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What Do Sales Managers Do with Their Time?

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If you've been reading my Blog for a while you've probably learned  that sales managers should be spending about 85% of their time on Accountability, Coaching, Motivation, Growth and Recruiting.  We mined some of our never ending data to see what sales actually spend their time on. 

There should be a big take away for a lot of people here.  Most articles report on what sales managers spend their time on and when they find activities that are common, report those activities as the competencies that sales managers should focus on.  Just because they're doing it doesn't mean they should be doing it.  Salespeople play golf but it doesn't mean that golf leads to success in selling.

Here's what we learned and remember, this is NOT what it should be, it's what they do:

Nearly 30% of sales managers spend less than 10% on motivational activities and only 10% spend 25% or more of their time on motivation;

50% of sales managers are spending less than 5% of their time on recruiting activities and less than 1% spend more than 25% of their time on recruiting;

30% of sales managers spend less than 10% of their time on accountability and less than 5% spend more than 25% of their time on accountability;

25% of sales managers spend less than 25% of their time coaching salespeople and less than 15% spend more than 25% of their time coaching;

10% of sales managers spend more than 40% of their time selling.

Is it any wonder why more salespeople aren't over achieving?

© Copyright 2007 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Posted by Dave Kurlan on Fri, May 11, 2007 @ 10:51 PM

COMMENTS

Dave,

I'd be interested in seeing the correlation between the amount of time sales managers spend holding their people accountable in relation to their "need for approval from sales people". I'll bet there is a link there.

Sales management is not a popularity contest and I am finding too many sales managers unwilling to take on the tough task of holding their people accountable.

I'm finding their perspective on holding people accountable changes when they begin to understand the link (positive) between high activity levels and high levels of personal self esteem.

Keep "mining"!

John Hirth

posted on Monday, May 14, 2007 at 9:49 AM by John Hirth


Dave,

This is similar to what I have found in my travels. In fact, I feel they coach less often then you found as I think many managers confuse training and coaching.

Anyway, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts as to what the above percentages SHOULD BE.

Thanks,
Drew

posted on Friday, May 25, 2007 at 1:31 PM by Drew Cameron


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