Field Sales Manager is THE key role in any successful sales organization. This role is senior enough to be exposed to the company strategy and so close to the operations, so it can have the first structured feedback from the market.
Sales leaders tend to overlook five qualities which can make a different between a good and an amazing area sales manager:
- Manages the Sales Activity
A good area sales manager dissects the sales activities required to be performed by her team and improves each step. For example, if her team needs to perform calls (which is the reality in many door-to-door pharma sales), a great field sales manager:
- helps the team to prepare throughly by offering them the right tools and the right way of looking at the numbers
- reinforces the steps of the call during the visit, highlighting the benefits of each step (and the risks of not properly doing one)
- ensures a correct feedback and follow-up after the call
2. Connects the Sales Activities with the Sales Objectives
In many companies, there is not always a clear connection between what the company want (business objectives), how management wants to achieve the results (sales objectives) and how each granular activity helps achieving these results.
The role of the field sales manager is to defragment and reconstruct each of the steps of the sales activity. By doing this, they make sure that they:
- keep what is relevant – by removing the historical steps that have no relevance in the future
- highlight the critical steps in the sales activity and let the sales people do it right, without the burden of many other small things they need to do. “Less is more” is again the key to success.
- get the buy-in from the sales representatives, which see the connection between what they do and the positive impact for them and for the company
3. Always looks at the numbers
A great field sales manager is always looking at the critical numbers:
- critical factors to improve – there are always a few numbers that make the difference between success and medium performance. Knowing and uderstanding these numners, from a myriad of possible reports available, is key to efficient management of the sales activities
- key indicators of success – the indicators that show the healthiness of the business. In the continuous search for improvement, these are sometimes overlooked.
4. Asks many times WHY
Asking 5 times WHY is a method to get to the root of an issue developed by Toyota founder. And this approach is incredibly useful for a sales manager. By asking multiple times why a customer buys or doesn’t buy a product, the sales manager can help the rep to understand the root cause of the customer’s response. In this way, she can decide that better results can be achieved through better coaching of the rep, or, in some cases – through an adjustement of the offer. In this last situation, the sales manager should communicate back to the management team.
5. Listens and is there to help
A great sales manager is there to provide the context and perspective for his team, to listen to his team’s comments (and the reasons behind) and to increase their energy and desire to win. He should develop a “sales voice” – a way of adressing the issues, of correcting when needed and of celebrating when is deserved.
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Cosmin Tanase 