Rocket Readings: 4 Leadership Must Haves to Achieve Go to Market Strategy Success

4 Leadership Must Haves to Achieve Go to Market Strategy Success:

As part of their Go to Market Strategy, sales organizations doubled their training budgets for front line Sales Manager specific training in 2011. Although Sales Managers are training starved, training is not typically the area that needs to be addressed first. Role corruption is a more impactful issue. Role corruption is present when tasks are assigned to a role that do not drive the desired results that role was designed to achieve. An example of role corruption is having Sales Managers carrying an individual quota. Other Sales Managers are bogged down in administrative tasks, meetings, etc. that don’t drive results. These are costly mistakes. Sales Managers should be focused on developing their teams and compensated based on their teams’ results.

What should the Sales Manager role entail?

Key Front Line Sales Manager Core Activities:
- Field Coaching – 3 days a week of call observation focused on developing the skills of your people
- Weekly 1-on-1 Debriefs – focused coaching, career development, and performance discussions. These debriefs should leave reps inspired and focus on specific objectives
- Training – 60 minutes weekly is sufficient. 20 minutes focused on a focused topic, 30 minutes role playing and 10 minutes discussing the Call to Action
- Talent Management – hiring talent and maintaining a virtual bench

Sales Manager Role Cadence

What should you do if Sales Managers are required to perform an abundance of tasks that take away from the core role function?

Compare the tasks to the following and determine if they are on the critical path.

Prioritize activities based on the shareholder value created
Are the activities directly correlated to the role scorecard?
How does the current Sales Manager cadence compare to World Class (see chart above)
Which activities have the greatest imapact on the long-term success of the sales team

How much time are your Sales Managers spending in the leadership bucket? Before you develop a strategy and make changes to your sales roles you need to ensure the front line Sales Management role is structured for success. Your Go to Market Strategy is executed at this level of the organization.

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