Whats a Professional Sales Manager
By: Dave Kahle

I was in the depths of a major depression. As a third year salesperson with a good company I was doing well and was on my way to becoming the top salesperson in the nation for that company. But business had slowed down a little and I didnt have my usual number of proposals out for consideration. So I wasnt as busy as usual. As my activity slowed I began to worry. My doubts increased to the point where I had thought myself into a real depression stuck on the question of Whats the use of trying The more negative my thoughts became the less energy I had. My lack of energy led to fewer and fewer sales calls which of course led to less activity. And that led to more depressing thoughts. I was caught in a powerful downward spiral.

It was then that I caught a glimpse of what a professional sales manager is like.

Ned was my boss a sales manager of the highest caliber. He could see the symptoms of my sour state spilling over into everything I was doing. So Ned intervened. He arranged to have lunch with me and listened patiently as I rambled on and on about my problems my doubts and my lack of activity. Finally after I had dumped all my depression and negative thoughts on him he looked me straight in the eye and said with all the authority and resolve of someone who is absolutely sure of what they are saying Kahle thats enough.

I was stunned. I was expecting empathy an understanding shoulder to cry on. Instead I got a simple straightforward mandate. Ned knew me well enough to cut through all the fluff and come right to the heart of the matter. He said Thats enough. Thats enough feeling sorry for yourself. Thats enough thinking all these negative thoughts. Thats enough sitting back and not working as hard as youre used to. Stop it. Youre better than all this. Stop it right now today and get your ..... back to work.

He saw my situation clearly. And he provided me the direction I needed. That conversation turned me around. I left my depression and negativity at that lunch table and started back into my job with a renewed sense of the possible. A year later I was the number one salesperson in the nation for that company.

What made the difference in my performance was the skillful intervention of an astute and professional sales manager. He made the difference in my job performance and that made a difference in my standing with that company. And that made a difference in my career. And that lead me to my current practice. Its entirely possible that I would not be doing what I do now speaking and consulting with sales forces around the world if it werent for his timely intervention.

All of us have become what we are at least in part due to the impact other people have had on us. A professional sales manager is gifted with a rare and precious opportunity the opportunity to play a pivotal role in the lives of his/her charges. I so value the role that Ned played in my career that the last paragraph on the Acknowledgment page of my first book reads Finally I must make special posthumus acknowledgement of the contribution made by Ned Shaheen the best manager I ever worked for. It was Ned who years ago urged me to write the book...

So what does this have to do with being a Professional Sales Manager During my 30 + years of sales experience and 16 years of experience as a sales consultant and sales trainer Ive encountered many sales managers. Some of have been good many mediocre. But Ned was the best sales manager I ever met. He serves as a model for me. We can learn a number of lessons from him.

First Ned knew the difference between the job of a salesperson and that of a sales manager. He had been a great salesperson like many sales managers around the world and had been promoted to sales manager. Yet he knew the jobs of sales manager and salesperson are completely different. A salesperson is responsible for building accounts and making sales. A sales manager while ultimately responsible for the same results understands that his/her job is to achieve those means through other people. A sales manager builds people who in turn build the business. Salespeople focus on selling; sales managers focus on building salespeople.

As a sales person I could comfortably take Ned into any account secure in the knowledge that he wouldnt try to take over the presentation or usurp my relationship with the customer. I knew Ned was more concerned with me than he was about any one sale.

Ned knew that a salesperson was essentially a loaner an individual who did most of his/her most important work by themselves while a sales manager was a coach whose only success derived from the success of his team. A sales managers best work is always done not with the customers but with the people he/she supervises.

Ultimately a sales manager is measured by the results achieved by his people. Sales gross profits market share key product selling all these typical measurements of sales performance are also one of the rulers by which a sales manager is measured.

So an excellent sales manager like a great soccer coach is ultimately measured by his numbers. It doesnt matter how empathetic he is nor how his players respect or like him if year after year he produces a losing team. So it is with a sales manager. Ultimately an excellent sales manager produces excellent numbers for his company.

In the five years that I worked for Ned my own territory grew by $1 million a year and the branch for which he was responsible grew from about $6 million to about $30 million.

Ned was excellent at one of the key competencies of the professional sales manager he had an eye for talent. He knew how to hire good people. After all he hired me! Over the years I watched him take his time allowing a sales territory to go vacant for months if necessary while he waited for the right person to bubble up through his pipeline. Only one of his hires didnt work out which gave him an incredible winning percentage.

A professional sales manager understands the importance of making the right hire is always recruiting in order to keep the pipeline of prospective salespeople full and spares no expense to make sure the person he hires meets all the necessary criteria. When I was hired I went through four interviews and a full 10hour day of tests with an industrial psychologist.

With all the time he took to make sure he was hiring the right person Ned confided in me one day that It is more important to fire well then it is to hire well. He went on to explain that hiring sales people is an extremely difficult task and that even the best sales managers fail at it frequently. Therefore it was important to recognize your mistake quickly and act decisively to fix it.

A professional sales manager