Manage the sales team right

To manage a sales team in the right way, managers need to understand what motivates their teams to perform?? Not always money is the only motivation, recognition, sense of achievement and respect can be the driving force too. Money is important but not critical. To keep the teams motivated managers need to address a these issues in a right fashion. Involving employees can lead to lesser resistivity and more productivity. Involement can at times help managers also have great insights about business which can make a significant difference to business. So, involve your employeed in day-to-day developments in the organization.
Communicate with them. Make it a tow way communication process and not only a download of informations and guidelines. Use one-to-one discussions to open forums for communications. Give them a timely feedback of their performance, say every three months. Identify and communicate them thier areas of improvement. Tell them the challenges being faced by you, relating to their lower performance. Celebrate and cherish their performance. Positive reinforcement can help you in keeping them motivated and have a sense of achievement in them. Highlight specific achievments in team meetings, becareful that you concentrate only on achievements and not on the weaknesses of other team members. Don't let them feel down because of thier not achieving it. Guide them to success. Your team always looks up to you for direction and guidence. Set examples for them. Armour them. Provide them with all the basic tools to fight against challenges they face in day-to-day operations/activities. Provide nventory, marketing material, internal Support, equipment etc. so as they are not aanoyed. Managing the poor performers is a critical. Many a times managers believe, by not managing the poor performers they are avoiding potential conflict. To sit ack and wait for things to resolve on their own is not managers job. They need to address these people continuously and try identifying why they are not achieving the standards. The non-management of this workforce can lead to an unrest amongst all, as the performers are at a risk of loosing their interest. Best way to deal with this kind of people is to mitivate them to achieve. Remind them of their scores at college and how they achieved what they achieved. Pat their backs for all small intiatives and achievements. Motivate them by telling them the benefits of results. Provide them guidelines and feedbacks, state the desired changes. And at last warn them of the consequences of not achieving upto the standards.

Resilient vs. Resistant Managers

Its an old saying "the only constant thing on earth is change". Being adaptive to the continual change in life and working environment is necessary. To be adaptive to change, one needs to increase his/ her understading of the subject matter. Successful managers are not resistant to change rather, they try to absorb the effect of change and reflect the forseen effects in a clear and undersandable manner.

The managers to be successful need to be innovative and creative. To control a workgroup a manager needs to be decisive, involved and positive. Continuous and clear conversation and continuous improvement are the keys to success of a workgroup. Suggestions from workers should be welcomed. These sugesstions can help a manager in building an understanding of their problems/ challenges they face. Which would lead to a better addressal of these isues.

It is like leading by examples. If the managers need to show their commitment to change and not only say it. They need to form a team of multifunctional/ multiskilled people and break the barriers and put the right people to the right place. Celebrate the success publicly and recognize th talent. This would keep management and workers engaged with their tasks and help in completing the project not only efficiently but more productively. Managers first need to recognize the need of change and then act accordingly. They need to understand the various factors before asking their teams to change. This may include the costing impact and changing demands of organizational structure. They need to first analyze whether the workforce has a desire and adaptability to change or not. If they realize that the workers are resistant to change may be because of fear of change which is most common a fator that can hinder the change process, they need to forecast the outcomes and communicate these outcomes in a clear maaner to their workers. Explain the purpose of change. Communicate with workers and make them realize or understand the benfits of change. Invite all for an open Town Hall meeting and address thier worries and challenges.

Continued efforts from managers towards change will promote the acceptence amongst workers, provide them with a secure feeling in their jobs, provide them with a purpose to accomlish a job and motivate them to perform. This way workers will become resilient to change and not resistant.