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It’s a unique occasion when we get to step back from the day-to-day of supporting our members’ decisions and reflect on where we believe the world of sales is headed. In 2011, the SEC had thousands of interactions with sales executives around the globe, held dozens of conferences and intimate roundtable discussions with leading CSOs, and examined hundreds of thousands data points.

Given this, we’d like to share the fundamental shifts we expect to play out in increasingly significant ways in 2012.

Granted, it’s not a MECE list – there is overlap and implications shared throughout these trends, but we hope you’ll take a minute and reflect on how these trends are manifesting in your own organization, disagree if appropriate, and highlight trends you expect to see that we missed. It’s meant to be a reflective, but fun list. We look forward to your input! Read More »

Most companies have a well-defined, 3–5 year succession plan for their CEOs. The same is true for other leadership positions, including those within the sales organization. After all, a strong leadership succession plan ensures a steady pipeline of experienced and capable talent as key roles become available.

But, what about sales talent at the front line? Should companies prepare reps for the first line sales manager role? The answer most sales organizations are beginning to realize is a firm YES..!!

First line manager backfills are still based on strong performance in the rep role, but the requisite skills are different from those required of managers. In addition, the first line manager profile itself is simultaneously changing with the product-to-solutions transition and shifting of customer purchase preferences. This “double jump” represents a vexing challenge for “once-high-performing-rep” managers.

It’s not surprising then that star reps don’t always make star managers. Below is an analysis from a Fortune 500 company that attempts to estimate the cost of a failed first line sales manager: Read More »

Finding a new sales manager for your team is never easy – but that’s only half the battle. After you spend all of the time and effort selecting a new sales manager, how can you bring them on board effectively to make sure your sales team runs at full speed?

According to our sister program for heads of Learning and Development, it turns out that more than half of all new managers struggle in their new roles. Even more, the stakes are high of first-line sales manager failure – according to one member company, the average cost of a failed manager is nearly $4 million.

In order to set managers up for success, we’ve seen heads of Learning and Development start their managers off on the right foot by 1) structuring an approach to guide their transition into role 2) building a foundation for healthy relationships with their direct reports and 3) identifying an early “quick win” to establish managers as results-oriented leaders.

From a sales perspective, we’ve seen Dimension Data and CertainTeed create successful onboarding “boot camps” for new hires. While these best-practices are intended for front-line sales reps, you can use similar tactics to onboard new managers to the team.

As your managers approach their role in the immediate term and beyond, keep in mind these important keys to sales manager development needed for the success of their teams:   Read More »

We’ve all observed at one point or another that the best sales reps don’t always make the best sales managers. Whether it’s a skill mismatch (being a star rep doesn’t mean you have the necessary people management skills) or an appeal thing (the rep simply doesn’t have interest in pursuing the manager track), what’s become clear is that organizations must start thinking about some non-traditional (aka non-managerial) career paths for senior sales reps.

This is easier said than done though. After all, you not only have to create a compelling career track but you must create one that makes the rep feel like they have (and are seen by others as having) a successful career path to take.

So, what can you do? Here are a few ideas…   Read More »

There are probably no individuals more time oppressed in your sales force than your sales managers.  And a perennial focus for sales organizations is making sure that managers have enough time to spend on high-value activities.

A big problem standing in the way is admin. In fact, our sister research organization, the Communications Executive Council, profiled how The Home Depot sized up the problem.  They created a dummy manager inbox on their email system and let it run for one month.  Guess how many emails were waiting there, unopened?

3,000! And if you estimate that it takes about a minute to read each of those emails, they cost 50 hours of on-the-job time – and that’s not even factoring in the time to type a response!

So are your managers buried by too many administrative requests? Read More »

(This post was written by Amy Gallo for our Finance and Strategy Practice.)

If you have a bad boss working under you, you are probably well aware of it. You’ve likely heard complaints, or seen poor employee survey results, or simply noticed that their employees are not happy.

Managing a bad manager is a particular challenge because poor performance directly affects, and can cause disengagement in, others.

Fortunately, like most bad habits or behaviors, being a bad boss is changeable. In fact, for many, being a people manager is not intuitive and they need to be taught or shown what it means to be good at it.

If you’re managing a bad manager, here are four things you can do:

1. Identify the bad behaviors. Understanding exactly what the manager is or is not doing will help you support them in getting better. Take the complaints you are receiving and identify patterns and consistent behaviors that are contributing to the problem.

If there isn’t a lot of noise, but you know something is wrong with a manager, talk to his/her direct reports to get input. Ask for specific examples that you can share with the manager to illustrate the issue.   Read More »

Another quarter-end is fast approaching, and as always, some of your reps are on the fence. They’re one deal away from crossing goal, but most of their remaining opportunities are coin tosses. It’s hard to predict whether that last bit of revenue will come in, or where it will come from. So what’s the best strategy for shaking loose a few more deals in these situations?

As deals enter the late stages of the pipeline, we all tend to make assumptions about what it will take to compel our prospects to complete the purchase. Some of these assumptions are valid; but others may narrow our thinking. For example, many reps assume that they’ve reached critical mass once they’ve talked to 3-5 stakeholders. But customers tell us a different story. They say their typical decision-making group has around 8-10 members.

So how do we help reps avoid these types of oversights?   Read More »

(This post was written by Amy Gallo for our Finance and Strategy Practice.)

In CEB View’s last Talent Matters post we discussed how difficult it is to work for a bad boss. But what if, instead of working for one, you are one?

Of course it’s not easy being the boss. Research from CEB’s CLC Human Resources program shows that the three areas that most managers – even great ones – struggle with are evaluating employee performance, providing effective feedback, and turning around underperformance. These are hard things to do and because the way you do them directly affects your team, any missteps are likely to create friction.

Fortunately, the recession seems to have improved many employee-manager relationships but boss-bashing is still a favorite pastime (as proved by last week’s traffic on the first “bad boss” piece). So, how do you know if your employees are just letting off steam or if you are truly difficult to work with? Unfortunately, many bad bosses are the last to know how awful they are to work under. This may be because you aren’t getting the feedback you need, you’re disconnected from your employees or you just aren’t watching out for the signs.

Here are five indications that you may be a worse boss than you thought: Read More »

Don’t get me wrong, there is a time and a place for the manager dive-n-catch. You know, the deal that is saved at the last minute or put back on track after a major derailment.

But at what point do heroics outweigh rep learning, especially those valuable learned-it-the-hard-way moments?

Even the most progressive coaching organizations struggle here. You have a perfect mix of conditions for the manager takeover to be the rule rather than the exception: former star reps as managers, high pressure conditions, variable comp on the line, a rep struggling through a new skill, a situation the training room didn’t seem to account for….

We recently profiled Siemens Water Technology for a really interesting approach they’ve put in place to get reps doing rapid-fire calls to learn new skills. In fact, SEC members can hear them tell the full story on December 1.

As part of that story, Siemens shared how they’ve created a clear distinction between typical manager ride-alongs and manager coaching trips. Check out the chart for the detail:  Read More »

Sales manager time is scarce.  Yet it seems all we do is add to their plate.  Be a world-class coach, seller, resource allocator, motivator, and communicator, we tell them.  Oh, and we can’t really predict why so many deals get stuck, so also be a great innovator.

But good sales innovation requires a certain amount of restraint.  Not only do the best managers know HOW to innovate, they know WHEN to. 

Here is what these managers recognize: not every deal gets stuck for unpredictable reasons.  Innovation is only necessary after the rep has exhausted all the options laid out in the established playbook.

Jumping directly into investigation mode whenever a rep cries “STUCK!” risks involving your managers in way too many deals.

And reps misidentify deals as “stuck” more often than you think, for the same reasons they struggle once a deal truly is stuck: reticence to ask hard questions with unclear answers.  Read More »