This friend of mine told me he was beginning to get frustrated with the team back at the company he worked for. He felt the members of the sales management staff were too concentrated on results and only on the results.

He told me, “My co-managers kept drilling into their sales teams to achieve better results each time. It was always, ‘Always aim for quota, and then do some more,’ that kind of attitude. Maybe if they’d focused on developing the team, they wouldn’t have to keep repeating that mantra over and over.”

I agree. My friend was right. Some sales managers are too focused on achieving “great” results that they forget the one thing that makes it possible in the first place: a well-rounded sales team.

For example, the Chicago Bulls. When the team was put under coach Phil Jackson’s hands in ‘89, it wasn’t quite ready to win the championship yet, even with Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant already on the team. Phil saw the potential was there, and he worked patiently on that instead. The Bulls had to lose one more time to the Pistons before starting their first three-peat achievement next season.

I believe—and my friend, too—that it’s essential, almost indispensable, for an effective sales manager to put team development first before anything else. For the sake of honing your sales team, it’s okay to set aside record-breaking sales if it means taking the time to mold your team into a commendable marketing machine.

Concentrate on developing your sales reps now, and they’ll be breaking sales records in the office in no time.

What can you say about this results versus team development issue? Would you rather expect great results now and pay the price in the future? Or do you prefer developing the sales team first so you could rake the really good stuff later on?

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