Top 7 Reasons Sales Managers Fail

December 13, 2021
International Business

Top 7 Reasons Sales Managers Fail

Are you contemplating the reasons the reason your sales team is not meeting their revenue goals? Are you convinced that you’re doing everything in your power and doing everything you can as an administrator, but you do not see consistent results? Check out this article to know whether you’re a victim of these seven causes sales managers are failing:

1. Inability to transfer Skills

Sales managers are often promoted to an executive role in sales because of their ability to find and achieve business. However, your excellent selling abilities are useless or of no value to your company if you aren’t able to transfer your selling abilities onto your staff.

According to Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, “When you take the role of a leader, it’s not about you. It’s about them.” That is to say, no matter how skilled that you’re, it just depends on how competent you improve the performance of the people in your team of sales.

2. White House Syndrome

It’s not tricky for sales executives to contract this illness and lose sight of the real world. (How much is an entire milk carton?) Sales managers begin to camp out within their “white house” (the Corporate Office), becoming entangled with the minutiae of reports, meetings, and fighting fires. They don’t realize why they were chosen as sales managers to guide and train their sales staff to the best performance. This can’t be done within”the “white house.”

Coaching and training are accomplished through riding along with your sales team and chatting with real-time clients and your customers. The comfortable chair in the corporate setting is more comfortable. Seats in cars are more profitable.

3. Field manager and Corporate Manager. All-Around Manager

In my previous job, there were seven sales executives who reported to me. I quickly realized three kinds of managers: field managers as well as a corporate manager.

Field managers stand firm with their teams, defend all actions, and refuse to comprehend or accept corporate objectives. Corporate managers are concerned only with climbing the ladder of corporate power, leaving the sales team with no voice within the company. The general manager understands. They are able to achieve the difficult balance of presenting their sales team’s concerns to management at a senior level while communicating and imposing corporate goals on their sales staff.

The field manager is plenty of affection and little growth, whereas the corporate manager creates an atmosphere of distrust and distrust and the general manager improves the performance of leaders, profit, and businesses.

4. No Tough Love

If you take on the job as a sales supervisor, you take on the responsibility of growing your team and also generating profit. A successful sales manager has the same qualities as the ideal parent. Good parents set the bar for behavior and character for their children and hold their children accountable to these standards. They realize that they’re not participating in a competition for popularity and will not accept excuses or accept comments like, “none of the other moms of the kids expect them to …..”

The best sales managers have high standards for their sales team and do not give in when the sales team isn’t adhering to the standards of excellence. They set aside their desire to be loved for the desire to be appreciated. They know that hard love results in a high-performance sales culture.

5. No Duplicable Sales Process

The illustration I have used is that of an athletic trainer as well as their game plan. An NFL coach will always have an outline of the playbook. They require each player to learn, study and perform the moves.

The professional footballer isn’t allowed to use their own playbook regardless of how many years they’ve played. Sales managers, however, are often without a playbook and then claim, “Well, I hire individuals with sales experience.” This results in the sales manager trying to manage a variety of playbooks that are filled with outdated and unproductive plays.

6. Insufficient Prospects

Sales managers have to make prospecting a priority; however, the focus shifts. Instead of looking for business, sales managers need to always be looking for the best sales talent. One mistake that is often committed by managers of sales is to look for the best talent in the midst of crisis, following a person within their organization who has been removed, fired, or quits.

The pressure to meet sales targets can lead to sales managers selecting an unqualified candidate and expect top-quality sales results. Top sales managers regularly prospect for top talent in order to keep their pipelines full of people.

7. Sales Team members are Stroke-Deprived and Fun-Deprived

The most high-performing people are often placed in the sales manager position due to their ability to meet objectives. They don’t require a lot of strokes and are focused on results. The problem is that highly motivated sales managers manage salespeople with an excellent desire for recognition, interaction, and enjoyment.

The unlucky sales manager does not realize that their latest plan of action for sales involves giving them a pat and a stroke to the back. They are making recognition programs and arranging events to meet the fun amount.

Good Selling!

Colleen Stanley serves as the president and founder of SalesLeadership, Inc. She is a regular columnist for the national Business Journals, author of “Growing Great Sales Teams,” and co-author of “Motivational Selling.’ Prior to founding SalesLeadership, Colleen was vice director of marketing and sales for Varsity Spirit Corporation. In her time at Varsity, the sales grew by 90m to 8M.