The process of finding powerful and dynamic sales managers is difficult at best. Often organizations take solid sales people and turn them into managers. On the surface this might seem like a great idea. The salesman has succeeded and can show his new hires the way. The problem is that the job of sales person and the job of sales manager are dramatically different. Often what happens when your star salesman becomes a sales manager, he is great at selling the career and can hire new sales people. He knows how to sell. That’s what got him the job in the first place. However, the new hires end up with lack luster performance because there was no one around to help develop them. The new sales manager never learned the skills necessary to develop winning sales reps.

An easy transition for the new sales manager would be to teach him/her “coaching skills”. The process of merging great coaching skills and the know-how of selling defines the Uncommon Sales Manager. Here are 12 ideas to become an uncommon sales manager.

1. It’s not just about the numbers, quality counts

As a sales person the numbers were everything. If you sold you made money if you didn’t, you didn’t, plain and simple. The focus was getting the client or the sale. As a sales manager, getting the hire and selling the opportunity is only the preliminary part of the process. Selling the position itself is not what pays. Hiring producing sales people is what pays. You only get paid when your sales people sell.

The quality of the sales person is at least as important as the number of recruits.

2. The training and development reality

There is a statistic that is bandied around training circles that for every new 10 hires, 1 will be a self starter and succeed whatever you do. 2 of the ten will fail no matter what you do. The remaining 7 will be dependent on training and development. If the reps are trained and developed properly they can become producing sales people. If not, their chances are slim.

Assuming the statistic is true, the impact for the sales manager is huge. Fully 70% of his/her recruits will be dependent on the training and development they receive. No sales manager can afford to ignore this fact. Without training and development, he/she will be depending on 10% of their hires to produce enough to keep their jobs lucrative. That’s hard to do.

The importance of training and development can not be overstated. I was once in a meeting where I saw a sales manager get up at the beginning of the meeting write the production numbers for the 5 reps he was working with on the board and say, “The total you guys wrote last week was X. I can’t live on that, meeting over!” The guy never thought that just maybe he was being comp’ed to teach the others how to make it.

3. Understanding frameworks

One of the biggest fundamentals for a new sales manager to understand is an idea about how people’s minds work. The thoughts or beliefs that a person has are called frameworks. A framework is a way of thinking about a subject. Everyone has them about all areas of their life. Income, relationships, health are very often heavily or wholly influenced by frameworks.

Frameworks are not good or bad. They serve or they don’t serve. For example, little children are taught not to talk to strangers. That’s prudent with young friendly children that are not yet discerning between good and bad. It is a framework that serves them. However, take that same child at age 21 and let him start a sales job with that framework, he will fail. The framework does not serve him. It is important to realize that people have all kinds of frameworks and often a framework that served well in the past is the same thing that is creating challenges now.

When sales people are not producing, there is usually a framework that needs to be addressed.

4. The importance of language

We frequently do not understand the importance of language. Words are not just ways to communicate. They create experiences. An example I like to use is if I were to ask you to think of a cozy, comfortable chair with a view, you would be able to conjure up a picture in you mind. If I ask 1000 people to do the same thing they will all have a different picture. As a matter of fact, no two would be exactly the same. However, the experience of being laid back, relaxed and peaceful would be universal. There is a code in the description that relates an experience.

When you ask people about “goals”, there is also an experience. Unfortunately it is usually not pleasant. People think about the stress, the obstacles, the sacrifice, the agony of failure, and other experiences tied to difficulty. On the other hand use the word “game” and the reaction is totally different. People respond with thoughts of fun, teamwork, excitement, winning, etc. In my practice, my clients design winnable games and play to win. Why not use wording that inspires and propels instead of one that drags.

If you are not sure on the concept or think that I am playing a semantics game, try this exercise. Tell your spouse one night that she looks like a fresh breath of spring air. The next night tell her she looks like the end of a cold hard winter. Notice the different reaction. That is the experience of words at work.

5. Becoming a Coach

As an Uncommon Sales Manager, you need to become a coach to your reps. Think about all the great coaches that you know. Their players love them because they know that the coach is helping the player become the best that he can be. The coach wants the player to win sometimes even more than the player wants to win.

The coach recruits them on to the team, helps them perfect their playing skills, and expects the player to deliver their best. He is there helping and supporting his player every step of the way. And that’s why he gets the results and admiration of his players.

Imagine if the coach hired the player and turned him loose to figure it out. It would be a fiasco. Take the example and apply it to the sales manager

6. The coaching process and playing games

Sales managers meet with their reps on a regular basis, usually once a week. Nobody likes the meeting. The rep feels it’s a beat up session and the sales manager doesn’t want to anger his hire least he lose him. So half the meetings are missed and the other ones are spent shooting the breeze and telling the rep he is OK.

A more useful approach would be to turn these meetings into coaching sessions. This is an opportunity to celebrate victories and wins. It is also an opportunity to find areas that the player can improve their game. If the player understood that this session was a mentoring and coaching session, strictly focused on helping the player play better, he would never agree to miss a meeting. Out in the world people pay hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars to get the same type of help.

The manager, too, would look forward to helping the player win for the betterment of everyone involved.

The next 5 points outlines the coaching process developed by Dave Buck, CEO of Coachville. A sales manager using this process can create a winning team with excitement and a sense of play.

7. Clarify and define the winnable game

It is imperative that winning is clearly defined. What does it look like to win? How do you know if you win? Is it a realistic game that can be won in the time frame set? The game should be broken down into a winnable season (3 months). It is imperative that the definition is clear and reachable while still being a little bit of a stretch.

8. Master the skills and strategies

Does the player have the skills and strategies needed to win? A skill is the actions of the game. In sales it is the sales process. A strategy is knowing the best application of the skill.

Let’s take an example from basketball. Knowing how to dribble, pass and shoot are skills. Knowing when to dribble, when to pass and when to shoot are strategies.

Knowing how to ask for a referral is a skill. Knowing when to ask for a referral is a strategy.

9. Understand the inner game

This goes back to discovering frameworks. I have heard training officer say that there are three parts to a sales career; knowledge, skill and desire. If a sales rep has the knowledge and skill that means he is missing the desire to be successful. In my experience that is not true. Many times a sales rep has the knowledge and skill and truly wants to be successful but is falling flat on his face. When that happens there is a tell tale sign of an inner game issue.

If a sales rep has issues in his thinking that are blocking his success a good manager helps him see those issues and resolve them so that he can go out to win. By the way, the inner game is where the game is played and won.

10. Perfect the Environment

A sales rep needs to have an environment that is inspiring, exciting and supporting his growth. There are many environments that effect how we play. Physical, financial, relationships, spiritual, networks are a few of the environments that can be perfected. A good environment can help pull the rep to higher degrees of success. If the environment is poor it can undermine the rep and stunt his growth. Even if a rep wins the inner game, if his environment is unsupportive, the environment wins.

11. Keep score

Keeping score daily, weekly and monthly gives the rep an opportunity to see and appreciate growth. It also a great way to keep focused on areas that need coaching and more practice. Keeping score is not about “holding the rep accountable”. The only one that can hold the rep accountable is the rep. As a sales manager the job is to support the rep, champion his growth and production and coach him to greatness.

12. Keep Playing and Play to Win

Keeping the process a game with an attitude of “playing” makes the entire process more enjoyable and exciting for everyone. Using this process will create better relationships, more productive reps, better teams, higher commissions, and a more comfortable atmosphere. The sales manager is the one that must create the environment to make it all happen.

There are a lot of challenges to the sales manager’s job. Most companies focus on the job of bringing in recruits. The continued development of those recruit are a step child. It’s unfortunate that the focus is not more on the development of making winning sales reps. The company that can get this right will have a very strong benefit to incoming reps, better retention and higher production.