Sales Management Success

6A Strategy to Improve Team Selling Skills, and Yours!

MANY SALES MANAGERS HAVE come up through the ranks and earned their promotion to sales manager by being a sales star. If that's your case, congratulations on your talent and related abilities that moved you up the ladder.

Even if you have not been a star or were promoted/hired with little sales experience, you should recognize that developing sales skills, along with management abilities, is a never-ending process. You cannot afford to leave your sales skills behind, or let them rust—that is, fail to grow them to a broader and higher level. It's imperative that you learn new, changing techniques and skills, dig in at specific levels, reinforce/improve what you have, and continuously grow your selling skill set.

This warning is not about complacency, but rather, “rust” from nonuse and, perhaps, being overconfident. As a sales manager, you no longer make countless sales calls each week to keep sharp and improve. However, it's critical that you sustain and build skills as part of your sales leader development and momentum. Recognize that selling is your foundation and a critical weapon for sales team success.

Equally important, you have the unique responsibility to train and to instill these skills in each salesperson. Headquarters training does the groundwork, but only the sales manager can reinforce the selling skills on the job and insure they are updated and applied effectively on every sales call.

AN OPEN-ENDED, PERSONAL ...