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Once promoted or hired as a sales manager, your focus will inevitably be on being a great one!  Regardless of your current level of management experience, most people who take the initiative can become successful managers who lead their teams to reach or pass sales goals, and work in comfortable, productive environments. 

All new managers should enroll in a few manager training courses, either within your company if offered; or outside the company.  There are a variety of manager training courses available via the internet if you are unable to physically attend training courses.  Established managers with experience will also greatly benefit from refreshing their skills and learning new methods and techniques for effective sales management by taking manager training courses, as well.

Your sales team is generally only as good as the quality of training they receive.  Establishing a training program that works can greatly reduce employee turnover, improve productivity and increase sales.  It is far more expensive, both in terms of money and resources, to continue to interview and hire new employees than it is to provide adequate training and support to your existing employees.

Employees who know what is expected of them and have the resources necessary to do their jobs tend to stay at their jobs longer and have higher levels of performance and job satisfaction.  Managing a team of satisfied employees will be much more advantageous to you than a team of unhappy, under trained people!

Being a great sales manager is more than knowing your product or service inside and out – it's more than reaching high sales volumes.  Sales managers must also be able to effectively lead their sales team to personal levels of success and reach company-wide goals.

Here are some tips for moving from “sales manager” to “great sales manager”:

• Enroll in quality manager training courses
• Provide ongoing training and support for everyone on your team, and everyone you are responsible for managing.
• Network within your organization and outside your organization.
• Learn effective techniques for managing difficult people.
• Provide motivational programs for your team.
• Understand the common causes of conflict within the workplace and how to prevent it from happening, or manage it after it has occurred.
• Acknowledge the efforts and achievements of your staff on a regular basis.
• Don't try to be liked by your team – it's more important that you maintain professional levels of contact and respect among team members than a close friendship.
• Don't become a bully – shouting and showing a lack of respect for your team is not going to make you a good sales manager; and will have the opposite effect.
• Share your personal work goals and targets with your team.  When they can see that you also have to work towards a certain level and can monitor your progress in a similar manner of how you monitor their progress, they feel more like a team and less like puppets!
• Don't overwork yourself.  A great sales manager needs to be on top of his or her game at all times- and if you overwork yourself, you are going to have impaired judgement, a short temper, and your home life and relationships can suffer. 
• Focus on your strengths and learn to delegate.  As a sales manager, you have a team of people to support you.  If there are tasks that you are not very good at or tasks that take a lot of time and don't offer a lot of financial result; it makes more sense to delegate them to a team member so you can focus on money-earning activities.

Having good communication skills is a necessity for anyone working in a management position.  Effective communication prevents a number of conflicts and problems within a workplace, allowing you to spend more time focusing on the things that are important: like managing your team.

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Networking for New Managers

“It's not what you know; but who you know”.  This is an often-heard saying because there is a lot of truth to it!  Networking in business is important; in fact, it's on the scale of importance right next to marketing (although networking is not the same as marketing).

Marketing is the process of introducing your products or services to potential customers, while networking is the act of making contacts.  Contacts are often made with other business owners or employees in related industries, with the intention that both people will send referrals to one another whenever possible.

Referrals are the best source of new customers!  Referrals will generally already have a certain degree of trust in you (or your business) because you were referred by someone they know.  It's trust by association.

Networking is the perfect way for sales managers and business owners to get their name, business, products or services on the minds of people who can provide you with future business.  You never know when a contact you are meeting could lead to your biggest sale, or be the solution to a business crisis of your own.

Business networking tips:

• Always carry updated business cards with you to give to people you meet.
• Consider putting magnets on the back of your business cards to encourage people to keep them longer (by putting on the fridge or file cabinet); or include a discount code of some kind on the back of the card that people can use if they call you.
• Whenever you  meet new people, make a point to ask them what they do for a living so that you will have opportunity to share what you do.
• Add all of the new people's contact information into a mailing list database, so that you can send them newsletters on a regular basis.  Ongoing contact with people is proven to develop relationships and trust.  It will also make sure that your business or name is on their minds if someone they know mentions they need something that you can offer; and will increase the number of referrals you receive.  Just be sure that the newsletter or information you send them is valuable and helpful so that they look forward to reading it (instead of deleting it!)
• Join forces with complementary businesses to extend your marketing reach. When you  meet contacts that offer related products or services, generate a combined marketing effort and share the costs and leads that result from it.
• In your downtime, join several networking websites, including www.linkedin.com, and create profiles that allow people to find you when they're searching for products or services that you offer.  You can also set up “connections” with people you know, and build a network of businesses and people which can lead to referrals.

New managers should master the art of networking; that is, the ability to make small talk with strangers and build alliances with new people you meet.  Knowing how to deal with people both inside and outside of your organization will give you more effective leadership skills, as well as build your list of resources that can assist you in establishing higher sales volume. 

Networking within your own company involves being visible to your team often, and being generally social.  Introduce yourself to people you don't work with directly whenever given the opportunity, and tell them which department or sector you work in.  Don't assume they know what you're working on, and be prepared with a few things you can talk about to ease any discomfort you might feel in talking with people you don't know.

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How to Run A Successful Sales Team Meeting

Meetings are an important part of most corporate structures; but especially within sales.  Many people will moan (sometimes inwardly!) over scheduled meetings because over the years they've sort of gotten a bit of a bad reputation.  We've probably all attended a meeting and then left when it was over- scratching our heads and wondering exactly what was accomplished from that hour of time.  The problem with the majority of workplace meetings is that they are unstructured, completely unplanned, uninspiring and therefore- unproductive.

Here are some tips to help you run a successful sales team meeting; one that your sales team will thank you for and actually leave the meeting knowing exactly what is expected of them and how they're going to get it done!

1. Have a clearly defined purpose and outcome.

In order for a meeting to be successful, you must have a way to measure the results.  Don't have a meeting for the sake of having a meeting, in other words, schedule meetings to generate a specific outcome.

2. Set an agenda (and stick to it).

Before the meeting, an agenda should be created that outlines what each member of the sales team plans to discuss, in line with the planned outcome of that particular meeting.  You'll want to plan the best way to use the allocated meeting time while still giving everyone ample opportunity to say what they need to say.  You will need to have some flexibility with your agenda as you can never completely predict how much time you may need on a certain topic, but having the agenda and distributing it to the sales team before the meeting helps everyone get focused and stay on track.

3. Engage the participants.

One reason meetings tend to fall short of their planned outcomes is due to the participants each attempting to take notes about what is being discussed.  You may find it works better to assign a note-taker to each meeting, or simply record the meeting and have someone transcribe it into written form afterwards for each participant.  That way, everyone can be actively engaged in the discussion or presentation of the meeting, and not focused on trying to write down everything that's being said.

4. Be a Clock Watcher

Time flies when you're having fun – and it's been known to get away from people during a meeting, too.   Take a tip from Google: when they hold meetings, they literally project a four foot tall image of a timer on the wall.  The timer counts down the time left for a meeting or time for discussion of a particular topic within the meeting.  It adds some pressure to keep the meetings moving as planned on the agenda.  While you don't necessarily have to have a wall projection of a timer; you may want to keep an egg timer or clock visible to everyone at the meeting to help the sales team stay focused and on task.

5. Use Visual Aids

A large percentage of the population consider themselves to be “visual” learners.  If they can't see it, they can't understand it.  Visual aids should be used in meetings to help people “see” what you are trying to explain to them.

Visual aids can be things like flip charts, video presentations, slide shows, or transparencies, among others.  The best visual aids:

• Designed simply
• Contain few words, often with bullet points
• Make only one point per visual (one point per slide or per page on a flip chart for example)
• May be props or actual products

These tips should help you run a successful sales meeting with your sales team.  Proper planning before the meeting ensures the meeting will have focus; careful actions during the meeting result in progress towards the desired outcome of the meeting. Using these five keys should give you some new ideas about how to elevate your meetings from what people consider a “waste of time” to what is considered time well spent.

Sharon Newey is a management Consultant and trainer who specialises in developing New Sales Managers. Helping them develop the skills they need to succeed quickly in the new business economy. She provides free articles and Tips on her website www.managingsalespeople.com

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