HELPING TO FAIL

How much can you help someone before your help becomes a crutch?

This is the question that came up while I was talking to a friend of mine who manages sales reps. She was telling me about how much she did for her reps. It seemed to me that other than actually making the sales she did just about everything else for them. She filled out paperwork, entered information into their CRM, followed up with customers after the sale including sending out thank you notes from the sales reps and helped the reps make their collection calls.

I was exhausted just listening to everything she did for her...are you ready… 14 sales reps.

I know this manager very well, she used to work for me when I owned my business, as a matter of fact I was her first boss and I groomed her to be a sales manager. I can assure you that I never taught her to become a reps bookkeeper, secretary, and agent.

As we talked things got worse, she told me that she went on sales calls with her reps and at least 60% of all the sales were actually sales she made for the reps. Now I figure if she is stretching the truth by half she is still making 30% of the sales and that is absurd.

I asked her if she felt she was helping the reps by doing all this for them and she told me that it was the exact opposite. She said that she has the highest failure rate and turnover because her reps can’t do the job on their own without her help.

I told her point blank that what she was doing was insane. Especially if she knew that it was hurting the reps. I told her that she wasn’t doing it for them, she was doing it for herself. She admitted to me that she knew what I was saying was true.

As a sales manager we often want to help our reps, but we need to understand that the biggest help we can be is to help them become self reliant. By doing what a sales manager should do, and that is make sure the reps has everything they need to do their job and remove as many obstacles as possible we become better managers and develop better reps.

As sales reps we need to understand that by doing things ourselves we become independent. By being able to successfully accomplish every step in the sales process that relates to our company and product we become more valuable to our customers and company.

Don’t be the manager that creates failures and don’t be the rep that fails because of the “HELP” you accept. We all have our jobs and the role our job plays within the company solidifies our position.

Lorin