Sales managers must move away from being reactive transactional closers and become coaches for their sales team, says sales consultant Jim Pancero. While he acknowledges that being a great closer is a useful tool, closing sales is a skill that’s only relevant for managers if the people they manage can bring sales near the finish line.
Speaking at a recent industry sales training expo, Pancero encouraged managers to focus on tactical, strategic and future-focused conversations that help sales people control sales conversations and close sales. It’s about ensuring all sales employees have a plan when they hit the pavement and understand how to manage any issues they might encounter in the field. To put it simply, Pancero says sales managers should be able to “help your people do more than they would have done if you just left them alone.”
He says that has to be done by focusing on all aspects of a salesperson’s relationship with a customer. It’s about getting salespeople to think past the next call and email and develop a multi-step strategy to communicate your business, products and services to customers before they ever walk in the door.
Regarding tactical conversations, Pancero says sales managers should spend time with their people developing tools to control sales relationships from prospect identification to close. This can include time and territory management skills and negotiation skills that can be easily understood and implemented across a sales team.
Paul Burk, vice president at Doggett Freightliner, says Daimler Trucks North America (DTNA) training materials are useful in this area because they enable Doggett and other DTNA-brand dealer groups to keep their sales employees up to date on the technology and services found in Freightliner and Western Star trucks.
“Our manufacturer does a great job providing us information and prospecting tools we can use with all of our customers,” he says.
For strategic conversations, Pancero says a dealer’s business should be the focus. He describes this as communicating a company’s market and value proposition, so salespeople can accurately present and differentiate the business in the marketplace.
“We will regularly invite customers in to see how we operate even if they are a customer who isn’t currently buying trucks from us,” says Mike Maudlin, vice president at Maudlin International. “We want to show them what we can do and open that door for future sales growth.”
Finally, when it comes to future conversations, Pancero says sales managers also need to be proactive when discussing forecasts, quotas, strategic planning and what needs to be done to keep the business humming.
If this seems hard, Pancero acknowledges it’s no picnic. He says sales managers today are seeing their jobs “go through more change than any other position” in most businesses. But from there, he says to look at the alternative. Do you really want to spend all of your time continuing to put out fires? Do you only want to know when a salesperson has a prospect when they’ve already quoted a price for them and need you to cut margin to bring them on board?
He says bluntly: “Your job is not to do their job; your job is to help them be better at the job they are doing.”
