TRUST or MICROMANAGMENT

There is a saying “People don’t quit Jobs, They quit Managers”.  Although this might not be true for everyone, it has been true for me.  I’ve had a number of different mangers over the years. Some of them I have loved and some of them I have detested. It’s usually not difficult to determine whether or not your manager trusts you. My level of frustration for previous managers has had a positive correlation to their level of micromanagement.  No one wants to feel like a puppet that is being controlled like a marionette. I think TRUST and MICROMANAGMENT are the Yin and the Yang of sales. The use of a CRM has provided sales management the ability to micromanage their reps on a whole new level.  Conversely, a CRM provides managers a completely new way to communicate trust.

The most fundamental part of the sales process is generating a high volume of “reaches” to prospective clients. A “reach” happens each time a sales professional “reaches” out to a prospective client via email, phone, or a drop-in.  Failure in sales can usually be traced back to a low volume of “reaches”. You can be a great closer but if your pipeline dries up due to a low volume of “reaches”, you will never meet your sales goals. The ability to monitor “reaches” has been made effortless with the use of a CRM. Sales managers can watch the activity of their team remotely as the members of their sales team log their “reaches” in the CRM. This ability to monitor “reaches” is exciting for managers but extremely annoying for sales reps. Logging activity into the CRM is a task that tends to be micromanaged. Do you remember what I said micromanagement did to my relationship with previous managers? Despite the benefits a CRM provides, its usefulness is completely undermined if the sales team won’t commit to logging their activity. Getting seasoned sales professionals to implement the use of a CRM into their daily routines can be quite challenging and expensive. The cost of not evolving is far greater than the cost of implementing a CRM. Effectively getting your teams buy-in and participation can skyrocket productivity and performance.

So the question is how does one motivate a sales team to implement the use of a CRM into their daily routine? Although there isn’t ONE right answer to this question, the following story portrays how a few of my previous managers succeeded in getting me to do it:

Having a baby changes your perspective on a lot of things.  It made me want more security and less risk in my life.  In an attempt to mitigate some of the risk associated with being a self-employed entrepreneur, I took a sales position with a relatively large company. My biggest fear in taking the job was how I would respond to having a boss again. My new manager was very unconventional and used more foul language then a drunken sailor. Despite his extreme lack of political correctness, the guy knew how to sell! He wasn’t one of those managers that only talks the talk… he walked the walk. He was highly directive, extremely confident, and knew how to close. On the very first day I was hired, he had me tag along with him to an appointment that he had with a professional basketball team. The excitement of meeting with an NBA team was quickly overshadowed by a deep respect for the masterful way my manager conducted the appointment. He immediately built a relationship of trust with me by showing me how he wanted me to sell rather then telling me. A few weeks later, I had the opportunity to have my zone manager spend the day with me. We met early one morning in a coffee shop and the first thing he said to me was “I’m going to get you 2 new sales today”. He then opened his Macbook, signed into our CRM, and dug through the database to find hidden opportunities.  My direct manager showed me how to sell and my zone manager showed me how to work smart. The key here is that they SHOWED me how to work rather then TELLING me.  They spent their time selling rather then micromanaging. I loved every opportunity I got to have either of them spend the day with me.  I knew that a ride-a-long with either of them meant finding new opportunities, closing new deals, and making more money. I followed their example closely and by doing so I was singled out as the top preforming rookie sales rep at that year’s national sales conference.

So the moral of the story; Walk the walk and don’t just Talk the talk. Show your reps how scrubbing the database for opportunities can increase their sales. Don’t expect your team to know how to use your CRM effectively if you don’t know how to use it yourself. Monitor the activity your reps are logging but pick your battles wisely. If you have a rep that is consistently meeting or exceeding quotas, then it’s not necessary to micromanage their “reaches” to potential clients. You can’t deposit “reaches” into a bank account but you can deposit revenue. Even if it’s not reflected in the CRM, revenue equals “reaches”. I’ve never been really proficient at logging my “reaches” but I’ve always crushed my goals! If you have a rep that is struggling to hit their quota, have them focus on their “reaches”.  The only part of the sales process that we can truly control is our “reaches” to potential clients. Make sure that your team understands that the only way missing quota won’t land them in hot water, is if they have logged a significant amount of “reaches”. I would much rather fire a good closer with a low “reach” volume then a bad “closer” with a high reach volume. It’s much easier to teach a hard worker to sell then to teach a salesman to work hard. If you have a rep that is struggling, go show them how to walk the walk. Lead by example. Although you might have the managerial instinct to correct performance issues with micromanagement, the only thing that micromanagement truly produces is a puppet that miserably wants to cut the strings.