As someone who’s been in sales management for most of his professional life, it may be sacrilegious for me to say it, but you might not need a sales manager.
For some companies, a sales manager can make or break your sales team.
For others, a sales manager is a waste of money. Money that could be better spent on marketing, sales bonuses or even consultants (ahem).
Here’s how to tell the difference.
We’ll start with the obvious and easiest ones first.
You do not need a sales manager if:
- Your sales numbers are good
- Sales reps report to another manager
- You have an apprenticeship-type system for training new reps
- You have 3 reps or less
You need a sales manager if:
- You have a team of 6+ sales reps
- You have high turnover
- You hire inexperienced reps
- You have no training or onboarding system (or it sucks)
- Your sales numbers are bad
But what about the rest of us who might not exactly match the criteria above?
Your success, or lack of it, will help you decide.
I’ll share a few examples.
8 Field Sales Reps who reported directly to the VP of Sales. Our VP was focused on working with the executive team and reporting the numbers. He spent very little time coaching or training the reps. His philosophy was, “Hire experienced reps and leave them alone.”
With no management, our field reps were on “an island” working in isolation and left to figure things out for themselves. One or two reps were successful. All of the others struggled to hit their numbers. I saw 80% of the team turnover twice in 3 years.
This team needed a sales manager who would train them, participate in sales calls and guide their activity more.
3 Sales Reps reporting to a VP at a startup. On this team, we had 1 experienced Field Rep (me) and two inexperienced Inside Sales Reps. Our VP met with each of us weekly for 1 on 1s. He joined me for sales meetings with our biggest accounts. If we had a quick question we could always pop into his office or email him. We also ran ideas past each other and worked well as a team.
As a result, we blew out our numbers. All of us stayed with the company for 4+ years.
This team didn’t need a sales manager because our VP gave us what we needed to be successful.
5 Sales Reps at a Marketing Agency. In our agency we had about 15 full time employees. Five of us, plus the 2 agency owners, were responsible for selling. Every sales pitch was a team effort – we pulled in creative, PR, technology, administration and management to create and polish our pitches. We rehearsed, we included creative mock-ups and then we presented as a team (kind of like Mad Men).
We won 75% of our pitches.
This team didn’t need a sales manager.
What Now?
As Q2 winds to a close, it’s a good time to step back to evaluate your sales reps, your sales numbers and your sales manager.
Rather than accepting the status quo and continuing to do something because “everyone else does it this way” or “this is how we’ve always done it”, it might be time to consider hiring (or firing) a sales manager to get better results.
Good luck and good selling,
Steve