Why are so any managers busy doing nothing?

Have you noticed how so many managers (and not just sales managers) seem to be incredibly busy, but actually achieving very little? If I were unkind I would say that there seems to be an outbreak of headless chickens in senior positions. So what is going on and what can we do about it?

Clearly the current economic climate has a part to play in this outbreak of headless chickens. There are a lot of people worried about their jobs and when this happens we all focus on trying to look indispensable. Look around you. How many of your colleagues are 100% focused on managing upwards? If your manager is deciding who stays and who goes it seems sensible to focus on them!

So why is this an issue?

From a sales effectiveness perspective we are unfortunately seeing the following symptoms:

• Measuring the wrong things - Sales teams seem to be focussing ever more on activity - number of customer visits, number of calls, number of quotes sent out, size of pipeline, without having an equal focus on quality of activity. If you are seeing this in your organisation you need re-dress the balance.
• Visiting customers who are not going to buy may achieve customer-facing time but will it bring success?
• Ringing lots of people without an effective message or objective will only increase your phone bills.
• Having a large pipeline, which is not properly qualified, only makes you feel better in the short term
• Lack of focus - As a simple sales person I like to be told what I am selling and to whom, and then be left alone for a period of time to get on with it. However, currently organisations are constantly “re-focussing” whether it is to drive margins, clear stock, help a specific product line etc. There are clearly good reasons for this, but it does drive specific behaviours:
• Clients will constantly be looking for the last minute offer, hence driving down your prices.
• Sales move away from a “solution-led sale” (solving clients problems) towards a “product push sale”. This may actually result in less sales and confused customers.
• Even less Sales Management - We constantly comment that Sales Managers need to focus more on coaching and managing the focus of their teams and not trying to be “super sales people”. But with human nature being what it is, as the numbers look less and less achievable, more and more sales managers think the answer is to get back out and sell themselves.

Beyond this, sales managers are under even more pressure from their managers, constantly being asked to update reports, join conference calls, review their people. Leaving very little time, even if they had the desire, to do coaching.

However all is not lost. If you look towards Stephen Covey and his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Habit 3: Put First Things First. The most important lesson is balancing those “Urgent” (reactive) activities with the “Important” (Strategic) activities. By focussing on the Important activities you will discover that the number of Urgent activities reduce as you are in control of your strategy. If you want to know more look at http://www.sales-accredit.com/docs/urgent-vs-important.pdf which is Accredit’s take on this

So why is this an opportunity
As many of the commentators are constantly pointing out, even in a recession some companies flourish. This is because they take advantage of the chaos to stand out from the crowd. This is where the opportunity lies.

Out sell your competitors
If your competitors internal sales engine is not functioning properly, then think what impact it has on prospects who want to solve a problem. The prospects do not care about sales peoples internal issues, they will buy from whoever addresses their need and makes it easy to buy. This could be you!

To take advantage of this opportunity you must ensure you are not making the same mistakes as your competitors:

• Sort out your measurements - measure the right things and be accurate with your measurements
• Have a clear focus - know your message, practice the delivery of the message, monitor the effective delivery of the message. Most important of all “Listen to your customers
• Get your sales managers to manage. You know that 80% of your sales comes from 20% of your people. Make those 20% even better and drag the next 20% into that group, imagine what that will do to your sales.

Use your client internal management challenges as a trigger for a sale
The headless chicken syndrome is not just apparent in sales; it is prevalent across a wide variety of organisations. This is an opportunity as associated with the chaos will be frustrations, and these frustrations are the emotional triggers that lead to need, which lead to sales.


From a selling perspective we should understand our clients and prospects internal pressures and identify what are “Red” emotional hot buttons which will stop decisions and “Green” emotional hot buttons which will enable decision making. If you want to know more about this you can see/hear a 25 minute presentation at http://www.esquaredm.com/newcontentdemo.asp