The Five Hats of Sales Management

Many Sales Managers make the mistake of not wearing the right hat at the right time.  There are five:

     1.     The Accountability Hat: Assuring results by following the sales process, executing proper sales strategies & tactics and generally holding people accountable to your clearly set (and agreed upon) expectations.

     2.     The Deal Coaching Hat: Getting your salespeople to DISCOVER the correct set of tactics and strategies regarding a particular sales opportunity (deal).  World Class coaches ask “Discovery Based” questions to get their salespeople to remember and then execute the things they learned in training.

     3.     The Mentoring (Counseling) Hat: Working on salespeople’s weaknesses.  This requires lots of nurturing.  It’s the “therapist” role good sales managers perform in getting salespeople to work through their own self limiting baggage.

     4.     The Motivation Hat (Group & Individual): Keeping the team fired up, usually in high energy, fun sales meetings that salespeople actually look forward to.  Individually it means keeping the individual salesperson’s dream alive & burning.

     5.     The Training Hat: The sales trainer.  Not a good hat for the manager to wear.  Trainers must field the “That won’t work, I’ve tried it”, shots from salespeople.  Great sales managers have mastered managing & selling.  Few can master the third skill set (Master Trainer).  No head coach would try to teach throwing skills to his pro quarterback.  He leaves that up to the trainer.

As an example, I know many managers wear the Accountability Hat when they should wear the Mentoring Hat. So instead of "what part of the sales process didn't they follow", find out "why didn't they follow it"? Good managers identify the FEARS behind behavior or avoidance, and MENTOR to eliminate those fears.