Why 9 out of 10 business owners can't find a good sales manager?
Cool ROP: difficult to find, even more difficult to retain and impossible to forget… How to find “your” ROP so that a match occurs and the company grows multiple times.
My name is Pavel Bakholdin.
Since 2010 I have been managing B2B sales. I build sales departments from scratch, implement CRM, create knowledge bases and transfer reporting to BI platforms.
6 components of the profession of a sales manager
The head of the sales department is a very difficult profession.
Its components:
a commercial (understanding how a company’s business is structured, what the economics of a specific transaction consist of, how to increase the number of transactions, how to improve the efficiency of business processes within the company)
marketing (knowledge of tools and ability to speak the same language with marketers/contractors)
psychological (ability to manage people, taking into account the characteristics of employees, to build a healthy climate in the team, to consciously form a corporate culture that corresponds to the medium-term and long-term goals of the company)
political (the art of building relationships with owners/top management/heads of related departments, taking into account their wishes and personal characteristics)
technical (how the work of personnel should be structured within the company's IT systems)
forecasting and planning (building a company development strategy with a view to 1, 2 and 3 years and decomposing this strategy into specific actions in the present moment
Once the new ROP has taken up the position and has figured out the commercial, marketing, psychological, political and technical specifics of the company, he will have to:
– first, build a system that maximizes the efficiency of managers,
– then build a quality control system
– and further – to maintain this quality at the highest possible level. After this, he will move on to strategic issues: he will “sort out” the department for himself, develop new directions, and so on.
The ideal sales manager is like the multi-armed god Shiva
His work includes several key aspects, and each of them requires a deep understanding of the relevant field of knowledge.
He must also be able to quickly switch between tasks of different focus during the day, since his work is a priori multitasking.
The ROP is always between the “hammer” of the owners and the “anvil” of the team; he bears responsibility for the failure of innovations in the company and he is also responsible for the daily performance of the employees subordinate to him.
Thus, the ROP is required to:
high level of intelligence and empathy,
deep knowledge in several areas,
multitasking skills,
ability to cope with high levels of stress.
And do you think there are many such people in the world?
The correct answer is HUNDREDS OF TIMES LESS than the companies that need them.
Moreover: this small percentage of people who, in principle, could work as a ROP, for the most part choose another occupation.
If a person can effectively perform in such a difficult position, he will cope with the task of creating and developing his own business, and will perform well in most other professions.
Finding a qualified and competent ROP is another quest. In 9 out of 10 companies it will never be passed.
And now the second question: what do you think – How many company owners realize how difficult it is to find a good ROP and how complex his area is?
Statistics say that it is not much: the money that most employers are willing to pay is approximately equal to, or even lower than, the remuneration level of a qualified sales manager.
Despite the fact that the level of responsibility of the latter, the amount of specialized knowledge required by him, and the level of stress are several times less than those that fall on the share of the ROP.
The cycle of leaders in nature
I have a friendly company where I was invited to the position of head of sales. However, knowing the corporate culture of the organization, I refused because I understood that every ROP who ended up in this position would eventually burn up like a meteorite in the atmosphere.
This was confirmed in subsequent years: the company replaced several ROPs, each of whom stayed in his position for only a few months.
The owner does not despair and continues to look through options to this day.
Toxic Boss – Grief in the Family
I also saw how a talented ROP, having come to the company, became a victim of a toxic corporate culture. The owner “from the 90s”, accustomed to communicating with employees as with his lackeys – began to communicate with him in the same way.
Did he realize that he was losing what was perhaps his only chance to scale? Did he realize that this approach meant millions of dollars in lost earnings over a ten-year timeline?
Perhaps, but is everyone capable of overcoming the power of long-term habit?…
The result is disappointment on both sides and a company that has lost the chance to grow and develop.
A positive example in contrast to the previous ones
A company operating in the same market as the one from the example about the “management cycle” attracted to the team a ROP who is as close to ideal as possible.
At the same time, he did not immediately accept the position of head of the sales department: for several months the parties looked closely at each other, collaborating in a consulting mode.
One of the conditions for joining the staff was an option for a share in the company, which was possible upon reaching certain indicators.
What could motivate a talented manager better than an option?
Any business has flaws: there are no companies with an ideal product, an ideal team, ideal owners, ideal business processes, and for all this to generate countless millions in an ideal country.
There are always problems in sales management; the only question is whether the manager’s remuneration corresponds to the scale of efforts required to solve them.
An option is a magic pill that allows a talented ROP to “step over” the feeling of difficulty of obstacles into a visualization of a bright future, where a round sum is added to his pension, which is brought by a share in a business grown with his own hands.
This pill will allow him to move mountains on the way to future wealth, give him the strength to overcome any obstacles and raise his loyalty to the company to 100%.
So it was this time: now the company under his leadership is a leader in its market segment not only in Russia, but throughout the CIS.
How to attract a competent Head of Sales who will send the company to the moon?
If your company is not Tesla, Megafon, or Rosatom, you should be prepared for the fact that this problem will take a long time to solve and may never be solved.
There are many companies around where the head of the sales department is the owner himself, who has already given up trying to find a suitable ROP. And those who continue searching for many years.
But I think this is no reason to despair: the game is worth the candle.
“Basic set”, in the presence of which chances appear – a competitive advantage both in financial motivation and in other criteria important for the candidate:
modern office
non-toxic corporate culture
sufficient resources and authority to implement innovations
The winnings in this game will be orders of magnitude higher than the bets made in previous rounds. If, of course, it happens…
How do you know if a ROP is smart?
When a sales manager joins a company, no one knows whether he or she will live up to expectations. Previous achievements and references do not provide any guarantee of success in a new position.
There are two important milestones in the work of a new manager, based on which one can decide whether the company has made the right choice and will continue on the same path with him.
The first milestone is coming in 3 months after taking office. It's supposed to be new time the manager will have time to sort it out in business processes, political intricacies, the specifics of the company’s business, will establish contact with the owners, staff and related departments and will not show signs of obvious stupidity and inadequacy.
That is, by this time the new EPR may (and most likely) not bring additional income to the company thanks to its solution, but there is already an understanding that the company was not mistaken in its choice.
The second major milestone is coming in about 6 monthsor a little more, depending on the specifics of the business.
By this point, the actions of the ROP should already lead to an increase in the amount of money in the current account.
How this will be done is the second question. Perhaps he will have time to implement scripts, or quality control in the sales department, or change the assortment matrix in favor of more turnover positions, or implement a CRM system if there was none.
The main thing is that there should be a correlation between the financial result at the end of the month and his actions. That is, after deducting external factors, the profit due to his work should show positive dynamics compared to the same month of the previous year.
If everything is so – hallelujah, the company pulled out a lucky ticket!
The ROP turned out to be smart: what to do with it next?
If everyone is happy with each other, after passing the second milestone, it’s time to discuss the medium-term perspective. Most likely, the manager has already formulated a company development strategy for 2-3 years ahead and is ready to present it to the owners.
If so, the most reasonable thing for them to do would be to give the development the “green light”: the numbers on the current account do not lie, which means the new ROP has already justified the trust and it is possible to allocate more resources and powers to it in order to give it the opportunity to fully realize its potential.
At this point in time, it is also appropriate to discuss a possible option if the owners are in principle ready to consider such a possibility.
Of course, the option must assume compliance with fairly ambitious conditions, which the ROP can reach on a timeline of at least a year.
If we can come to an agreement on everything, the task of retaining the strategic employee is solved, and then it will be up to him to fully take advantage of the new prospects.
Pavel Bakholdin
Effective sales management
