16 Things I Wish I Had Known Before I Started Managing People (2/2)
Build & Manage a Top-Performing Sales Team — Post #11
Introduction.
I hope you had a wonderful weekend and some time to reflect on the 8 learnings I mentioned in the last posts. Maybe you noticed that you’ve been trying way too hard to have things your way or that a current issue your trying to resolve just requires a bit more listening and a little less trying to find solutions.
Most likely you’ve also come up with something that I didn’t mention because, in the end, all blog posts should be about is to get you thinking about your own situation!
Regardless, if you enjoyed last week’s reflection, let’s take a look at 8 more learnings that show great potential to make a difference in your work as a sales manager!
#9 People Leave If You Don’t Understand & Support Them.
You’re for sure well aware of the fact that the times where people started working for a company and stayed with them for their life are long over.
We live in a world of constant opportunities. It’s never been easier to evaluate and compare options. And, the mindset of the upcoming generations has adapted to this new world. And, this has huge implications for the way your subordinates approach their relationships with their employers.
And, you as their direct manager have a huge influence on how they perceive their employment and employer.
Countless research studies — that were summarized well in a book by the Harvard Business Review — suggest that people leave their employers if they
- Feel misunderstood,
- Feel like nobody truly cares about them,
- Feel like they’re not progressing in their careers (usually due to lack of support and growth opportunities),
- Feel that they can’t have a real impact through their work, and
- Don’t have real relationships with their supervisors and peers.
So, as a sales manager make sure that you always
- Listen to your employees,
- Care for them,
- Understand what it is they truly strive for,
- Provide them with growth opportunities in that direction, and
- Develop a real (but professional) relationship with them.
#10 — Discomfort Is Necessary.
“If it was easy, everybody would do it.”
Many people understand this to be a cliché but hear me out. First, clichés exist for a reason. And, clichés are only clichés if they are used without true intentionality. And, here there is some true intentionality.
Most of my readers live in a world — or serve a market — that is based on capitalist principles. Like it or not, it’s a fact. And, as we do business, we’re not here to change the system but to find ways to work within the system efficiently.
And, not only you but also your competitors, and therefore the entire market, strive for efficiency. For that reason, everybody adopts easy solutions very quickly.
As a consequence, you need to stay ahead of the game to survive in the market. And, you can’t stay ahead of the market in your comfort zone.
If everything is running smoothly and you and your team don’t need to put in any effort, you can be sure that your success streak will be over very very soon. Somewhere someone is working on a system that’ll be better than your running system. Innovation and consistent improvement are what keeps your company afloat and striving.
So, you and your employees need to constantly challenge the status quo and seek discomfort to grow.
But you also need to understand the right amount of discomfort.
- Too much, and people can’t achieve their objectives, feel frustrated, and lose motivation.
- Too little, and people succeed too easily, get bored, and lose motivation.
As a rule of thumb:
The level of discomfort needs to be big enough to challenge you and your employees. It needs to force you to think. But, it needs to be reasonable enough that you can come to a solution.
#11 — You Need to Be Trusted, But Don’t Expect You Can Trust All People.
As a manager you have true responsibility. But, what does that mean? It’s a phrase that is thrown around but nobody really explains it to you.
My understanding has developed to:
Responsibility is to be aware of and to take into consideration the implications of your behavior. And, in a second step to act in a way that is positively impactful for you while being respectful and ethicaly regarding others.
And part of this responsibility is trust.
Your employees, your colleagues, and your boss need to be able to tell you something in confidence. Even more to tell you something and know that you will know what you need to treat confidentially.
As a manager, when somebody tells you that “this needs to be treated confidentially,” it means exactly that. Don’t tell your boss that one of your subordinates is struggling with something they told you in confidence.
However, don’t go and speak to somebody about something and expect them to do the same. Trust is not something you should be throwing around like it’s nothing. Make sure that the people you talk to about the really important things have earned your trust.
Saying “please don’t tell anyone,” never really works. And, I’m sure you can imagine how your employee will feel if they’ll overhear a conversation about something that they only told you.
So, be trusted, but don’t assume you can trust everyone.
#12 — Don’t Focus on What You Need, Focus on What Your Employees Need.
The times of you being an individual contributor only are over. Your contributions to the company are based on the individual contributions of everyone on your team.
So, your thought shouldn’t primarily evolve around “what will make my work better and more efficient” anymore but “how can I make my team more efficient.”
Many sales managers start to go all into analytics and measuring their team’s performance and behavior. And, that’s important but it’s not everything.
Don’t forget to support and empower your employees by providing them with the resources they need to be better.
- Do continuous research,
- Ask your employees what they really need, and
- Look at data in a way that asks “what am I not providing to my employees that would increase their performance?”
By the way, here’s a little summary of four tools that really help your employees to perform better because they make their job easier.
#13 — You Can Never Blame Your Employees.
Don’t get me wrong. They can be at fault but, in the end, they and their behavior are your responsibility.
Let me give you a quick anecdote to make this philosophy a little bit more visual:
I was recently walking through the streets of Istanbul when my phone reminded me that I had a meeting in an hour. The cafe were I wanted to do the call was a mere kilometer away, so I thought I had plenty of time. But, after half an hour of meandering through a few narrow streets and talking to locals, I ended up right in front of Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. And, the only way to get to the cafe was to go through there. And, it was a Saturday, so it was packed! So, although, I was only a kilometer away, I ended up being late to my meeting.
So, I started writing to my friend telling them, “hey, sorry, the streets of Istanbul are so packed with people. I’ll be 10 minutes late.”
But, then I thought, “wait, I’m not being fair. I’m pushing off the responsibility to the people in the streets.”
So, I delted my already written answer and changed it to: “hey, sorry, I misjuged how packed the streets of Istanbul would be. I’ll be 10 minutes late.”
Notice the subtle but important difference. In the first message, I blamed the circumstances and the people of Istanbul. But, in all honesty, the information that it’d take me more time to get to where I needed to be was readily available. I just failed to look for it.
In the second message, I acknowledge that: “I misjudged.”
So, the same concept applies to when you manage a sales team.
- It’s not that Mandy messed up a sales call, you didn’t provide her with the training she needed.
- It’s not that Ahmed is always late, it’s that you don’t make it a priority to help him understand why punctuality is important.
- It’s not that Helmut doesn’t get it, it’s that you didn’t explain it well enough.
As we discussed in last week’s post, your employees will make mistakes. It’s inevitable. It’s even necessary. But, it’s your responsibility to
- Ensure that they only make the same mistake once, and
- Protect them from facing unfair consequences of their mistakes.
Otherwise,
- You’ll lose their respect,
- Your team will fall apart in a blaming culture, and
- You’ll be out of your management job way sooner than you think.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that you need to forgive them every mistake and protect them if they’ve done truly wrong. But, this should be common sense.
#14 — You Can’t Make Time for Every Single Problem.
As a manager, you have limited time and you have other responsibilities than just taking care of your team. And, if you do the math, if you spend three hours a week with each of your 10 sales reps, you’ll run out of time very quickly.
If you make time for everything, you also send the wrong signal. Your employees need to develop the capability to solve their own problems.
So, make sure that you learn to say “no” in a respectful way.
#15 — Your Employees Will Get Angry and Frustrated with You.
This goes hand in hand with the fact that you’re neither your employee’s parent nor friend in the traditional sense. You’re their boss. And, this means that it’s unavoidable that they’ll get angry or frustrated with you. The reasons are manifold but here are a few examples:
- You’ll need to have the tough talk. You’ll need to let go of some people. You’ll be the one that’ll keep people in the office on a Friday night, if important.
- People need someone to rant about, and as their boss, you’ll sometimes just fall victim to it. You make more money. “Your work is easier.” Whatever they say or think. Most likely it won’t be rational and deep down they won’t mean it. But, they’ll think it.
So,
- Make peace with it. It’s gonna happen. Don’t try to avoid it at all costs,
- Get comfortable with it. That’s easier said than done. But if you can’t stand up to your decisions, your employees won’t either,
- Ensure that your decisions are data-driven and objectively sound, and
- Don’t use this as an excuse to be a tyrant. It’s still your responsibility to keep conflict to a minimum and avoid unnecessary tensions.
#16 — It’s Okay Not Know, But It’s Not Okay Not to Act.
Especially as someone who’s just become manager, you’ll feel overwhelmed with people seeking your guidance. You won’t have all the answers, and even if you ask others, they won’t have all the answers either. And, that’s okay.
And, it’s also okay if your employees will see and know that you don’t have all the answers. Sometimes, a simple “I don’t know” is more useful than coming up with some nonsense.
As a manager, it’s gonna be part of your responsibility to come up with new solutions and test them. That will involve not knowing things.
However, it’s important that you never just accept “not knowing.” Not knowing is not a constant; it’s something that can change. And, you must help yourself, your employees, and the team as a whole to figure out things you don’t know and that are crucial for your business success.
So, after saying “I don’t know,” make sure that you won’t need to say it again.
Conclusion.
Wow, we made it! Let me know what your reflections are and what the things are that truly made a difference to your work as a sales manager, all the mistakes you wish you could’ve avoided, all the things you could’ve done better. Let’s help each other to be better sales managers, collectively!
About the Author.
Teddy Lange is a co-founder at Resonaid and is responsible for business development and customer experience. Before joining Resonaid, he’s been a Sales Rep and Junior Sales Manager, and co-founded various companies. He has just finished his graduate degree in Public Policy with a focus on communication at Harvard University. Feel free to reach out to him at teddy@resonaid.co.
