I recently attended a corporate seminar on raising finance for new start up companies. The single message that kept coming through is while there are many good entrepreneurial ideas out there, good ideas need good management to become a success and good management is not plentiful. Yet without good management not only will the idea struggle to get to market once funding is received, the entrepreneur will struggle to raise funds in the first place.
The biggest weakness sited is often sales management. Poor sales are always blamed for failure as clearly if more sales were made more revenue would be achieved. However life is rarely that simple and poor sales are often a symptom and not the route cause - which may lie in a poor product or poor delivery or simply bad luck. What is true though, is that better sales management will certainly increase the chances of success. So if its known to be so important why do so many people get it wrong.
Well first, sales as a skill is often under-valued. “Anyone can sell” says the founder, “its common sense”, as he recruits a mate to fulfil the role. Secondly when sales are finally valued, it is seen to simply be a matter of training to sort things out. However it’s my belief that while you can create an ok sales person through training a really good sales person or manager, especially for a high value or consultative sale, is born to it. They are natural communicators, natural managers, able to work in a high pressure role, motivated my money and/or success, commercially astute, driven, quick thinking and of higher intellect than normally (wrongly) considered necessary for a sales …. And to be a successful manager they need to combine all this with assertiveness and strong people management skills. No wonder there aren’t many of them and when you find them they cost the earth!
So what can you do to get one off these mythical beasts on board. Search high and low and don’t take second best – if in doubt don’t recruit! Get external help and guidance – there are some good recruitment consultants out there (as well as some awful ones). If you have people with the traits in other jobs, you can then grow them into the role but you will need to support them and not just give them simple training but ongoing mentoring.
Once you’ve found the right person – trust them, back their instincts, pay them well and don’t lose them. A good sales manager will make the job of the rest of the management a lot easier.
If you would like to discuss sales management or sales mentoring then contact mark.loosmore@at8-group.com
