by Susanne Conrad
Following on to the last topic, virtually every one of my clients is focused on re-developing their sales people to be business managers. The benefits to companies is pretty clear - better bottom line results. I often hear, "Our customers want sales people to be business managers with the skills, abilities and knowledge to grow our business and theirs."
A fine concept! But putting this into practice is difficult. The first thing that comes to mind is how we define a "business manager" as opposed to a "sales person." The definition is of critical importance for those of us in L&D: we need to build a curriculum aimed at developing these people, so we need to know what the end result - the "business manager"- looks like.
We need to have very precise conversations with sales management about the skills, abilities and knowledge they believe are necessary. This conversation needs to be well-planned to draw out the information we need at a tactical level - a strategic, general statement of "we want business managers" is good directionally, but we need to know what sales management wants that's different from what they have now.
Here are a few of the key questions that need to be answered:
- What specific results/measures does sales management want to see that are different from what they currently get?
- Are the goals/objectives different for business managers vs. sales people? If so, how?
- What is the difference in the role of the business manager vs. a sales person?
- What specific things would a business manager do/do differently from a sales person?
- Do business managers have different responsibilities? Do they have different authority?
- What do they need to know that is currently lacking?
- What skills and abilities will allow them to get the different results desired? Do they have them? if not, what are the gaps?
THE QUESTION FOR YOU
What else would you include in a conversation with sales management aimed at defining a "business manager"?
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