I recently got a call from a female sales professional. She had been working for her sales manager for 7 weeks. I had a meeting scheduled with her male sales manager. She was calling to reschedule the appointment for him.
Why was she calling when my appointment was with her manager? Her manager asked her to.
It seemed odd to me that she was asked to do this. I thought it was a big mistake that she didn’t say something to her manager about her being asked to do his menial work. It’s one thing to offer to do something to help someone else. This was not the case.
She was being shown that her time wasn’t valuable or at least not as valuable as her sales manager’s time. Either way, he showed a lack of respect for her. She can certainly expect more of his poor behavior since she allowed it. She should have said something to him.
What she should have said was, “Why do you need me to reschedule your appointments?” I would have loved to hear the answer to that question.
I’ve often said that a salesperson’s most important customer is one’s sales manager. The reason why one’s manager is so important is that your sales manager can either remove obstacles from your sales process or put a lot of obstacles in your path. One of the biggest obstacles is a sales manager who doesn’t respect your time or you. When that happens you’re going to get a whole lot of busy work that takes away from your valuable selling time.
One of my biggest mistakes in my sales career was not addressing a manager who early on demonstrated a lack of respect for his sales team. No one called him on it. It got so bad that I finally had to speak up. But that was eight months later and we were all at the mercy of his bad behavior for eight long months.
If you don’t manage your manager you make yourself vulnerable to more needless obstructions in your sales process. Men and women both need to manage their manager so they can sell more.
Best wishes for your successful selling!
