Building a Winning Sales Management Team: The Force Behind the Sales Force

by Andris A. Zoltners, Prabhakant Sinha, Sally E. Lorimer

First-line sales managers (FLMs) play a key role in helping a sales organization drive profitable revenue growth in an ever-changing business environment. But although directly responsible for managing and driving sales force performance, FLMs often don’t get enough time, attention, and resources from sales leaders. “Building a Winning Sales Management Team” shows just how important FLMs are to sales organizations―and what happens when companies underinvest in these key players. Authors of four previous books on sales management, Zoltners, Sinha and Lorimer show in “Building a Winning Sales Management Team” just how companies can nurture successful FLMs and improve sales force productivity. The book has dozens of real-life examples of how investing in first-line management paid off in a big way. In developing the book, the authors collaborated with leaders from some of the world’s top companies. The authors also draw on their cumulative experience as sales and marketing consultants, faculty members at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, and business speakers and writers to produce fresh, completely original insights on sales force effectiveness. “Building a Winning Sales Management Team” shows in detail exactly how companies can improve FLM performance. The authors reveal eight key drivers for defining, creating and enabling a successful first-line sales management team, and show how FLMs are critical facilitators of change. The book also includes a self-assessment tool to help organizations determine the right priorities to start improving sales management team performance.

Genres: Business

284 pages, Hardcover

First published July 16, 2012

Reviews

[Sunny · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book i'm reading because of the line of work that i'm in. This book was all about those middle management layers in any organisation that are so pivotal to the success of the company. They act as conduits of information from the central office but also as a gauge of what's happening at the grass roots level in any organisation. This is a book about sales essentially and the focus is on the first line managers of pharmaceutical sales team’s. Here are my best bits:

With the dynamics and speed of change today it is critical that FLMs (First Line Managers) engage as change facilitators.

Change orientation is an important competency for all FLMs … we expect FLMs to develop and seek out solutions, enlist and motivate others around change and drive change programmes to successful conclusions.

There are three key roles that the FLM must play:
People manager for the people that he manages
Business manager who adapts the company strategy into local plans for his people. Customer manager who develops account plans and manages key relationships with the client.

The power of the FLM in making change happen in any company can be described in the following 2 conversations.

Conversation 1:
Salesperson 1: the new plan is unfair how can the company do his to me?
FLM 1: the world is changing and the markets aren't growing anymore. We are facing new competition and unless we drive new account growth, we will not survive long term. The people at HQ listened to my input when they created this plan. I believe that this change will help us stay competitive. It will mean some changes in the way we work, but i am committed to helping you. I know you can be successful in this new world.

Conversation 2:
Salesperson 2: the new plan is unfair how can the company do his to me?
FLM 2: i agree with you, the plan is unfair to me too. Once again HQ doesn't understand the challenges we face in the field!