- November 11, 2020
- Posted by: Dave Kurlan
- Category: Understanding the Sales Force
The lettering above the dials of our LG washing machine (pictured above when new) have worn off. I went online believing I could get a replacement decal and while LG does not provide replacements, they will replace the entire front panel for $125. While I was researching this stupid, preventable issue, I found that many LG owners have the same problem. You see, the letters come right off if you are stupid enough to drape a stained baseball uniform (or any stained clothing) over the front of the washer and spray it with a stain remover like Shout. How can the product managers for this machine be so bad?
They’re not the only professionals who are quite bad at what they do. Sales Managers underperform at a mind boggling level. Let me show you the degree to which most sales managers are unqualified.
Let’s begin our story with sales management candidates – those candidates looking for a sales management gig. Objective Management Group’s (OMG) recommendation rate for sales management candidates is only 14.8% with another 14.1% on the fringes leaving 71% of all candidates not recommended! More than two out of three candidates for sales management roles don’t qualify!
The next question is why not?
One third of all candidates are knocked out for having low scores in Will to Manage Sales. This group of five sales management competencies includes Desire for Sales Management Success, Commitment to achieving greater sales management success, Outlook, Responsibility and Motivation.
42% of all candidates are knocked out for having Sales Management DNA scores that are too low. Sales Management DNA consists of five competencies which together are a combination of strengths that support a sales manager’s ability to coach to and enforce sales process, sales strategies, sales tactics, sales methodology, sales pipeline and CRM compliance. When the score dips below a certain point, those competencies become weaknesses.
16% of all candidates are knocked out for scoring too low on the Sales Coaching competency and another 61% are on the fringes. That’s another way of saying that only 23% of all candidates have the Sales Coaching competency as a strength and when sales managers are supposed to be spending half of their time on coaching, that’s seriously useless.
Ugh.
There are a couple of different ways to look at this. Companies that are serious about building strong sales cultures and following best practices use OMG’s sales management candidate assessments and say, “No big deal. That’s why we use OMG to assess sales and sales management candidates!” Companies that don’t use OMG probably don’t even notice because the candidates are probably no worse than most of the sales managers already working there.
That brings us to the bigger problem. Six out of every seven sales managers SUCK!
What does that mean for you?
Most sales managers don’t coach enough, don’t coach consistently, don’t coach the right way, don’t impact their salespeople’s opportunities, don’t grow their salespeople, don’t inspire their salespeople, don’t hold their salespeople accountable, suck at recruiting new salespeople, spend too much time on personal sales and compiling reports, and not nearly enough time developing the talent on their teams. More on this topic.
I spoke with the two senior-most executives of a national company who admitted that they’ve been trying to build a sales organization for ten years. They said they “don’t know what they don’t know.” That doesn’t actually differentiate them from most executives. What does differentiate them is that they admitted it! Unfortunately, admitting that they don’t know what they don’t know doesn’t solve anything. They must also be willing to follow advice, follow through and stick with it and that’s easier said than done. Building a sales culture that rocks means starting with the right sales manager in place. Always.
The challenge is to understand the importance of having the right sales managers. If you run a company with a small sales team, you’re lying to yourself if you think that you can manage salespeople in your spare time. Just. Not. True. If you run a larger company with a larger sales team, you’re lying to yourself if you think that as long as you hire the right sales talent any sales manager will do. Right up until the good salespeople quit. If you have multiple sales teams, with more layers between the C Suite and the salespeople, sales managers receive less scrutiny, are more independent, and play an even more important role in executing the company’s strategy. You’re lying to yourself if you think that having any sales manager with industry experience will get the job done.
Sales Managers are the LG washing machines of the sales profession and the people they report to are the enablers that allow that inferior product to exist.
Time to towel off.