Most sales leaders would agree with what one sales vice-president once told us: “If your first-line management is broken, the entire sales force will be ineffective.” Yet many companies don’t do enough to develop their sales managers.
Why New Sales Managers Need More Training
Many companies don’t do enough to develop their sales managers. There are two main reasons. First, some sales leaders think (often wrongly) that because sales managers were once successful salespeople, they should be able to manage salespeople effectively just based on natural instinct. Second, some sales leaders believe in training managers, but find it hard to justify a formal program due to the expense. Companies that fail to develop sales managers forego a key opportunity. Sales manager development often produces big effectiveness gains at relatively low cost.Overcoming the obstacles to developing sales managers requires first recognizing the need to develop managers, and then choosing training methods that are both effective and efficient. This piece describes the reasons why such development is worthwhile, and describes three lower-cost ways to do it.