[bctt tweet=”Get rid of the message in your head that micromanaging and nagging are the same thing.” username=”EngageColleen”]
Replace any notions you have with the concept that micromanaging and holding people accountable are the same thing. Recently, I’ve been working with two companies. These are fast-growing startup companies that have a great foothold in the market and are ready to take off. However, their sales have fallen behind all of a sudden and both sales VPs are at risk of being fired. Why? Because when the owners of the business look at the numbers and ask questions, the managers and the VPs don’t have answers since they didn’t realize they were behind and believed that a hands-off approach was best.
Micromanaging is what gets results. What I mean by micromanaging is having a detailed understanding of all of the data you collect. This includes your team’s strengths and weaknesses, any gaps you may have and where they are, and what your forecast is. You should know what team members will bring in what deals and you should be coaching them on a regular basis.
If you think about top players in sports, those players are overcoached. When those top players are on their game, the team soars. It’s exactly the same concept for your sales team. When you are intimate with all aspects of your best players’ portfolio, you can help that player soar. When you bring up your A-players, you bring up everybody underneath them and that’s when you create a nonstop sales boom.
Micromanaging the sales process, and micromanaging the sales person are two different things. Outcomes are influenced by behaviors so if you micromanage the process of determining the goals, acting upon verifiable outcomes, making decisions based on data, and owning the sales process, the behaviors of the sales person are less judgmental and more process/skills oriented. You are helping them own the success process as a leader instead of nagging them into results.
Exactly AND if you are micromanaging the process you don’t have to micromanage the person! The trouble is that too many managers don’t manage the process tightly enough and then end up having to micromanage people – which is interpreted as nagging.