How to Be a Better Sales Manager, Part 3 - Be the Director, Not the Star

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How to Be a Better Sales Manager, Part 3 - Be the Director, Not the Star

By Brad Shorr | February 4, 2008

This is the third in a 10-part series, How to Be a Better Sales Manager. It’s my belief that the sales manager is underserved. There’s plenty of training and coaching available for sales people, but managers, the unheralded heroes of sales success, are all too often left to their own devices. These posts are designed for sales managers who want to do better and are looking for ideas.
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Sales reps love the spotlight, so let them have it. The better the sales rep is, the more he or she craves affirmation and thrives on recognition.* You know how important it is to shower reps with praise and awards at every opportunity. Problem is, there can only be one star. You’re traveling down a one-way street. Praise flows in one direction - away from you. And that’s the way it has to be. Nothing demotivates a sales force faster than a manager who takes all the credit.

Swallow Your Pride
This fact of sales management life is at times a hard pill to swallow. It means giving a rep credit in situations where you did most of the work. It means not being widely recognized within your organization for the results you are instrumental in producing. It means accepting the fact your sales reps may not appreciate the support you give them.

Set your ego aside. Sales managers who hog the spotlight cannot possibly be effective. Remind yourself that results are more important than ego strokes, and results is why you’re in the game. You have to take pleasure in working behind the scenes.

Lights, Camera, Action!
Think of yourself as a film director. Directors work behind the scenes, out of the limelight as far as the general movie-going public is concerned. But the director is indispensable. Nothing happens without the director, and whatever success occurs on the screen is largely due to his efforts behind it. People who understand film know this and consider direction the highest calling in film making.

Directors do a lot more than work with the stars. To keep a complex film project on task, they communicate energetically with a whole bunch of people. They deal with producers, writers, film crews, and perhaps even the guy who brings coffee to the set. You have to do the same thing. Make sure your boss, departmental managers, customer service people, and staffers know what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and why you’re doing it. That way, besides directing an Oscar caliber sales effort, you’ll receive credit where it counts and when it counts.

*Question - do you think praise and recognition matter more to sales reps than money?

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One Response to “How to Be a Better Sales Manager, Part 3 - Be the Director, Not the Star”

Allan Says:
February 4th, 2008 at 9:49 am
“the unheralded heroes of sales success, are all too often left to their own devices” Couldn’t agree more that is why we developed this programme specifically for them!