Bank Sales Corner

Resolutions for Retail Sales Managers: Feedback from Branch Managers

  

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Humorist Andy Borowitz doesn’t believe in making New Year’s resolutions for himself, but he does like to propose them for others. “I find that when you propose resolutions for other people you experience none of the nagging guilt or failure that comes when you don’t live up to your own.”

I asked a group of Branch Managers what resolutions they would make for their Sales Managers.  Now this is easier for a consultant to do than it may be for Sales Leaders, but eliciting “feedforward” (a word that consultant Marshall Goldsmith coined) could be valuable to almost everybody. Instead of asking your team for feedback on your leadership, you could see what ideas people might have about improving something going forward.

Here’s an example. If you’re getting bored just thinking about your weekly sales meetings—which is a clear sign that you should change them somehow—you could say the following: “I’m thinking of changing (not cancelling—these meetings are important!) our Monday morning meetings. I’d be interested in your ideas about what changes you’d recommend going forward to make them more useful to you.”

Here’s how the Branch Managers responded to the question of what their Sales Managers could do differently in 2011:

• Do weekly coaching
• Make more joint calls
• Give honest, supportive, critical feedback (but don’t always pick out the bad things)
• Provide more market data
• Review our call plans
• Provide practical examples, tips, how tos
• Discuss best practices of other Branch Managers
• Recognize good performance
• Consolidate reports to save time
• Review lost opportunities
• Observe more sales calls and give me feedback on my approach
• Eliminate or shorten conference calls

There’s nothing surprising in this list—particularly if you believe as I do that (a) Branch Managers want to do a good job; (b) they are hungry for how tos; and (c) the best way to deliver that coaching is 1 on 1.

So whether you’ve made any resolutions for yourself or not, see what ideas your team might offer up for you to do differently in 2011.

If you’re interested in more insights on this topic, check out our recorded webinar “Small Business Leadership: Tactics for Coaching Branch Managers.”

You can register for the recorded webinar three ways: (1) Call Whit Midkiff at 727-741-0766 or (2) email him at wmidkiff@mzbierlyconsulting.com  or (3) go to the recorded webinars section of our WebEx website at https://mzbierlyconsulting.webex.com and pay the $225 fee (per line, not per person) by credit card.