From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
We have 15 sales managers and 100 sales reps. We’ve taken top performing sales reps and made them managers. Now as managers they are finding it hard to find time to manage the behaviors of their rep team members. They don’t argue that the more time they spend directing their reps the more productive the reps become. But these dedicated managers are spending nights and weekends catching up with directing (through our CRM) the actions of the reps. The managers are still our best closers. No one on the team is better. How do I coach the manager?

Response:
As the sales manager (of reps), what do you want me to do? What is the level of work?

If your dedicated managers are spending nights and weekends directing their reps, what do they do in the daytime? This description is classic S-II behavior. It appears there is no system, no systematic coaching, no systematic sales planning. It appears things are ad-hoc, reactive and improvised. It is possible to be effective with this strategy, but at what cost? You will burn out your sales managers and begin to experience turnover.

This ad-hoc behavior is your fault. You have not created an effective system (S-III) for your sales managers to work in. Your coaching with your sales managers needs to focus on sales planning, pipeline evaluation and rep evaluation. What are the proactive moves (rather than reactive moves)?

As long as your sales managers remain reactive, your company will experience no better sales performance than it has in the past. Only when you create a system approach to your market, will you experience deeper penetration. And, your system should be operated as a day job, not nights and weekends.
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