The Almost Perfect Sales Management Article

The other day, I read, The Science Of Building A Scalable Sales Team, by Mark Roberge of Hubspot.  It was almost brilliant!

What resonated with me is the radical simplicity with which Mark approached (and described) building a sales team.  In a world where too many try to overcomplicate things, Mark’s article cut to the essence of building high performance sales teams.  Summarizing:

1. Hire the same successful sales person every time. (P)
2. Train new hires in a consistent measurable way. (S/T)
3. Provide our sales people with the same quality and quantity of leads each month.  (S/T)
4. Work those leads with the same process every time. (Pr)

He focuses on the essence:  People (P), Process (Pr), Systems/Tools (S/T), and on the pragmatics of making all of this happen.  Mark, also, speaks to the interrelationships and balance that must be achieved with each of these.  None exists by itself, all are necessary to drive sales performance.

It’s the almost perfect article for sales managers.  It not only spoke to the principles, but also focused on making them work and execution.

Too often, managers get distracted and tend to overcomplicate things.  We consultants and pontificators tend to, while being well intentioned, aggravate the issue.  Different approaches, nuances, deep focus on specific areas.  These all have their place, but sometimes it causes all of us to lose sight of the basics.

The basics are simple:  People, Process, Systems/Tools —  and Leadership.  Mark didn’t speak to this critical element (in fairness, he did speak to hiring for coachability.)  The one aspect Mark missed was the role of the leader/manager.  In the absence of strong leadership, continued coaching and development on the part of sales managers, none of this works or is sustainable.

This is the element that’s missed too often.  As managers, we are pretty familiar with the other elements and spend lots of time on them–perhaps to the detriment of making time to coach and develop our people.  But as managers and leaders, we can only get things done through our people.  Our highest priority is coaching and developing our people to perform both to their potential and to the highest levels possible.  Hiring the right people, putting in place great processes, providing them with systems and tools enables us to do this both at an individual and organizational level, but absent the coaching and development of the sales manager, it is impossible.

I loved the simplicity and clarity of Mark’s message.  It’s clear, implicitly, he knows importance of coaching and development–after all, one of the key hiring criteria is coachability.  The article was nearly perfect.  Leadership and coaching is critical.  Add this to Marl’s mix and you have the all you need to drive the highest levels of performance in the sales organization.