5 Things Sales Reps Need To Know About Their Manager
Over the last month I’ve had the pleasure of leading a team of AG employees focused on figuring out better ways to motivate the folks who we have making dials. Although we feel that we’re in a good place as an organization, we recognize that we can never be complacent. Ultimately, being a services company, our most precious asset is our people and at the end of the day we need to take care of the people that make us go.
The goal of the group, as my president put it, is “not to be cheer leaders, but to analyze and improve weekly our most important asset...our culture”.
I can’t say enough about the team that we’ve assembled. They’ve really helped open my eyes to what matters most to our frontline employees. Not to say that I was blind to what my team wanted, but as managers, we can easily get caught up running our operation and tend not to focus on what truly motivates our people.
Over the years, the best work cultures that I have been a part of have made one thing abundantly clear to me; that I matter to them as an employee. This got me to thinking about what a team needs to know and what they should expect from a good manager.
Here are 5 things that I believe your employees need to know:
1) They need to know that you have their back - Nothing de-motivates more than a boss that doesn’t stick their neck out for their people. We’re in this together aren’t we?
2) They need to know that you’re in the trenches with them fighting the good fight - There is nothing worse than a boss that commands the team from behind a desk. Get out of your office! Take some time to sit in their space and listen to calls while offering up some collective strategies.
3) They need to know that they can come to you - When in your office, they need to know that when they have questions, you’re available to answer and help out in any way you can.
4) They need to know that their opinion is heard - Opinions on scripts, call plans, employee motivation, retention and development are all areas where they provide valuable insight. Listen to them! After all, these are areas that affect your employees each and every day and they can offer up something that you’ve never even thought of.
5) They need to know that there is a job to be done - Now that you’ve shown them how much they matter to you, it’s time they reciprocate. They get paid to do a job, right? Let’s hope you provided them sufficient motivation to make it happen for the organization.
We all want to get the most we can out of our employees, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be in their face at all times telling them what YOU want. Think of the 5 areas above as subtle ways of managing your team…. but in this case, everyone feels they’re getting something out of it.