Experienced managers and supervisors in sales departments know the value of “walking the floor.” By being among teams, in the thick of it during outreach campaigns or on the ground after a product update, experienced ears pick up on the nuances of live conversations. Are team members using the materials they’ve been given? Is the training the staff have received making a positive impact? Who’s faltering, and what techniques are the best-performing salespeople using?
Great managers can distil their experiences into actions, propping up employees who fall behind, giving encouragement or advice where needed, and stopping poor practice before it all goes south.
If your company is lucky enough to have plenty of talented managers and team leaders who have the innate ability to run frontline sales or customer success outfits, our advice is to hang on to them! But even your most talented managers only have so much time and capacity, not to mention the added challenge of hybrid or fully remote working environments. Meanwhile, Forrester research shows that a mere 23% of a rep’s time is spent in the most productive way — actually selling! So there’s a pressing need in every company to ensure that sales professionals spend time on value-add activities, such as developing sales pipeline, talking to prospects, and closing deals.