Supporting Sales Managers with a Competency Framework
Tell me if this is a familiar story….
You’ve been smashing it as a quota bearing sales person 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 recognised 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…
…
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 super power. They should be supported and enabled first.
Think about the airline safety announcements of putting your own 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.
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 behaviours of your existing sales Managers. What makes the top Managers great and importantly, other than delivering the number, what makes them valuable to you? You can find out more about this process here: Sales Competencies Whitepaper.
Once you’ve done this process, your skills matrix may look something like this:
💡Hint: Make sure you have coverage across:
Knowledge
Skills
Mindset / behaviours
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 ‘Positive Indicators’ against each competency.
To give you a helping hand, here’s a sample from our leadership competency database.
💡Hint: Don’t just use these verbatim, to achieve maximum adoption and success, you need to adapt them to fit your organisation and culture.
Coaching
Coaching and developing your team members to improve their skillset and determine the next steps of their careers. Making coaching part of your day-to-day management and not just another task to be ticked off your list. art of an appraisal process,
Positive Indicators:
✅ Giving the space for your team members to come up with their own solutions, ideas and ways of achieving their goals
✅ Agreement on collective goals, working with others, sharing ideas and mutual support
✅ Creating custom development plans based on the individuals' strengths and areas of opportunity.
Strategic Alignment
While interpreting and understanding sales data is important for all members of an organization, sales leaders must be able to develop and implement strategies to keep their teams aligned and working towards goals that are for the best interest of their company.
Positive Indicators:
✅ Understand the business' mission, vision, strategy and goals.
✅ Determine where and how learning will impact the achievement of business goals.
✅ Document the learning and development plan.
✅ Validate the alignment of the learning and development plan with the business plan.
Conflict Resolution
Maintains positive, productive working relationships despite differing/conflicting situations and personalities. Demonstrates diplomacy and tact. Confronts problems openly and constructively.
Positive Indicators:
✅ Consistently manages conflicts promptly and provides constructive feedback to employees.
✅ Models managerial courage and is often sought by other managers for advice.
✅ Engages with empathy by understanding each other's needs
✅ Seeks to collaborate and influence without first resorting to authority
✅ Strongly believes that we will grow when others grow with us
✅ Addresses conflict promptly, and avoids escalation
✅ Feels comfortable providing feedback and listening to employees in difficult situations
✅ Maintains calm and focus
✅ Engages in active listening (internal/external)
Change Management
Be able to effectively lead your team, clearly and effectively communicating and implementing necessary change in order to remain competitive. While navigating change is challenging for all involved, leaders often set the tone for how their teams are able to manage and navigate organizational change.
Positive Indicators:
✅ Win over hearts and minds and get team members to buy in to change
✅ Anticipates and proactively responds to changing situations
✅ Is consistently receptive to new ideas and information
✅ Inspires, encourages and provides support to others in response to change.
So what now?
Now you’ve got your Sales Manager competency framework, the aim is to get it operational.
Share it with all Sales Managers and Senior Leadership
Assess where each Manager is against the framework (💡Hint: There’s a handy blog here on how to assess competencies)
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
Let us know if we can help to get this operational.