If you’re wondering what salespeople would like to tell their sales manager, below are 12 things salespeople have shared with me.
Sales managers, read this list and ask yourself if any apply to you. If you’re a salesperson reading this, you can agree with any or all, but in the end, don’t use any of them as an excuse as to why you can’t do something. Great salespeople are able to find success no matter what is going on around them.
12 Things Salespeople Would Like to Tell Their Sales Manager
1. Don’t tell me to hold my price and not offer a discount and then turn around and offer the customer the same discount.
2. If you say you’re going to call the customer, then do it. Don’t put my credibility on the line with a customer by not following through on what you said you were going to do.
3. When I come to you for advice, please don’t lecture me or think you’re doing me a favor by chewing me out.
4. Quit trash talking other salespeople when you’re working with me.
5. Quit trying to make me believe you’re better than everyone else.
6. If you want to take control of the sales call, then why don’t you just become a salesperson instead of a sales manager?
7. Quit asking to see my presentation before I make a sales call and then nitpick the colors I’ve used in the PowerPoint deck.
8. When I call to ask you a question, it’s because I need to know something. Don’t turn around and use it as a way of thinking I’m not doing my job.
9. Please make yourself available when I need you to help meet senior level people at a company to which I’m trying to sell.
10. If you want me to make my numbers, then help me. Don’t think that by just yelling at me about my numbers, I’m somehow going to do better.
11. When you say you’re going to work with me, then work with me. Don’t cancel your plans at the last minute due to some fake crisis you need to attend to.
12. Why don’t you practice what you preach? You talk about how a sales call should be made, but each time you’re with me on a sales call, you do things completely different.
Salespeople and their managers have the opportunity to not only improve communication, but also develop an environment where securing better sales and better profits is possible.
Take an honest look at this list and explore the ways you can strengthen your skills.
Copyright 2012, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
2 Responses
Mark,
This is a great reminder of how we get in the way sometimes, and in other times, we don’t add enough value. I heard many of these comments at one time or another, and as good as they are, they do resonate with me as to comments made from different level of reps.
One of things I did as a sales manager is to outline things I woulkd do for them. Many of them were the same for each rep, but there were differences based on their skill level and their “Next Step” in their career. These items included:
1) I promise to help you develop additional skills if we can agree on what the most important ones are to help you.
2) I will advocate for you and your ideas to senior management.
3) My goal is to help you become a better sales person by the end of the fiscal year. Please let me know if that is happening.
4) You can trust me that our feedback sessions are confidential unless I explicetly say it is for a formal performance review.
I am sure I have forgotten some over the course of my career. LOL! Now adays, I promise to never remember anything important. (kidding)
“8. When I call to ask you a question, it’s because I need to know something. Don’t turn around and use it as a way of thinking I’m not doing my job.”
I can relate to that one! However you can exchange ‘thinking’ to ‘making out that.’
Managers can expect this to happen if they do not communicate or encourage effective communication. Mindful managers adapt to such questions rather than take it as a personal attack on their ability.