SALES & MARKETING
A Successful Sales Manager Can be a Great Deal Coach BY JAY SPIELVOGEL, VENATOR SALES GROUP, LLC
T Jay Spielvogel is CEO of Venator Sales Group (GAWDA member), a sales consulting and training firm specializing in boosting Welding and Gas distribution sales performance. Contact him at: Jay@ venatorsalesgroup.com
116 • Winter 2022
he greatest challenge most distributor sales managers face is the lack of time to deal with all the management, sales strategy, training, recruiting, and other operational tasks their job demands of them. Compounding this challenge is that many sales managers are time constrained due to an inefficient process which includes jumping into high value opportunities or accounts and acting on behalf of their salespeople to clean up account issues, take over difficult cylinder rental contract negotiations or simply acting to close challenging opportunities. Add in the typical reporting, forecasting and other internal work heaped on sales managers, and you’ve got the primary culprit that keeps sales managers from being great coaches and leaders. Unless a proactive approach is implemented, sales managers easily fall into this pattern, since they are former “A-player” salespeople who pride themselves on their sales and account relationship skills. Much like the coach of a sports team, a good sales manager must have a strategy and process for coaching their sales team from the sidelines, rather than jumping onto the playing field and running the play themselves. It is nearly impossible for the coach to run the team successfully while also playing the game. Great sales coaching starts with a sales manager
truly caring about the development of their direct reports and a plan for coaching them on how to achieve that success, especially when it comes to deal coaching. Most distributor salespeople are trained to look for positive account signals, such as having a “great” relationship with an internal champion. Unfortunately, salespeople often ignore the challenges that may exist within the account, such as a technical or financial stakeholder that is an advocate for the competition, an existing contract in place, or a committee of decision makers that tie buying decisions to an existing vendor relationship.
HOW DO SALES MANAGERS EFFECTIVELY COACH THEIR SALESPEOPLE TO THINK MORE CRITICALLY AND TO ACT MORE CONSULTATIVELY?
At Venator, we use a process called “interrogating reality,” which digs below the surface of an opportunity to find out what is going on behind the scenes. In other words, to discover the intangibles that often go unrecognized and create obstacles in managing the account or closing new business. To properly interrogate the reality of a sales
