Question

Becoming a new sales manager & Coaching

Questions:

• WHAT MAKES THE TRANSITION FROM SALES PERSON TO SALES MANAGER CHALLENGING?
• WHAT ARE SOME REASONS WHY A MANAGER SHOULD NOT AUTOMATICALLY ANSWER ONE OF THEIR SALES REP’S QUESTIONS?
• WHAT COULD “COACH THE GAP” MEAN?

Answer 1

The transition from sales peron to sales manager is quite challenging in sales department. The job responsibility is different for both the positions. For example in case of sales person job is to sell while in case of sales manager job is to help to make more sales. The transition from sales person to sales manager is quite challenging. Some of these challenges are:

• Transitioning from sales person to sales manager is itself a challenge. Even when both the jobs are related but they are very different in terms of responsibility. The job responsibility due to this transition changes from selling to help his team to sell.
• Training his team is another challenge that rise with this transition. Different representative requires different training. For providing a good and adequate training sales manager needs to know them individually. Every person have different approach towards different situations and different level of motivation level. This can prove to be be quite difficult, thus requires skills.
• Management are under constant stress. The job responsbilty of managers are more due to which they have to work for longer hours. Stress that are part of this job are meeting sales target, sales representing performance, appeasing boss, etc.
• Hiring sales team is also a challenging task.

A manager should not automatically answer one of their sales Rep's question. Reason for this are:

• For answering a question if the answer contains certain data which could justify .ie. few examples etc this will help the sales's rep's to have a much clear understanding. So instead of answering query automatically, the manager should includes few facts or example and data ,which will give a more clear understanding.
• If the manager will keep providing solution for each query, the sales rep's will not try to solve the problem on his own. Thus the manager should try to motivate the employee to try to solve it first instead of automatically providing the solution.
• It's possible that more then one sales representative is facing the same question, so not automatically answering the question can help the manager to save time by answering all of them at once.

Gap can be defined as difference between where we are and where we want to be. To fill this gap coaching or training is required. Gap is the space between what people know, what they need to know and what types of resources they have or required. Coach the gap concept stated that instead of thinking what the staff know think about what they need to know and to fill this gao have proper communication. Coaching is used by sales manager to leverage the strength and to know their potential and coach them to become a champion.