Ok so now you have a team of sales professionals to handle.
Its now that the fun starts.
If you are new at this as a leader chances are a 100% that you will end up with conflicts in your team fairly shortly.
Why? your not yet experianced enough to get all the subtle messages that you with time will be able to pick up its a skillset that comes with the territory dont worry.
The best results when managing team conflict come from being prepared, objective and sensible! Here are 5 tips on how to effectively manage team conflict:
- Have a Team Mandate. All members of the sales team must be moving in the same direction, with the same goals and standards put this in writing and hand it out to the team feel free to update it whenever issues or questions arise and at that point in time take in the old guidelines and replace them with the new ones (the olds ones will otherwise be contradicting and adding to confusion). After presenting and explaining the mandate, give the team an opportunity to process it clearly and then contribute their thoughts. If challenged and not being willing to change the points you have made just say that you will carefully take the sellers opinions in consideration and get back to them on this and explain that your way is perhaps not the one he/ she wonts but this is the way you want it to be and hope they are ok with it (never take this where everyone will hear since it will end up with you or the seller loosing face or both.).
- Jobfit. When building a great sales team, skill and experience matter – but so do fit, chemistry and motives. You need to make sure all sales team members have the right skills and the right behavior for the job. If you are in a postion where you need to take on everyone you get to fill qoutas then do so but once again give the employees your guidelines and keep the new ones under close supervision so they will take in your ideas and accept them.
- Foster an open, honest, and professional culture. Encourage an environment of respect and fulfillment (this is self explainatiory but i will put it in here regardless. No Sextalks(includes nudity on screensavers and such), No politics, No religion period its a sure fire way to ataganis the workålace and create factions and brewing conlifcts put it in the guidlines and let it be known this will not be tolerated.). Let your sales team feel comfortable expressing themselves, sharing ideas and accepting constructive criticism make sure that they do so in a face to face meeting with you first and afterwards you can if you come to the same conclusion present the solution to the entire staff (email,phonecalls and facebook dont work for this stuff).. The more satisfied the employees, the more productive and effective they are.
- Get personal with your sales people. It’s a sales manager’s job to know where the potential for conflict is, and to prevent that conflict from impacting the team’s sales effectiveness. To do this, you need to know each sales person as best you can – their personality traits, behaviors, beliefs and their strengths and weaknesses – so you can best anticipate where problems might arise. this usually leads to having one or two people who will be your ear to ground and without them providing you with the latest going ons you will be flying blind and will eventually crash. Yes you will.
- Be quick and be sensible. Tackle the problem right away! You’re the manager – the moment you see a conflict spark, get in there and turn the tension into an opportunity for growth and team building. Don’t let workplace problems get the best of you, or your organization. When waiting to solve conflits they only get bigger. If it actually gets big (this will only happen when you relax to much so dont 🙂 ) then friday are the best day in the week to do hairy conflict solving. Why? becasue you can state the matter in no uncertian terms and the combatants will lick their wounds over the weekend and have time to cool of and mellow down. Taking it on a monday will ofc crash the hole week.
So once again be prepared when solving a conflict and try to hear both parties out (its usually 2) and try your best to mediate in an objective and sensible way.
Related articles
- Teams Are The Foundations Of The Most Organization Today, Yet They Can Be Also Be Plagued By A Consistent Set Of Problems (thinkingbookworm.typepad.com)
- Covert Conflict in the Workplace (irialofarrell.wordpress.com)
- 3 Reasons Why Generational Conflict Is Coming To Your Office (businessinsider.com)
- Team Conflict? As Long as It’s Not Personal, Run With It (artpetty.com)
- Seven keys to successful sales management (customerthink.com)
- You Can PLAY … But Can You Coach? 5 Traits of a Great Sales Leader (vistage.com)
- The Sales Manager’s Dilemma (frontofficebox.com)