Modular home factory sales
managers need to be leaders. They have
to know how to motivate, train and hold their salespeople accountable for
maintaining and improving sales.
Being given the sales
manager’s position is often seen as a reward for being good at sales but
without the skills needed and regular management training, he or she may become
a total disaster. In fact, the average
tenure for a factory sales manager is 18 months. That is 6 months trying to fix the previous
manager’s problems, 6 months trying to implement new policies and the final 6
months trying to defend their actions to the factory owners.
Sales managers have a
difficult job. Their employees tend to be independent and even secretive while
the higher-ups tend to be demanding and unforgiving.
Less than 50% of today’s
factory sales reps have ever sold in during an economic downturn. We have an
entire generation of sales reps knowing nothing of hared times so it should
come as no surprise to anyone that unskilled sales managers with little or no
training can commit many fatal mistakes without even knowing why sales fail to
increase.
Here are some of those fatal mistakes:
- The sales manager refuses to
accept personal accountability for the actions of the sales people. Blaming the salespeople, the market, the
economy or the company will never increase sales. - The sales manager neglects to
develop the sales reps they manage. The
#1 job of the sales manager is not to sell.
It isn’t even to increase sales.
The #1 job is to develop salespeople on the team. The problem with promoting the top producing
sales person to the sales manager’s position is that they probably think sales
would go up if everyone sold the way they did when they were the top producer. - The sales manager treats all
the salespeople the same. Managing
everyone the same way will result in frustration, lack of clarity, and missed sales
opportunities. - The sales manager should be a
coach, not a buddy. Salespeople need a
mentor, a coach, to spur them to leave their comfort zone and push on to new
success. - The sales manager doesn’t set
standards and only ranks the salespeople by sales. Without clear expectations, without the
awareness that there are a variety of ways to succeed, and without the
knowledge of where they stand, salespeople will flounder into isolation and
alienation. - The sales manager never
trains their salespeople. Thinking that
they know everything sales limits the sales staff to the sales manager’s
experience. Without continual training
in this rapidly changing housing market, the sales reps can find themselves
unprepared to meet unexpected challenges. - The sales manager condones
incompetence. Sales reps can actually believe their lack of competent
performance is acceptable when they see no consequences for lack of sales.
Managers often hire people who have no natural talent and then keep them on
board, hoping that they’ll somehow acquire that talent. - The sales manager fails to
control costs and profits. Many managers get hypnotized by sales without
thinking about how much money it’s costing to make that sale. In the quest for
more home and commercial sales, the manager often loses track on spending,
especially when that spending is taking place inside another department. Worse
case, the factory can end up in the situation of losing money on every module
sold and tries to make up the difference in volume. - Sales managers expect too
much from their reps. Most managers expect the same sales rep to 1) create a
brand image in the builder’s mind, 2) locate new builders for the factory, 3)
work hand in hand with builders to make the sale and 4) handle the ongoing
relationship with the builder. - Sales managers look to hire
“self motivated” reps. The manager lets them loose to sell however they deem
appropriate relying too heavily upon the reps natural talent to develop and
close the sale. This develops a “reinventing the wheel” pattern because there
is no way to share what’s worked in the past and what hasn’t. - The
sales manager keeps changing the pay scale. If the plan keeps changing, the
company can end up in a situation where, no matter how many hours the rep
works, he or she can’t break the pay ceiling. Soon the company won’t be able to
hire good sales reps, as the company will have a bad reputation. - The
sales manager has a “star.” The “star” gets all the hot leads and
plenty of recognition while the rest of the team is overlooked. This alienates
the rest of sales staff and sends the message that kissing up is the way to
succeed.
