Bouncing Back from Team Performance Swings

From team morale to executive pressure and personal financial setbacks, it's all very challenging to manage.

For sales managers, dealing with team performance swings isn’t easy.

From team morale to executive pressure and personal financial setbacks, it's all very challenging to manage. Sales reps are also looking to their manager for guidance on how to navigate this crucial time.

Start with self reflection 

If your team just missed their numbers, consider the answers to these three questions: 

• What did you do well? 

• What did you NOT do well? 

• Is there anything you didn’t do at all? 

Be brutally honest with yourself, and if you're not sure, ask your direct manager for his/her honest assessment. If you can’t identify where you and your team need to take action and improve, you’ll miss your numbers again.

Get back in the trenches

I see many sales managers stepping away from the “on the ground sale” as they move into management. If you’re not co-selling with your sales reps, make that change asap and get back in the trenches with them. Join their calls to hear exactly how they are qualifying and pitching prospects to identify areas for improvement.

Many sales managers will say that is a band-aid solution and not sustainable. While this is true, your ultimate job as a sales manager is to hit your team’s numbers. Utilize these co-selling meetings to drive revenue, while also using it as an opportunity to teach. 

Mock calls can improve your sales team’s close rate 

Take notes on each real-world call and, if possible, huddle after each call for 5 minutes to discuss how it went. Add these notes to your ongoing 1:1s with each rep and conduct mock calls with specific objections in mind to let reps practice handling those objections with you. Based on your post mortem discussions, it may make sense to utilize mock calls to help your reps feel more confident with their real-world conversations. 

Sometimes, it’s possible that your reps could be intimidated with the prospect of their direct supervisor being on mock calls. Consider looping in other sales reps on the team (or counterparts in customer success) for these exercises to get an outside perspective into the room. These individuals must bring the specific hard hitting objections you’ve identified to the mock call but the point is the sales rep practicing understands it’s a safe environment for training purposes. 

There’s a time and place to invest in each person

A sales manager will tend to have 7-10 sales reps and must be thoughtful about who they invest time in - and when. Create a stack rank of your team. Who are your A, B, and C players? Write down why you put them in that order on your stack rank. If your A player and C player invite you to a discovery call at the same time/date, you should have clarity around which one to prioritize. 

If you plan to right the ship fast, you must rethink your expectations with yourself and every member of your team. In the last post on sales rep bouncing back, we cover topics like attitude, pipeline hygiene, outreach and sales discipline. All of these are critical, and over 90% of sales reps will not proactively change course for themselves. The majority of reps will rely on sales managers to take the wheel, so being prepared will ensure you’re able to quickly respond during a sales slump.

Management vs Micromanagement

I’ve seen success with different kinds of leaders and everyone ultimately has their own style. I personally believe there is a “get in the trenches” way of working closely with reps without it turning into micromanagement. Get involved by participating in calls, recommending edits on slides and getting internal hurdles out of their way, but make sure you’re not doing their job for them. The best way to guide your team to success is through true partnership. 

If you find yourself writing emails for reps and basically utilizing your sales reps as appointment setters for you to close deals then, in my opinion, you’ve gone too far. If you’re micromanaging to that degree you’re making it clear that you don’t trust the sales rep to do their job. 

Provide an example calendar block structure to sales reps as a recommendation of managing their day-to-day (Example below). This isn’t mandatory, it's a starting point for a conversation around day-to-day work. If a rep is feeling lost, this is a way to provide them with enough structure to reset themselves and have clarity around what they should be doing and when they should be doing it.

Your 1:1’s are critical. Don’t be afraid of missing something as you set expectations. Discussing these expectations is a perfect topic to add to your 1:1 to make sure you’re constantly staying on the same page. If you haven’t read it already, check out this post on holding effective 1:1s. Whether you’re speaking to your A player or C player, make each 1:1 interaction count. 

Working with your executive

Sales managers are constantly battling the challenge of middle management where they’re context switching between what the sales reps care about vs what the executives care about. There is no silver bullet to handling middle management but when you’re thinking of managing up consider what your boss’ boss is thinking about. 

It’s your responsibility to manage up. When speaking with the executive leadership team, acknowledge the miss and present your plan. Proactively ask for feedback on what you should do (or what you should change) about the game plan moving forward. Make it a collaboration and actively seek input.

Where needed include your executive to close deals or have them attend quarterly business reviews with existing clients. Have clear requests to your executive so they’re aware how they can help you move the needle.

Hitting your number will make their life easier but other elements of the business like forecasting and updated sales dashboards make the day-to-day that much easier for them as well. Spend 5 minutes of your 1:1 discussing deals that are close to the finish line as well as those that are at risk. Make this a repeatable part of your 1:1 agenda, so the executive can easily keep their finger on the pulse of your team.

Your health and your team’s health is critical 

Don’t forget to check-in on the mental health of the sales reps. Sales managers like yourself have seen more ups and downs, so you’re more accustomed to it. Making sure reps have their head in the game and are ready to move forward with a new quarter is critical.

The same applies to you as a manager. Don’t allow your next quarterly plan to be “completed” without including health and wellness goals for yourself. Here’s a link to the previous article that adds more color on this topic.