Am I a Bad Sales Manager?

Nobody is perfect. You know this is true if you have ever had, or have been, a sales manager. We all make mistakes and I would believe that most of us want to do better overall. It is a wonder that there aren’t more self-help groups for managers in general; if there are any at all. So, are you a good manager or a bad manager? 

No one wants to be told that their breath stinks and I certainly don’t want to be the one that has to tell you that, but maybe I can politely offer you a stick of gum by calling your attention to some of the common mistakes many sales managers make. Here is a list of the top 10 sales management mistakes that you can easily focus on improving.

1. Not running a good sales meeting – You have no written agenda, you don’t solve any problems and no one learns anything. Time to step it up a bit.
2. Not maintaining the goals – Sales goals come too late, are ignored, changed or just aren’t being discussed.
3. Not acknowledging successes and failures – No one is motivated or learns from experience because you don’t discuss what is or is not working.
4. Withholding information – Your team doesn’t get reports and projections in a timely manner.
5. Not establishing KPIs – Your team doesn’t really have a great sense of strategy because they don’t know or understand the key performance indicators that will make them successful.
6. Not establishing a process – Salespeople are forced to make things up as they go along because you have not established best practices for your team.
7. Not listening – You spend too much time talking to your salespeople because you are too excited to prove how much you know.
8. Making friends instead of success – You are avoiding difficult conversations and allowing poor performers to continue doing so.
9. Not spending enough time with each salesperson – You haven’t learned what each person needs, where they can be coached and how they can grow.
10. Creating excessive pressure – You are over-stressing, possibly micromanaging, the team so that they can’t think straight. Be their partner, not their tyrannical overlord.