Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/280096
March 2014 | Construction Equipment Distribution | www.cedmag.com | 37 Sales Manager struggle to reach the potential within their territories. A seasoned veteran may lead the way for the rest of the team by setting new records, but even an old pro can fall into a diabolical sales slump. New rookies can come out of the gate immediately winning big deals, but there are also plenty of new reps who crash and burn before they get off the runway. Loyal, long-term customers can acquire other companies and open the door for a stream of new revenue, but a merger can also result in a closed door to a long-standing relationship. Any number of volatile sales scenarios can tip the scales toward success or failure. Sales managers can take steps to strategically equip salespeople for success, greasing the skids to win deals. Here are some tips that may help you tip the scales in your favor and proactively drive sales performance. 1. Be situationally aware – Situational leadership requires you to adjust your leadership based upon the needs and requirements of any given situation. It is a mistake to rely upon a default response tied to your own personal preference. Your personal preference may not be a reliable indicator of what the situation really requires. Managers limit their options by relying on pre-established defaults for deal- ing with sales challenges. It is best to develop the situational awareness needed to adjust your approach based on the requirements of unique situations. One of my clients had been frustrated early on in his sales career because of a micromanaging sales manager. As a result, years later when he became a sales manager, he preferred to be hands-off by giving his salespeople the freedom to direct themselves and their activities as they saw fit. This approach worked fairly well with experienced salespeople. However, it did not always work so well with new or underperforming salespeople. His personal prefer- ence made him reluctant to immerse himself in the details of an underperforming salesperson's activities and routines in order to get performance on track. He refused to microman- age even when the situation vehemently demanded it. Situational leadership involves learning to ignore your own bias and personal preference, choosing rather to objec- tively analyze the particular situation to determine what the circumstances are requiring. Your preference or personal bias may not always be a reliable indicator as to how you should manage in any given situation. 2. Be selective about what you need to correct – Great sales managers recognize the unique needs and obstacles of each salesperson. There's a theory of constraints that says you do not have to fix everything to improve everything; you only need to fix the one thing where your sales rep's perfor- mance is bottlenecking. Every salesperson has some kind of limiting constraint. There are two kinds of constraints. There are those beyond your control that are fixed (or unchangeable) and there are flexible constraints that are within some measure of your control. Case in point, most equipment dealer- ships have regional restrictions. A dealer could only likely overcome this particular regional constraint by securing permission from a manufacturer to acquire a dealership in an adjoining region. The box below demonstrates how constraint theory applies to a manufacturing scenario for a firm producing widgets. Each department has a certain level of production capability per shift that varies from one department to another. While each department has varying production capacity, the total production capacity of the whole plant is only 300 widgets per shift – they're limited by the constraint, which in this case is Department A. To overcome this constraint, we might buy additional equipment or we could add a second shift to Department A, enabling us to double capacity to 600 widgets per shift and move our constraint over to Department B. The total production capacity would grow to 500 widgets per shift. We can nearly always do something to overcome a bottleneck, if we do not get too distracted with trying to fix everything. Other examples of constraint theory could relate to a parts or service department, a sales department, or a dealer's overall equipment inventory – any of which could pose a significant constraint. For example, if your sales department sells more machines than your dealership can support with parts and or service, then your parts or service (continued on next page) Dept. A Dept. B Dept. C Dept. D Capacity per shift 300 widgets 500 widgets 700 widgets 900 widgets Total capacity per shift = 300