Leadership as a sales manager

The position of sales manager is essential for the achievement of efficiency and productivity in sales results in any sales team.

From experience we know that “title” is not the same as “performance”.

The title of the position is accessed for different reasons and circumstances of the destination, but what really determines the success of its managerial management is its successful and efficient performance.

Another essential and necessary aspect for a good performance is closely linked to the capacity of leader that the holder possesses, a product of his personality and his training for such an important responsibility.

Because it is not the same to possess knowledge, which is essential, but must be demonstrated with practical and communicable facts to be executed by your collaborators.

Formal and informal leadership

Formal leadership is acquired by being appointed and taking over the position of sales manager.

On the other hand, informal leadership is the one that is appreciated through its conductive capacity so that the team travels through the most successful and direct path that leads them towards the achievement of productive and consistent results in each of the periods of the year.

In the field of its management, and only as an illustration, we can appreciate that generally the instructions of formal leadership are usually perceived as orders, while in informal leadership they are received as the best recommendations that benefit the recipients, the team and the organization.

Obviously, when the instructions are mostly correct, their leadership gradually increases and is highly valued by their collaborators, generating a climate of high belonging of each salesperson with their leader, with the team and with the goals.

Likewise, the group climate led by a sales manager exercising informal leadership proves to be much healthier and free from conflict than when the driving style is formal.

The keys to good management

What I have described above has its corresponding logic, that is, a coherent relationship of cause and effect.

All salespeople need a reference, a model to follow and from which to learn to be more efficient and effective every day.

This includes both the values transmitted by the sales manager; to his knowledge and experience in the development of management, to his rules of the game in which the team operates, but fundamentally when he can teach them to apply an “Effective Management Method”.

Through this method, it is understood and verified which are the steps to follow each day, week and month of the year to achieve the results assigned to them for each period.

This is precisely the best demonstration of an informal and solid leadership, which is increasing according to its correct instructions and slogans.

You can expand more on how to develop your effective method of sales management for the type of sales you make, in my recent book "Management Keys to a Successful Sale."

Conclusions

Those who want to perform or who currently hold the position of sales manager, must consider and choose what is the true and most effective leadership that will generate the vital results that every organization requires to live, develop and grow.

In the case of choosing informal leadership, they should assume that it does not come from heaven or is acquired quickly, and even less when it is sustained only by the experience of the position holder's time. Instead, they will be able to exercise informal leadership when the human values that are transmitted, the knowledge and action tactics, as well as the way to teach the best effective method of management leads to success are acquired based on the knowledge acquired from experiences. of the best recognized referents in the specialty.

The permanent learning of these sources and the objective and permanent self-criticism of the management, will improve the managerial skills of the sale as well as the ability to exercise solid and good informal leadership.