Sales & Marketing Management

Salespeople should:

Communicate better with internal operations

Consult with department heads before making promises

Remember in almost not all cases sales will be lost because of a minor

delay

The customer appreciates the honesty of the salespeople and will simply
schedule accordingly.

Salespeople who are in the habit of communicating with internal operations
will find them willing to pull together, cut through the red tape, and do
whatever has to be done to get the job completed if there is a genuinely urgent
situation and if it does not occur too often.

Common sales manager situations that affect salespeople

Sales managers regularly encounter three typical situations when managing
salespeople. Each situation has three parts: a description of the scene, the
problem, and finally the possible solution/solutions.

Situation #1

Sales managers frequently lack the qualifications to provide meaningful
leadership to the sales force they are supposed to direct.

Problem

Very often sales managers are top salespeople that were promoted from the
field. They may have been terrific salespeople but they can frequently be
terrible sales managers. This is known as the 'Peter Principle.'

This is a double tragedy for the business because:

The sales results of a top salesperson are hard to replace

By the time the problem with the sales manager is evident, it is usually too late
to do anything about it

The result of this situation can be the loss of a formerly good employee

In this situation, the sales manager lacks the training and skills to do the job
and:

They are content to function as a figurehead

They do not develop the sales policies and guidelines

They do not do the hands-on coaching necessary to produce results