Common Mistakes in Sales Management

Each member of staff at Sales Team Focus Ltd has held a senior management and/or director level position in sales. In previous roles, each of us has made all the common mistakes there are to make in managing a sales team. These include:

• Hired a competitor’s expensive cast-off
• Recruited the best of a very bad bunch because we desperately needed to fill a vacant territory
• Hired ‘experienced’ salespeople who, it transpires, have sold virtually nothing other than themselves at interview
• Failed to recognise warning signs at interview
• Ignored warning signs we see & hear at interview
• Wasted hours interviewing ‘unsuitable’ candidates put forward by agencies
• Hungi on to a ‘no-hoper’ for longer than we should
• Wasted money on training that had no effect on performance whatsoever
• Hired a ‘farmer’ when we needed a ‘hunter’
• Installed commission plans that didn’t reward success appropriately
• Developed incentives that didn’t motivate
• Assumed all salespeople are motivated by success
• Sent people on training courses to re-motivate them
• Assumed that because salespeople knew how to sell, they would sell
• Used inappropriate measurement criteria
• Mistook activity for productivity

Yes, we’ve made them all (and more) and have the scars and T-shirts to prove it!

Through this hard-earned experience and the associated 20:20 hindsight, we share our knowledge and expertise with clients to help them avoid repeating our mistakes.