The Pressures on Sales Managers
Sales managers, as coaches, also face new, different pressure in the 1990’s. They must upgrade their own training just as aggressively as reps must, which can put lots of pressure on their own families as they take course or are trained away from home.
In an era of downsizing, many companies have thinned the ranks of sales managers, thus widening the manager’s span of control. A manager will have perhaps 33% to 50% more reps to supervise. For instance, a manager might go form having eight to 12 reps reporting to him/her. That means 33% to 50% more expense accounts to sign, more salaries to review, more performance appraisals to give, and more rep training and incentive compensation plans to administer.
It pulls the manager into more territories, often boosting his or her own travel time-and this increases stress as the typical frustrations of living on the road escalate (from late planes, to problem rental cars, headquarter communication hassles, and so forth). Because the manager with more reps to supervise tends to spend less time coaching each rep, there is pressure to do the highest-quality job communicating face-to-face in field coaching sessions. Quality supervision replace closeness of supervision. The manager’s own superiors are probably also putting pressure on him/her to boost productivity.
The sales manager is caught in this tug-of-war between senior management’s goal for maximum output from the field, with autonomy and shared decision making. Successful sales coaches must always balance the need to care about their sales reps as people with business pressures to control them, because they are costly resources.
A sales manager perceived as caring only about business result and carrying out abandoned. They wonder how the manager will function if the business hits rough water. Will the manager help them grow and develop? Should they bet their future on such a leader? This is how reps think when the sales manager works too hard for compliance and control at the expense of maximum output.
Should the sales manager be perceived by superiors as too people-oriented, they become anxious that he/she is too soft on subordinate reps and not focused enough on ensuring that orders flow in and shipments flow out.
More than ever, the sales manager of today has to learn to be both bottom-line committed and a fine coach and employee partner. Learning this takes courage and skill, and few sales manager gets much help or sympathy from above. They could echo the words of Tommy Lasorda, the Los Angels Dodgers manager, who said “ I found out that it’s not good to talk about my trouble. Eighty percent of the people who hear them don’t care and the other 20% are glad you’re having them”.