If you’ve read Cracking the Sales Management Code, or follow my writing, you know that sales managers can only truly control one thing: The activities of their salespeople and themselves.

Sales managers can’t control business results like revenue growth, because many things influence that. And they can’t directly control sales objectives like new customer acquisition, because customers have to agree to be acquired. All sales managers can do is direct sales activities like the volume of prospecting calls their salespeople make, which can influence new customer acquisition, which can lead to revenue growth. Sales activities influence sales objectives which yield business results. That’s how our research revealed that it works.

My company recently conducted a sales manager training program for a large global company, and we were discussing this reality: You just can’t manage revenue, no matter how hard you try. Instead you have to make sure that your sellers are doing the right things, then the customers and revenue will follow. And suddenly a hand went up. In fact, it was the hand of a very well-respected sales manager. Unprovoked, the sales manager announced, “I have to admit how terribly embarrassed I am right now.” Everyone turned to listen.

“I have been a sales manager for seven years, and during that time, I’ve hired dozens of salespeople. And on their first day of work, every single one of them asked me some form of the following question: ‘What do you expect me to do?’ And my answer to every single one of them has always been: I expect you to make your number.” There was a brief pause in the room while everyone was unquestionably asking themselves why he was embarrassed to have said that. They had said it too.

The sales manager continued, “I am just now realizing that was the stupidest thing I could have told those poor salespeople. They had just been hired as a salesperson in our organization. And they were given a quota. And their compensation was tied to that quota. They didn’t need me to tell them that I expected them to make their number… That’s probably the only thing that they already knew with certainty. What they were really asking me was: ‘What do you expect me to DO?’ And I didn’t give any of them a very useful answer.”

That sales manager wasn’t the only person in the room who used the popular refrain, "I expect you to make your number." Every one of the sales managers in that room was replaying in their heads that very same conversations with dozens of their own salespeople. They too had given useless advice to freshmen sellers who just wanted to know what they should do. What an unsettling walk down memory lane.

So the next time you hire a new salesperson or the next time you have that hard conversation with a seller who is failing, don’t tell them what they already know. They know you expect them to hit their number. Instead, take the time to help them decide what they actually need to do. I promise you they will appreciate it… And you just might get that number.

Click here to learn how I helped that sales manager determine what his sellers needed to do. See more at vantagepointperformance.com.

About the Author

Jason Jordan is author of the Amazon.com best-seller Cracking the Sales Management Code and a partner at Vantage Point Performance, the leading sales management training company in the world.  He helps sales leadership teams improve sales performance by implementing management best practices revealed in his groundbreaking research. Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonRJordan.

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