If your bottom line is not where you want it to be, the problem could be your sales managers. Sales managers have profound influence on your sales reps, and if they’re having problems in the following three areas, your bottom line is probably suffering.

The good news is that each of these three problems is fixable. Skills can be learned, and habits can be improved, and with a little work, your sales managers can start influencing your sales reps in a way that can improve your bottom line.

Organizational Skills

Sales managers with poor organizational skills have a hard time doing their jobs well. Not only do they need to keep themselves organized, but they need to put systems in place that will help your sales reps to stay organized, too.

If your sales manager is having a difficult time staying on top of things, provide training to help with the following skills:

• Calendaring
• Contact Management
• Follow Up
• Planning Effective Sales Meetings
• Time Management

As your sales managers improve in these areas, you’ll find that your sales reps work more efficiently, stay more motivated, and help your bottom line.

Coaching

Coaching is one of the biggest responsibilities a sales manager has, and yet, coaching is often neglected. Why? Because many sales managers don’t know how to coach their sales reps.

It’s all too easy to become consumed with day-to-day operations, meetings, and reports and to let sales coaching fall by the wayside. But neglecting sales coaching can really hurt your bottom line.

Coaching helps sales reps to develop their skills and improve their personal careers. With careful coaching, sales reps can overcome their weaknesses and become more effective sales people. As they experience success, they become more motivated and work even harder, thus creating a “virtuous cycle” of success.

If your sales managers are uncomfortable in the role of sales coach, help them by training them to adopt effective coaching techniques. Coaching happens in both scheduled moments (such as weekly one-on-one meetings) and at unexpected moments (such as when a rep calls a sales manager with a question). Encourage your sales managers to do more than answer questions. Encourage them to help your sales reps to find solutions themselves and provide them with resources that will help them to improve.

Consistency

Sales managers set the tone for a sales team, and if they are inconsistent, the entire sales team will underperform, ultimately hurting your bottom line. When a team is run by someone who provides structure, consistency, and fairness, everyone performs better.

It’s important that sales managers treat their sales reps the same. If sales reps begin to feel that some of them are treated better than others, resentment will fester, and team morale will suffer.

If bonuses are sometimes paid for certain benchmarks and not paid at other times for the same benchmarks, motivation will decrease. On the other hand, if sales reps know the can consistently count on rewards for specific achievements, they will set personal goals and work harder.

You can help your sales managers to be more consistent by setting a good example yourself. Meet with them regularly, always follow up on assignments, and treat them all equally. 

As you help your sales managers to overcome these problems, your bottom line will improve, along with morale, unity, and overall success.