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Sales is a tricky profession. Even when everything seems to be sailing smoothly, there could be underlying problems with your company’s sales leadership that need to be identified and addressed. Again, at times, there may be more gray areas than you want. Though sales leadership training can help to some extent to address these things, they don’t always provide you with the solutions.
Even when you invest in sales leadership development programs to nurture leaders from within the company, they could turn out to be not as perfect as you had imagined them to be. Since a sales team is as good as its leader, an underperforming one may indicate it’s time to bring in a new sales leader.
The present leader’s inability to answer fundamental questions about sales forecasts or future deals, or not training the sales team the right way are other red flags that indicate you need to bring in a new sales leader. However, it pays to remember that identifying a problem with your sales department is just part of the issue.
You have to pinpoint where the problems lie so you can decide if it’s possible to address them and improve the situation. Since it’s not always possible, you will have to think about making a new hiring decision to get a new sales leader on board.
If you can’t decide whether it’s time to get your company a new sales leader, here are the top three tell-tale signs that can help you make an informed decision.
1. Your Sales Team Is Underperforming
Are your sales reps investing minimal effort and doing just enough to get by? Or are they motivated and engaged in their work adequately and performing optimally? There’s a notable difference between the two, and if it’s the former, it’s a worrying sign.
But more upsetting is when your existing sales leader can’t spot the difference or is unable to coach and motivate these underperforming employees to bring them up to par with their peers. For a sales leader, it’s vital to recognise when the sales reps aren’t doing justice to their full potential and work to help them with training, resources, performance meetings, pep-talk, monitoring and screening of their sales calls, and more so they become top performers.
An outstanding sales leader will carve out time and put in the effort to do all these to improve the overall performance of the sales team. But if it isn’t done, it’s an indication for you to hire a new sales leader.
2. Your Sales Leader is Struggling to Fit
Sometimes, the problem isn’t with the team. Rather, it’s with the leader. Is your sales leader struggling to fit into the work environment or get accustomed to the prevalent corporate culture? Is the person not aligned with your business goals, and/or sales or marketing strategies?
All these are red flags that need to be addressed fast. For instance, imagine your business goal is to position your brand favourably in front of your existing and prospective customers and you want to focus on building strong relationships with them. However, your sales leader doesn’t find these goals important, or has other ideas that don’t align with your goals and plans.
Such misalignments will create more conflict and distraction as your business grows. Ultimately, things are likely to come to such a standstill that you will have to let your existing sales leader go and find a new one. It’s better to do that quicker to avoid causing disruptions to your business processes and prevent the work environment from getting adversely affected.
3. Your Sales Leader Resists Changes and Actions
Is your sales leader averse to learning or trying newer or trendier things, techniques, and tools? Is the professional no longer taking responsibility when things go wrong and pushing the blame on others? Is he/she not training the underperformers or eliminating reps who fail to perform despite training and other kind of support?
Is your sales leader no longer sticking to the processes that the person created in the first place to drive your business growth? Is the person resisting change that’s vital to your business success? Or no longer inclined to examine, learn, unlearn, and iterate on components of the sales playbook to facilitate the optimisation of sales processes?
Is assessment of sales metrics, translating insights into improvements, and collaborating with functional leaders from other departments (say, from marketing, finance, or customer service) a thing of the past? All these are indications it’s time to let your present sales leader go and hire a new one.
Final Words
Finding and hiring a good sales leader isn’t as easy as it seems. But you can always trust our experts at InHunt World to help if your own efforts don’t get you the desired results. Contact us today if you are ready to get rid of your dysfunctional sales leadership and hire a new sales leader who can help your business climb the success ladder.
This article was written by Sonali