managers

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Making the right choices

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““Dear Managers,
Your job is not to make people work harder. Your responsibility to help your team achieve their goals, let them know that their work matters, and then recognise and reward those who consistently help the team deliver timely, high quality and positive outcomes.””
— Vala Afshar

I think we all have different opinions, the problem starts when we feel our opinion is worth more than what anyone else can say. Authentic leaders know they can learn a lot from those that think differently than they do. Contact me via e-mail for a confidential 1:1 session

Sales managers vs. Sales leaders

What’s the difference between a sales manager and sales leader?

I think a sales manager is typically responsible for overseeing a team of sales representatives or salespeople. And their primary focus is on managing the day-to-day operations of the sales team, including setting sales targets, monitoring performance, providing coaching, and training, and ensuring that sales goals are met. Sales managers often have a more hands-on role in the execution and supervision of sales activities.

The role of sales leaders is not only managing the sales team, and they also play a key role in developing and implementing the overall sales strategy for the organisation. Sales leaders are responsible for setting long-term sales goals, identifying growth opportunities, establishing sales processes and best practices, fostering a sales-driven culture, and guiding the team towards achieving high-performance results. I think sales leaders should get to know salespersons and find out what drives and motivates them in their professional career and personal life. And this will make the sales leaders easier to focus on inspiring, motivating, and empowering the sales team to excel and exceed expectations.

Everyone needs a little help

via Getty Images

Managers need to find ways to empower their teams so that they can work out for themselves the most effective ways of achieving the results expected of them. Managers must increasingly provide individualised support and offer flexibility for each team member. It’s not about splitting the role between “leaders of work” and “leaders of people.” I think that when leaders support managers in the right way, they will have the confidence and experience to support their teams in the right way too, which means everyone benefits.

Prevention is better than a cure

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Dear managers,

Your team need you now more than ever, they need emotional support. I know you may be consumed with solving problems and overwhelmed with keeping your organisation running. Your team members may also fear that as you hold the key to their future advancement, you may view  their request for help as a weakness. Therefore, you may want to take in an external mentor. A mentor can play a critical role, providing the team with someone who can help and guide them when they’re scared, burned out or confused, and all off the record.

Managers, please contact me via e-mail to arrange a meeting. While virtual mentoring may not be as satisfying as the in-person kind, there is evidence supporting its efficacy.  In ways large and small, one person can make a lasting difference, even a few words, mentioned in passing, can last a lifetime.

Yours faithfully
Stephen

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Look over your shoulder

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I had never met an owner who was not content if your team increased revenue, reduced expenditure and grew customer satisfaction, until I came to Denmark.


Dear Managers,

Your job is not to make people work harder. Your responsibility to help your team achieve their goals, let them know that their work matters and then recognize and reward those who consistently help the team deliver timely, high quality and positive outcomes. Please contact me via E: sb@stephenburrell.com, if would like any guidance further clarification on these matters.

Yours faithfully
Stephen Burrell





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How Do You Compete and Win in a Highly Competitive Market

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This was the question posed to me at a recent dinner party by a Sales Director after we had gone through the formalities of "What do you do for a living?" He explained that his company was 12 years old and they sold high quality "timeless design classics". The company do not work with agents or distributors, but they have a telephone sales team, and I answered him with an analogy. If you go to your doctor and said that you were sick, the doctor would proceed to ask you a whole host of questions, check the symptoms you had described before prescribing any medication. He smiled and asked whether he could book me for a sales training workshop, with the aim to motivate and inspire his team to increase their sales performance.

We agreed that I should come and spend a day observing his sales team, as you always get great ideas from people who are doing the job. I have found that involving the staff when researching for sales training workshops ensures the team feel a sense of ownership, and then everyone is rolling in the same direction.

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Here are a couple of observations from the exploration day in their sales office after listening to the types of calls they were making: "The salespersons have so much to speak about, that they tend to over explain and not focus on what the customer is really looking for." Too much of their sales pitch is in the "so what" category. "Price is a phantom objection", it just means that you have not demonstrated value for the customer, etc.. I also asked the sales team individually amongst other things, whether they were happy at work? What were they doing that they felt good about and what they felt that they needed help with?

The subsequent one-day workshop was built on 3 pillars of excellence: FOCUS - ACTION - REFLECTION
Role-playing to help the sales team understand how to divide their calls between categories (courtesy, qualifying, arranging and pure sales calls). How to interpret customer reactions? How to identify and react to receptive states? How to introduce the company in under 45 seconds? How to build questions around planning, production, pricing, placing, enthusiasm, respect and references. And of course, the classic, how to overcome objections?

I am only qualified to deliver measurable results as passion, guts and hard work are not enough to make a real impact on results! You can always adapt to challenging circumstances by developing your sales team and their skills. I am an optimiser!