Making a Move to a Sales Manager

[bredd]

I am making a move to another company. I am coming on as a Sales Manager. Its a new postion with the company. They have 2 sales reps plus and independent. The sales staff spends all there time on the road visiting Accounts. I have been in Modular Home Building for 11 years and Sales for the last three. I am used to having an office to go to everyday and spending most of my time there. I do travel from time to time.

So I have been thinking about the difference. I can see where the sales staff could spend all their time traveling from account to account but as a Sales Manager I think my time would be better spent phone calling accounts, researching new prospects, analysing sales data ect... All of this would need to be done in an office setting.

Should I suggest that I spend 2 or three days a week in the office and the other on the road or keep my mouth shut and do the office work from home?

BR

[Vette Guy]

As a former sales manager with Xerox I can tell you that, other than the required administrative duties as a sales manager, you are most effective spending time and traveling with your reps. As a sales manager your main functions are to train, motivate and inspire your reps, and of course do what's necessary to help THEM make your quota. You don't accomplish this by sitting in your office. Maybe it's different in your field and that you only have 3 reps. I had to juggle my time between 12 reps on my team, and I made President's Club every year I was a manager. It can be a difficult transition going from rep to manager. Don't get caught up in your previous comfort zone and become a glorified sales rep. That has been the downfall of many sales managers. See what sales management courses are available in your area. It is a completely different skill set that would be best obtained through proper training, especially since you stated it is a newly created position at your company. Good luck in the new position!

[Neil Warren]

Hi BR

Vette is certainly correct in some respects, but I suspect his approach applies most accurately when a company has indeed got to the size (like Xerox) where the "sales manager" role is exactly what it says on the tin.

Interesting to think though, that only some 2.5% of companies employing sales staff will get to 10+ sales staff in total, let alone teams of 10 that need managing. Over 90%, on the other hand, will be in the "less than 5 sales staff" category of your new employer, and most often there, a job title might not equate quite so neatly to the big corporate equivalent.

I've started a couple of companies, for example, the first as "Sales Director", and the first part of that job involved washing down the office partitions, and cleaning generally, before buying the stationery, filling out the record cards and then hitting the phone. We did end up with 6 sales staff and £1,000,000 turnover, so more managing was involved, but I was still personally selling about half of that at the time.

What worries me most about your question, therefore, is the hint that you're going to need to fit in with senior management, or the company owners to the point of "keeping your mouth shut" in any respect. You surely all need to analyse how, where and when your sales resources are being deployed, and whether that is the most effective way. Especially if you are genuinely supposed to be in charge of the whole sales effort, budget, team, results?

Questions like revenue expectations from existing as opposed to new accounts, have we got any prospecting methods in place, is cold-calling the best for that, how does marketing expenditure (leads, targets etc.) match up to sales activity, what IT systems for managing and monitoring that, etc. etc. spring to my mind.

It is a great job, but Vette is right that it is not the same as rep with a better job title. We've got a ton of information on ModernSelling if that helps, and a thousand or more supplier firms listed in the Directory who can help you with everything from training to motivation to IT. Have fun.

[bredd]

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I am now in my second week with the group. I have spent the last week visiting our current customers. Now that I am in the grove I am finding my way and I and confident I can ride this horse.
The questions were due to lack of knowledge of the group.
Checking out the website.
thanks

[bubble]

I am really glad to see you are getting on well, I hope this continues to be the case.

[pheinbaugh2]

seems like a big job