Sales and Marketing Support for Small and Midsize Business

« Worst Bad Sales Habits, Part 4 - Prisoner of the Past | Blog Home | Noteworthy Sales and Marketing Links »

Sales Manager - The World’s Hardest Job

By Brad Shorr | January 10, 2008

wondering-man.jpgMuch has been written about how hard it is to succeed in sales. It’s all true. But to succeed as a sales manager? Even harder. The status, scope of responsibilities, and influence of sales managers vary from organization to organization. But the one consistent element of the sales manager mindset is uncertainty.

  • Uncertainty about how their sales reps are performing. Sales managers may only see their reps once a week or once a quarter. How can they be sure what’s happening - or not happening - in the field?
  • Uncertainty about where they stand with management. When a sales rep succeeds, he or she receives most or all of the credit. But when sales reps come up short, it’s the sales manager who often takes the blame. The situation is not unlike that of the manager of a Major League Baseball team.
  • Uncertainty about whether their plans will succeed. No matter how brilliant the sales plan, much lies beyond the sales manager’s control. Sales managers cannot control customers, competitors, market conditions, and sometimes, their own sales people.

But let’s not make this a “woe is me” post. There are many things sales managers can do to improve the odds and remove the uncertainty. In upcoming posts, I’ll take a look at some of them.

Related:

  • 10 Ways to Be a Better Sales Manager
  • Cartoon - Foozle and Fribble
  • Cartoon - Hands On Managers
  • How to Be a Better Sales Manager, Part 10 - Bring out the Best in Everyone
  • How to Be a Better Sales Manager, Part 7 - Check Your Facts

    • 2 Responses to “Sales Manager - The World’s Hardest Job”

    1. Andrew Says:
      January 11th, 2008 at 1:51 am

      Hi Brad,

      When things go wrong, the manager must always take responsibility.

      When things go well, it’s in the manager’s own best interests to ‘invest’ credit for the success. When the sales reps get the credit, they are inspired toward better performance, which helps the manager himself to deliver maximum results.

      Sales managers certainly cannot control their own sales people at times. About five years ago, I worked for a telecommunications company. One of the sales reps cooked up a scam in conjunction with a customer in relation to fruadulent connections to earn false sales commissions.

      The scam cost our company more than one million Australian dollars and was a factor in our company having to be sold due to financial difficulty.

      The National Sales Manager, although not implicated in the fraud, was dismissed due to the fraud taking place whilst under his watch.

      No doubt being a Sales Manager must be a very challenging position. I think I’ll stick to Accounting or Teaching English!

      Cheers

      Andrew

    2. Brad Shorr Says:
      January 11th, 2008 at 7:56 am

      Wow, Andrew, that type of scam is truly awful, but unfortunately I imagine things like that go on more often than we’d like to know. What befell your NSM makes me think of another catch-22 for sales managers. If the manager monitors sales reps too closely, they label him oppressive. If the manager monitors too loosely, they loose respect for him. In the former case, morale can be adversely affected (fairly or unfairly). And in the latter case, the manager leaves the door open for fraud and other abuses.

    Comments