Top Sales Manager Blog

Everyone loves a good boss. On the contrary, people hate to work for someone they don’t get along with. That’s a problem right there. A top sales manager should be able to connect with his or her sales reps. If you can’t do that, if you don’t have the talent or patience to try and get to know your sales reps, then you might as well forget about being a top sales manager someday.

One way to connect with your sales people is through open communication – the kind of dialogue that encourages sales reps to think and find the solution themselves.

Carol Super says this about sales management. “The best managers have an attitude of ‘I’m here to help you.’ When they propose something, they make the employee feel that what they’re proposing is in the employee’s benefit even if it’s a sacrifice.” Carol Super is a sales trainer and professional speaker in New York City.

It’s called “servant leadership,” leading by maintaining a humble and responsive tone to the needs of your sales reps, and showing curiosity for their opinions and ideas.

Servant leaders are subtle in their ways of sales management. An average sales manager issues orders; a servant leader uses careful dialogue to ease his sales reps into concluding which tasks needed tending right away. Carol Super says that the best way to elicit a positive and cooperative response from your sales reps is by communicating on their terms rather than dictating how you want them to act.

For example, you’ve got this employee who has a habit of coming to work late. The solution is to find out what’s important to that person. If you discover, for instance, that this person wants his colleagues to like him, invite him on a one-on-one talk and ask him, “Do you care what your colleagues think about you?”

After he replies, “Yes,” ask him again, “Are your colleagues important to you?”

He’ll nod his head in agreement. Then say, “It helps to come to work on time. You can tell a lot of good things about a person who respects other people’s time. When you show up late again and again, some people might think you don’t care about them.”

Servant leadership is the kind of leadership that takes the time to listen. As a top sales manager, you need to be able to adjust your communication style to fit a wide range of personalities. As a successful friend of mine once said, you can’t fit square pegs into round holes.

A servant leader remains humble and listens to his subordinates. Then he offers them a solution based, of course, on their terms but for the benefit of both parties.

Do this, be a servant leader, and do it right, and you’ll gain your worker’s full cooperation in no time.

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Filed under: Leading, Motivation by ralphburns