failure.
4. Manage closely. The SSM will need to be managed fairly closely by the immediate supervisor, whoever that is; managing tightly means that you will be constantly looking for that balance between selling and managing to become unbalanced.

Most business owners who hire an SSM find that their happiest day comes when they turn the SSM into a dedicated Sales Manager. Use the right processes and techniques, and you can achieve that day.

“Be Prepared.” That’s the Boy Scout motto, and I’ve spoken about it before. So many sales are lost not because the customer doesn’t want to buy, but because the salesperson isn’t prepared to sell. Every salesperson THINKS that they’re prepared to sell – but few actually walk through the steps and define what it takes to make a sale happen.

What is your sales process? By “sales process,” I mean, “what are the steps involved in making a sale? Walk it through, start to finish, with the objective of understanding the “catch points,” and seeing what you can do to eliminate them. You also need to understand the customer’s interest curve, which we’ll address first.

Think of the customer’s interest as a bell curve. On the left (the beginning) of the curve, your customer’s interest is typically low. Then, as you move forward discovering needs and showing how your product or service can address those needs and generate a positive result, your customer’s interest increases until it hits the peak of the bell curve. That moment in time when the customer’s interest is highest is, as we know, the best moment to complete a sale. But how do we know? Actually, it’s easy – the customer usually asks a question.

“So, how much does that cost?”

When your customer asks for a price, they are usually at the peak of their interest curve. Every word you use, every day that goes by, before you ask that question only moves the customer back DOWN the bell curve. This is one of the places that good sales go to die. It’s not the only one, though. There are other places and other ways that we hurt our sales potential through not being prepared to make a sale happen. Here are five moments where salespeople get in our own way:

Not having good questions: Sales is, as we’ve said many times, an activity of questioning and intellectual curiosity. You need to want to know about your customer’s needs, defined result, and defined ‘win’ from the sales call. It’s not enough to have a list of questions in front of you – you have to be prepared to create good questions on the fly.

Being your own worst objector: Salespeople are guilty of this one all the time. You’ve probably done it, too – gone into a sales call thinking, “No way they’ll buy today,” or something like it. This becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. If you don’t think your customer will buy, they won’t. This manifests itself in a number of different ways, including being your own worst price objector, thinking negatively about your ability to carry out the sale, etc. This results in the salesperson artificially slow-playing the sale while your competitor walks right past you.

Not taking sales tools into the call: There’s really no excuse for this one. All the time, I see salespeople who are scared to death to take sales tools ino a sales call – including necessary sell sheets, brochures, even contracts and order forms. The explanation I hear most commonly is, “I didn’t want to intimidate the customer.” Really? Your customer knows why you’re there – even if YOU don’t. Don’t be that guy or gal. When you go into a sales call, be prepared to make that sale happen.

Being unprepared to price: Look, I know that not every one of you can be fully prepared to price every piece of business. Some needs are complicated. Some are complex projects. Some require quotes from manufacturers. And, if your situation is truly one of those situations, you are excused from this comment. That said, too many of you are not excused – you have the tools, price sheets, etc. available to you to quote price, and yet when the customer asks “how much” you immediately retreat to the Batcave to develop the magic proposal. Why? If you have the tools, quote the price – because if you don’t quote price, you can’t close! Which leads us to…

Being unwilling to seek commitment: Notice that I didn’t say “being unwilling to close the sale.” Not every appointment can end with a closed sale – but EVERY appointment should end with a commitment for a next step. If you can close (i.e. you have identified needs, presented, proposed), then by all means – ask the closing question. If you do really have to continue the sales process to another appointment, then set the next appointment right then and there. If you don’t, you have no one to blame but yourself for the customer losing interest.

Don’t get me wrong. Many, if not most, sales won’t be closed in one call. However, by being prepared, you can shorten the sales cycle without annoying your customer.

What’s your most precious asset as a salesperson? Most people would suggest that their most precious asset is their traits, their skills, their experience, their relationships, their customer base, or something else along those lines. Some might even list their products or their company. And all of those salespeople would be wrong.

Your most precious asset as a salesperson is your TIME. More specifically, your most precious asset is that time window during the week that you are able to call on your customers either face-to-face or voice-to-voice. Hours wasted or simply spent inappropriately aren’t hours that are turning into revenue, profits, or commissions for you or your company. The problem is that salespeople do things every day that waste their time, and today, we’ll discuss the three most common.

1. Working junk business. This is the most common time-waster for salespeople. Last week, I visited a client whose sales calls were inappropriately slanted toward tiny, marginally profitable accounts – while the salespeople were driving by accounts that were bigger and nicely profitable. For any company, there’s a ‘sweet spot’ of accounts that have stability, profitability, and ‘sell-ability.’ If these accounts represent the top of the bell curve, there are accounts smaller than your sweet spot AND bigger than your sweet spot that represent the unprofitable zone.

   In this case, not only were the salespeople calling on tiny business – they were chasing the tiny business, sometimes making five, six, or even seven calls to win business that barely justified one call. Chasing business too far above the sweet spot can be just as bad, however; increased competition and price pressure can make the largest accounts in your territory unprofitable and (if the pay package is constructed correctly) low commissioned for you – and yet the effort you’ll put into trying to sell these accounts is a major time suck.

   Working junk business typically has two causes – fear and emotional involvement. Salespeople sometimes work small business because they have a fear of working larger accounts. That’s bad. Worse can be the emotional involvement that says, “I have to win all the business in my territory because I hate seeing my competitor there.” Get over it. You’ll never get 100% market share, in most cases you really don’t WANT 100% market share, and it’s always OK with me if my competitors are selling the bad business.

2. Artificially Extending the Sales Cycle. Too many salespeople unwittingly extend the sales cycle themselves. They do so through fear, lack of training, and a lack of preparation.

   Fear comes into play because salespeople are scared to close business. Many salespeople believe that if they ask closing questions, or even ask questions that set a closing arena, the customer will be off-put and they will miss opportunities. Don’t be that guy or gal. If you’re unsure of where you stand with the customer, ASK. And never be afraid to ask a closing question. Sometimes the time you waste is your own.

   Lack of Training impacts the sales process because salespeople don’t know or understand how to expedite the process. For instance, every appointment should end with a firm commitment for the next appointment or activity, with times and places. It’s never easier to set the next appointment than when you’re on the current appointment. Use that opportunity wisely. The ‘chase cycle’ happens when you have to call the customer back to set the next action.

   Lack of Preparation is tied with lack of training, but occurs when salespeople simply don’t take the tools of the sale in with them. Salespeople should always be prepared to take the call as far as it can possibly be taken. If you have the tools to quote price on the spot, bring them into the call. Same with order forms, credit applications, and other tools. When you have to go back to the ‘bat cave,’ you become the obstacle. Always let the customer be the one putting the brakes on – not you.

3. Chasing Customers Who Opt Out. Here’s the hardest thing for salespeople to realize: Customers can and will opt out of your sales process. From the time that they do, any time you spend on them is time wasted. Here’s a perfect example. Recently, a prospect didn’t keep a phone appointment with me. By that I mean that we had a prescheduled appointment, it was on both of our calendars with a specific time, I called, and she didn’t answer. Nor did she return a call or an e-mail. This is a rare occurrence; in fact, the last time it happened to me was nearly three years ago. Once upon a time, I would have gotten very upset (I did get a little upset; not keeping an appointment is very disrespectful) and I’d have worn out her phone and email until she spoke to me.

   No more. I called and emailed once, so in case there was a misunderstanding, we could reschedule. With no response, I simply moved on. There are too many prospects out there, and particularly with my limited selling time these days, I don’t have the time to chase. She has opted out of my sales process. Why? Who knows. Maybe it wasn’t a priority. Maybe the funding wasn’t there and she was embarrassed. Regardless, there are too many other prospects out there to wear her out for a response. Too many salespeople treat situations like this like a dog treats a bone. Don’t. There are other prospects out there who will want to talk to you and work with you.

All of these problems are characterized by an emotional response rather than an intellectual one. Back in the days when I did chase and chase and chase customers, I knew – intellectually – that they had opted out. However, my pride wouldn’t let me admit that to myself, so I told myself that the sale was just around the corner.

When you’re up against any of these situations, respond intellectually rather than emotionally, and you’ll be more successful. I promise.