12 Things every Sales Manager Must Do, from Geoffrey James

12 Things Every Sales Manager Must Do

Brought to you by InsightSquared and Geoffrey James

Geoffrey James writes a widely-read, daily sales column for Inc.com. He has also written several books, such as Business to Business Selling: Power Words and Strategies from the World’s Top Sales Experts, Success Secrets from Silicon Valley, and The Tao of Programming.

We at InsightSquared are big fans of Geoffrey James and regular readers of his blog. We were inspired by a post he wrote on “How to Be an Extraordinary Sales Manager” to create this presentation of the 12 things every sales manager must do.

1. Coach

Just like a sports coach, you need to help your team members to understand their strengths and weaknesses.

1. Coach

Then, you can work together to fix their weaknesses and grow their strengths.

2. Teach

Like a schoolteacher, you are responsible for teaching both basic skills and larger concepts.

2. Teach

Make sure your salespeople fully understand how the product works and how it fixes the business issues that your clients face.

3. Mentor

To be a mentor for your sales reps, draw from your own experience.

3. Mentor

Help them anticipate problems before they occur. Also help them develop strategies for unique selling situations.

4. Marshal

For the sake of your team, you need to be a smooth politician. Navigate internal politics to get what you and your team need.

4. Marshal

This is the only way to marshal the internal resources required to move forward with your leads and reach your goals.

5. Communicate

To be in any sort of management position, you need to be an expert communicator.

5. Communicate

Be consistently clear with your sales team and with other departments. Make sure everyone knows what’s going on and what needs to happen.

6. Prioritize

It’s up to you to set your team’s priorities. They will not be able to read your mind and guess what you want them to do first.

6. Prioritize

Let them know which opportunities are most important so that you can use your resources most effectively.

7. Recruit

Always be looking for new people who could become useful additions to your team.

7. Recruit

Continue to interview promising candidates to keep your team fresh and ever-improving.

8. Trim

In addition to adding new high-achievers to your team, you need to cut out the underachievers. Like a surgeon, be delicate so you don’t upset the others.

8. Trim

If you keep low-performers on your team, they will waste your resources and drag the rest of the team down with them.

9. Predict

To guide your team, you must be able to predict the future to some degree. But you don’t need magic to make an accurate prediction.

9. Predict

Use a combination of analytics (based on historical data), observation, and intuition to get an idea of what to expect.

10. Coordinate

Like a conductor, you need to make sure that your team works harmoniously with the rest of your company.

10. Coordinate

Work especially hard on coordinating the sales and marketing messages so that interactions with customers are consistent.

11. Debrief

Meet with your team to discuss both wins and losses.

11. Debrief

Make sure that they learn from both – understanding what went well and what went poorly, so that they know which behaviors to repeat and which not to.

12. Share

Be a diplomat. Share credit for both the wins and the losses amongst all contributors.

12. Share

Don’t let anyone become a hero for the wins or a scapegoat for the losses.

Thank you for viewing our presentation!

You can visit our website at http://www.insightsquared.com/ and our blog at http://www.insightsquared.com/blog/

Photo Credits“OMExpo 2011” Courtesy of CPX Interactive“Cross Country Coaches” Courtesy of John Brooks“Olympic Week-Teacher for a Day” Courtesy of Chicago 2016“Tech Mentors 2012” Courtesy of Keri-Lee Beasley“SCA CEO Jan Johansson and CFO Lennart Persson shaking hands” Courtesy of SCA Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget“Mentors Meeting” Courtesy of Michael Coghlan“EuroFoo schedule” Courtesy of Matthew Langham“01 (161)” Courtesy of Victor 1558“Clean colors” Courtesy of Zdenko Zivkovic“The Wizard” Courtesy of Sean McGrath“Conductor” Courtesy of Rob Swystun“India mission press debriefing” Courtesy of Maryland GovPics“DSC_0059” Courtesy of Maarten Dirkse“Salman Ahmad inspires the audience to sing and clap along” Courtesy of M. Elizabeth Williams, Girl + Camera LLC, and TEDx NJLibraries