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Who it is and what it takes |
 Sorry, I can’t give you a name. Unlike Joe Girard who was called the Best Salesman in the World by the Guinness Book of World Records, I’m not familiar with one individual who has been called the Best Sales Manager in the World. That doesn’t mean he or she isn’t out there. It simply means their performance is harder to measure.
In sports, coaches are usually considered great when they take more than one team to a championship. Or they can be considered great if they win several championships with the same team. The key in every case is that the coach is able to get the best possible performance out of every individual. The question is how do they do it?
No question coaching requires administration. A coach needs to make out rosters and practice schedules. And they determine the strategy for every game depending on the circumstances. But other than planning strategy, a coach spends most of their time evaluating performance and instructing on improvement, whether it’s individual skills or plays (processes).
Unfortunately the majority of dealership sales managers spend most of their time dealing with administration and not with evaluating performance. Dealer trades, inventory ordering, heat sheet meetings and other “duties” occupy their time.
Coaches have assistants who handle administrative duties. They ensure the equipment has arrived, the food is ordered and they handle all the other details that are not specifically related to the player’s performance. So why don’t sales managers do the same thing?
You could argue that they don’t have the budget to hire additional staff. But I would argue you have plenty of staff in the dealership that can do the job if they were empowered to do it. Take a walk some day and see how many of your team is standing around waiting for something to happen. Does your receptionist play computer games between phone calls? How about your finance consultants? Or maybe sales consultants who want to learn more about the business. Hand some duties off to them.
If you’re not spending most of your time evaluating things like demonstration ratio’s, closing percentages, outbound phone calls made, and coaching your salespeople toward improvement in the process of selling, you’ll never be as effective as you can be. The best Sales Managers focus on coaching more, and managing less.
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shawn.ryder@autouniversity.com© 2008 Auto University - A Division of Ted Ings Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved 
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