The sales manager vs the sales rep: Who is screwing up sales?

Haidee Wepener
Aug 2, 2015
2 min read

Our sales manager appointed a new sales representative and the results presented a curious case for the company. The company (RAS) assists South African businesses on how to effectively manage financial risk and protect themselves from consumer exploitation via online access to all the major credit bureaus in Africa. The sales rep has to sign up merchants (business to business) to access credit bureaus through the company website. The rep (avoiding sexism here) has not made a single sale in two months. Who is screwing up? Both-ish. Of course the sales rep is to blame but the recruitment agency forgot to check the candidate’s qualifications (you had one job, right…).

What sales managers should do to avoid appointing the wrong sales representative

The company’s CEO (and founder) started out in sales after finishing school. Though he is not the manager of sales in his company, he landed a R100 000 contract just last week. He is a great salesperson but it is complicated for a CEO to have that title. With 30 years’ experience in sales and management, he only cared about the following questions to ask a potential sales representative during an interview:

Did you do telephone marketing before? Back in the day, this was part of every salesperson’s time “well” spent. The role of a salesperson today has severely diversified and this form of sales are not imperative to most companies. Telephone marketing annoys the people doing it and the people receiving it. This however, can indicate a person’s character in terms of determination, rejection and confidence.

Did you do cold calling before? Knocking on doors is still a thing in our industry (financial) and for our company so it’s a vital question. A sales representative of ours is definitely going to do it. A lot. In other industries this can also be an indicator of a person’s persistence.

Can you do email marketing? This is a skill that can be easily taught, however, you do not want to pay for a person to learn this. A salesperson should have this one under the belt already. Let’s not forget the importance of proper grammar and spelling in emails, do not assume someone has this trait.

Are you able to make appointments with potential clients? This is something that sales representatives should handle delicately. Throwing an appointment in the face of a potential client is taboo. We care about our brand and want our prospective clients to make an appointment willingly (and because they need us desperately, but that’s a conversation for another day). We want our sales representatives to be that good.

Are you confident in making and delivering presentations? It is also good to know an estimate of how many presentations a salesperson has compiled and presented. This will give a good indication on whether he/she has mastered the skill of presenting difficult information in an understandable and well put together way.

A tweet about the company: