By Roger Billings

'As a newly appointed sales manager, your main challenge is to display leadership and build a successful sales team,' says Roger Billings, founder of Roger Billings and Associates and a regular speaker with Canadian Management Centre. 'There is little time to make the transition to management. The manager's job is to develop people and leave them stronger!' Here he provides 10 top tips to help any newly appointed sales manager do just that.

1. Leadership:
Create a compelling vision for the sales team in order to generate enthusiasm and help people focus their energies. Do this by keeping abreast of developments in your industry, in the markets you serve and in your company. Also, develop your sources of reconnaissance.

2. Goal setting:
Know your company's strategic and business objectives and align your team's goals with these. Interview your boss in order to identify key performance indicators that must be achieved and share this information with your team. Provide your boss with regular updates and highlights of your team's progress, thus avoiding surprises. Ensure that you reinforce their decision to appoint you as manager. Set individual goals for each member of your team that reflect the key performance indicators. In this way, people will focus on the right goals.

3. Sales planning:
Know where you are in each step of the sales process and with each of your customers. Use a visual tracking system that enables sales people to monitor this information. In this way, salespeople can adapt their selling strategies to the customer's decision-making criteria at each point along the selling cycle. The sales planning process can also provide a forum for teaching, as the more experienced people will be able to demonstrate their selling skills to others. When they do, give them recognition so that they become positive role models for others.

4. Recruitment and hiring:
Determine what you are looking for in an ideal candidate and develop a description of the desired abilities, attributes, skills and competencies. Consider using an in-basket or case study exercise as part of the selection process so that candidates develop an appreciation for some of the situations they might encounter on the job. This will also give you a better sense of how they will handle such situations. Finally, establish an orientation for new sales people that includes opportunities to meet with senior managers and employees from other departments with whom they will be working.

5. Mini performance appraisals:
It makes little sense to wait for the annual performance appraisal, as by this time 'mole hills may have become mountains'. Conduct monthly mini performance appraisals so that the sales force can continually enhance their performance through clear and immediate feedback.

6. Utilise behaviour profiles:
Study the behavioural profiles of yourself and your sales people. Find out what people like to do and utilise their expertise. Show your sales people how to use their understanding of behavioural profiles to sell more effectively.

7. Coaching:
Always remember that people like to know where they stand; no news is not good news. Coaching is one of the most important aspects of developing sales people. Commit to holding weekly coaching sessions with each of your sales people, even those with experience. Pick out a specific skill to focus on each time and ask the sales person to demonstrate that skill, perhaps via a roleplay. Provide feedback on what they can do to be even more effective, but most of all, keep the sessions short.

8. Motivation:
Find out the one thing that is most important to each member of your sales force and help them satisfy this need. Demonstrate that you are working for them and supporting their goals and are aware of their desire for job satisfaction. Keep your word; be genuine, authentic and honest. Let people know they can count on you whilst always remembering that not everyone will generate the same success therefore be sure to reinforce and reward effort.

9. Use a Socratic approach:
Knowledge generates power and you can obtain much more knowledge by listening than by talking! Therefore, use the 'discovery questioning' technique with the sales force, allowing them to talk through customer situations and explore different ways of handling them. Get your team to tell you what the key issues are, what obstacles exist, how they will proceed, how success will be measured, and why a particular approach will work. In this way, they will develop greater depth and breadth of analysis, whilst giving you a better feel for how they will behave on their own.

10. Be yourself:
Remember that the term 'manager' is simply a job title: it is not who you are. Get to know each member of your team and allow him or her to get to know you. Be a credible role model and strive for consistency, as it is you, via your actions, who sets the tone for your team. Also remember you are a sales manager, therefore stay close to your customer and be highly visible in the field. Observe what customers value in your sales people and help your team deliver.

One last tip... prepare a succession plan for your position because if you apply the above ideas you may be moving on to new responsibilities!