Supporting Sales Managers with a Competency Framework

Great Sellers Need Sales Management Competencies to Succeed

Tell us if this is a familiar story….

You’ve been smashing it as a quota-bearing salesperson for a few years.

You know everything there is to know about your market and your customers.

You can problem discover like a Harley Street therapist.

In fact, against your skills framework, you’re operating at a high level all around.

You’ve been to every President’s Club trip.

You are a social selling Goddess.

You’ve been recognized for your excellence and finally got that well-earned promotion to Sales Manager.

You feel on top of the world.

Day 1 in your new role…and you're lost.

Look familiar now?

More often than not, Sales Managers are overlooked when it comes to enablement as it’s all about the front-line sales teams.

But, we believe your Sales Managers ARE your frontline superpower. They should be supported and enabled first.

The Importance of Sales Managers

Think about the airline safety announcements of putting your oxygen mask on first before helping others. The same goes for Managers. If they are highly skilled at what great looks like in a leader FIRST, then they are much better placed to support and coach their team under any circumstance.

Building a Competency Framework for Sales Managers

The first step is defining what great looks like by creating a Sales Manager Competency Framework.

We recommend using the same approach to defining your sales competency framework for your sales teams. Firstly, look at the skills, attitudes, and behaviors of your existing sales Managers. What makes the top Managers great and importantly, other than delivering the number, what makes them valuable to you?

Once you’ve done this process, your skills matrix may look something like this:

Hint: Make sure you have coverage across:

• Knowledge
• Skills
• Mindset
• Process

They all play a part in the success of a team.

But this cannot be just about defining this top-level language. You need to be clear on expectations and avoid ambiguity so everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.

We call these ‘behaviors’ against each competency.

To give you a helping hand, here are two examples from our leadership competency database.

Coaching Excellence

Coaching excellence is the capability of sales managers to support sales team members in their professional growth by planning and facilitating tailored coaching conversations designed to improve their skills and capabilities. To achieve coaching excellence sales managers must master the following behaviors:

• Strategize Coaching Sessions: Plan coaching sessions to engage sellers, minimize defensiveness, ask thought-provoking questions, and share thoughtful perspectives, feedback, and ideas.
• Initiate Purposeful Coaching Conversations: Set the tone for a productive, open, and collaborative coaching conversation.
• Collaborate on Areas for Growth: Get the salesperson's opinion of their strengths and gaps before offering your own.
• Delve into the Why: Help sellers self-discover the underlying issue(s) that prevent improved performance.
• Cocreate Ideas for Improvement: Help sellers brainstorm and evaluate options for addressing the root issues and to own the decision on the best course of action.
• Conclude with Commitment: End the coaching conversation with a clear commitment to specific behaviors and actions that will strengthen the salesperson's performance.
• Reflect and Follow Up: Create an atmosphere of accountability, continual learning, and incremental growth.
• Coach Across Different Environments: Adapt your coaching approach for in-person and remote coaching interactions.

Delivering Data-Driven Growth

Driving growth with data means analyzing and optimizing sales pipelines to ensure the efficient progression of opportunities through the sales process while accurately forecasting future sales performance. To drive growth using data sales managers must master the following behaviors:

• Optimize Pipeline Production: Organize, monitor, and optimize the flow of opportunities through the stages of the sales process at both team and individual levels.
• Assess and Strategize Key Opportunities: Evaluate key opportunities with a salesperson to validate their current status and increase the likelihood of a successful outcome.
• Improve Forecast Accuracy: Maintain accurate team forecasts as per the organization's schedule.

Learn about all the sales management competencies we build by clicking here.

Operationalizing Your Sales Management Competency Framework

Now you’ve got your Sales Manager competency framework, the aim is to get it operational. To do this, we recommend taking the following steps:

• Share it with all Sales Managers and Senior Leadership
• Assess where each Manager is against the framework
• Make sure there are training or upskilling pathways against each competency
• Provide continued support through leadership coaching
• Continually track and repeat - make it operational
• Support them in using their sales reps’ competency framework to guide their coaching conversations