Sales Management Training
What Companies Don't Want to Hear
Here's something most companies don't want to hear, the key to a successful sales organization isn't better salespeople. It's better sales managers.
You can have the most talented individual contributors in the world, but if your sales managers aren't coaching them effectively, you're leaving massive amounts of revenue on the table. Most sales managers got promoted because they were good at selling, not because they knew how to develop others.
The result? Sales teams that operate more like a collection of individual freelancers than a cohesive unit working toward common goals.
Book a Consult to discuss how we can help your sales managers become the coaches your team needs.
The Sales Management Problem
Walk into most sales organizations and you'll find managers who spend their time updating forecasts, attending internal meetings, and putting out fires. What you won't find is much actual coaching happening.
When managers do try to coach, they focus on the wrong things. They'll spend time helping someone overcome an objection or perfect their demo, but they won't address the fundamental issue. That their salesperson isn't having the right conversations with the right people.
It's like being a football coach who only watches game film after losses but never practices plays during the week. By the time you're dealing with objections, the opportunity to win or lose has already passed.
At Northwood, we believe sales management is the loneliest job in most organizations. Managers get pressured from above to hit numbers while trying to develop people who often resist being coached. No wonder most of them give up and just become administrators.
What Great Sales Management Looks Like
Here's the truth, for a sales organization to turn around and have results, it's really about the managers. The managers are the key. People buy a lot of sales training, but developing the managers is the key to really making an impact.
Great sales managers do three things consistently: they coach, they hold people accountable, and they help their team get out of their own heads.
Real Coaching
This means listening to calls, doing role plays, and helping salespeople apply what they've learned to their specific situations. We recently worked with a sales manager whose rep came to him asking to role play scenarios because he wanted to get better. That almost never happens. When it does, you know the manager has made an impact and created the culture needed for people to improve.
Goal Alignment
Most commission-only salespeople don't have any personal goals at all. Great managers help their people get clear on what they want in life and build a plan to get there. This changes everything about their motivation and performance.
Strategic Accountability
Holding people accountable for the right activities, not just the number of calls made or emails sent. It's about ensuring your team is talking to the right prospects about the right things.
We work with sales managers to develop these skills systematically. We show them how to scale their effectiveness so they can impact their entire team, not just put band-aids on individual problems.