{"id":11088,"date":"2015-01-26T09:52:35","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T17:52:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/?p=11088"},"modified":"2016-09-15T09:59:36","modified_gmt":"2016-09-15T16:59:36","slug":"what-is-your-sales-manager-doing-at-this-moment-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/the-week-in-imaging-twii\/2015\/01\/what-is-your-sales-manager-doing-at-this-moment-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is Your Sales Manager Doing At This Moment? Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"peeringIf your initial thought is that you hope he is in the field then watch your caller ID for \u201cIt\u2019s the 80\u2019s.\u201d\u00a0 I agree managers need to spend time with their sales professionals in the field, and I\u2019ll get to that, but \u201cbeing in the field\u201d is not a proxy for being a good manager.\u00a0 When a manager tells me their top priority is spending time in the field my first thought is that they don\u2019t have a good management education and don\u2019t know the activities required to successfully manage people.\u00a0 Do you frequently see the coach of your favorite team running on the court\/field with their players?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with my belief that a manager\u2019s number one responsibility is to develop each individual on their team, and through that development achieve business results.\u00a0 Notice that business results follow developing their team.\u00a0 Telling your sales professionals to get out of the office or your sales manager to get in the field would be like a coach in the NFL telling their players on the first day of practice, then every day after that first day, just get on the field and run around; and heck, I\u2019ll join some of you and run around with you.<\/p>\n

How do you know if your manager is doing their job?\u00a0 Team tenure, rep productivity as well as revenue growth and the ability to successfully sell new products\/services are my indicators.<\/p>\n

Tenure doesn\u2019t equate to you have five team members with more than five years and one with less than one.\u00a0 My guess is that in the five year tenure gap the manager has burned through 8 \u2013 12 reps that didn\u2019t make it on his team.\u00a0 When I engage with a company to help them improve their sales this is a very common scenario.\u00a0 Of the sales professionals you\u2019ve added to your team in the last three years how many are still with your company?\u00a0 If the GM of your favorite sports team had that low of retention with his\/her drafts\/trades would you be calling for his head (figuratively of course).<\/p>\n

The next thing I look at is rep productivity, or average revenue per sales professional.\u00a0 In the scenario above\u2014if I exclude all of the hires that didn\u2019t survive\u2014I\u2019d expect the rep productivity to be high; high would have productivity in the $550K – $600K range, or $50,000 per rep per month.\u00a0 That isn\u2019t always the case but that would be my expectation.\u00a0 When I talk about exclusions the accurate way to measure productivity is to divide revenue by your average quantity of sales professionals. Therefore, I\u2019d take the six I currently have on the team and assuming I averaged two more each month of the year, but they come and go, I\u2019d actually divide revenue by eight.\u00a0 The six I have plus the average two rookies I normally have.<\/p>\n

If productivity is below $400,000 per year per rep I look at sales expense as I don\u2019t know how you retain sales professionals that sell less than $400,000 other than by paying them too much for what they bring to the company.\u00a0 If equipment gross margin is 36 percent, then sales expense should be in the 26 percent range, with 15 percent of that attributed directly to sales rep expense.\u00a0 With productivity below $400K you either have 100 percent plus turnover or your sales rep expense is in the 20 percent plus range.\u00a0 Neither are good scenarios<\/p>\n

The last two areas of manager assessment on how your growth in revenue on their team and ability to launch new products.\u00a0 Both of these measurements demonstrate that the team is well developed.\u00a0 Growth is measured over three year periods; I don\u2019t care if a manager grows their team revenue by 15 percent one year and the next year they shrink by 10 percent.\u00a0 That is usually caused by a single takedown and not through a set of management processes that drive consistent results.\u00a0 Those same processes provide support for new initiatives, hence the measurement of ability to launch new products.<\/p>\n

How did your management team do on this assessment?<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Solid tenure that demonstrates the ability to add new sales professionals to the team<\/li>\n
  2. Productivity above $550,000 per rep per year<\/li>\n
  3. Consistent revenue growth across the team<\/li>\n
  4. Ability to launch new products<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If you are missing one item there is opportunity to improve.\u00a0 More than one and I\u2019d go out on a limb and state, in my opinion, you\u2019re failing as a manager.\u00a0 Keep in mind that I believe a manager\u2019s primary responsibility is to develop their team members.<\/p>\n

    Now that you\u2019ve identified you have a management problem how do you fix it?\u00a0 You can start by reading part two of this article in next week\u2019s ENX\/The Week in Imaging.<\/em><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    If your initial thought is that you hope he is in the field then watch your caller ID for \u201cIt\u2019s the 80\u2019s.\u201d\u00a0 I agree managers need to spend time with their sales professionals in the field, and I\u2019ll get to that, but \u201cbeing in the field\u201d is not a proxy for being a good manager.\u00a0 When a manager tells me their top priority is spending time in the field my first thought is that they don\u2019t have a good management education and don\u2019t know the activities required to successfully manage people.\u00a0 Do you frequently see the coach of your favorite team running on the court\/field with their players? Let\u2019s start with my belief that a manager\u2019s number one responsibility is to develop each individual on their team, and through that development achieve business results.\u00a0 Notice that business results follow developing their team.\u00a0 Telling your sales professionals to get out of the office or your sales manager to get in the field would be like a coach in the NFL telling their players on the first day of practice, then every day after that first day, just get on the field and run around; and heck, I\u2019ll join some of you and run around with you. How do you know if your manager is doing their job?\u00a0 Team tenure, rep productivity as well as revenue growth and the ability to successfully sell new products\/services are my indicators. Tenure doesn\u2019t equate to you have five team members with more than five years and one with less than one.\u00a0 My guess is that in the five year tenure gap the manager has burned through 8 \u2013 12 reps that didn\u2019t make it on his team.\u00a0 When I engage with a company to help them improve their sales this is a very common scenario.\u00a0 Of the sales professionals you\u2019ve added to your team in the last three years how many are still with your company?\u00a0 If the GM of your favorite sports team had that low of retention with his\/her drafts\/trades would you be calling for his head (figuratively of course). The next thing I look at is rep productivity, or average revenue per sales professional.\u00a0 In the scenario above\u2014if I exclude all of the hires that didn\u2019t survive\u2014I\u2019d expect the rep productivity to be high; high would have productivity in the $550K – $600K range, or $50,000 per rep per month.\u00a0 That isn\u2019t always the case but that would be my expectation.\u00a0 When I talk about exclusions the accurate way to measure productivity is to divide revenue by your average quantity of sales professionals. Therefore, I\u2019d take the six I currently have on the team and assuming I averaged two more each month of the year, but they come and go, I\u2019d actually divide revenue by eight.\u00a0 The six I have plus the average two rookies I normally have. If productivity is below $400,000 per year per rep I look at sales expense as I don\u2019t know how you retain sales professionals that sell less than $400,000 other than by paying them too much for what they bring to the company.\u00a0 If equipment gross margin is 36 percent, then sales expense should be in the 26 percent range, with 15 percent of that attributed directly to sales rep expense.\u00a0 With productivity below $400K you either have 100 percent plus turnover or your sales rep expense is in the 20 percent plus range.\u00a0 Neither are good scenarios The last two areas of manager assessment on how your growth in revenue on their team and ability to launch new products.\u00a0 Both of these measurements demonstrate that the team is well developed.\u00a0 Growth is measured over three year periods; I don\u2019t care if a manager grows their team revenue by 15 percent one year and the next year they shrink by 10 percent.\u00a0 That is usually caused by a single takedown and not through a set of management processes that drive consistent results.\u00a0 Those same processes provide support for new initiatives, hence the measurement of ability to launch new products. How did your management team do on this assessment? Solid tenure that demonstrates the ability to add new sales professionals to the team Productivity above $550,000 per rep per year Consistent revenue growth across the team Ability to launch new products If you are missing one item there is opportunity to improve.\u00a0 More than one and I\u2019d go out on a limb and state, in my opinion, you\u2019re failing as a manager.\u00a0 Keep in mind that I believe a manager\u2019s primary responsibility is to develop their team members. Now that you\u2019ve identified you have a management problem how do you fix it?\u00a0 You can start by reading part two of this article in next week\u2019s ENX\/The Week in Imaging.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1638],"tags":[151,318,346],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11088"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11090,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11088\/revisions\/11090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}