Invest in Your Managers by Jack Cullen and Len D'Innocenzo Invest in Your Front-line Sales & Customer Service Managers - It's Less Costly Than Not Investing In Them and Smarter for Business. We have a sign in the office that says: You Can't Fix Dumb! In the sixteen years that we've worked with Sales and Customer Service organizations one fact remains true. Front-line Sales & Customer Service Managers can make or break any organization. Everyone would agree with that. Interestingly though, recent research by the Gallup Organization points out that "businesses frequently and significantly undervalue or misunderstand the key role that front-line managers play in driving productivity and in building a sustainable business model." Now that is dumb!

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It may help explain why so many sales and customer service organizations operate below their potential. Their companies don't invest in their front-line management team-the very same individuals that are responsible for the majority of client/customer interactions. The irony is that virtually every executive we speak with agrees they need to invest in their managers. However the reality is that all too often, training focuses on products and services and not on the skills people need to use every day. One senior manager even told us "If we have to train our people on those kind of skills, we're hiring the wrong people." Really?

Perhaps, but as everybody knows, professional sports teams and theatrical companies regularly practice the fundamentals of their professions so they can perform at the highest level. This is true for individual contributors and it is even more important for the management team. To the executive that said, "If we have to train our people on those kind of skills, we're hiring the wrong people" frankly, maybe you are hiring the wrong people. Many companies neglect to provide solid skill training in interviewing practices to new managers - another dumb mistake.

Most companies provide extensive product training to new hires in sales and customer service. We've trained thousands of sales and customer service people in the important areas of developing strong customer relationships, prospecting for new accounts, making add-on sales to existing customers, handing objections and complaints, territory and time management and negotiations. And our smartest, and most successful clients know the importance of investing in training their newly promoted supervisors and managers and developing the coaching and counseling skills of their experienced managers and executives.

In many companies the rookie manager is expected to make the transition from sales or customer service rep to supervisor or manager overnight. All to often, the only training they receive is on policies and procedures and how to process paperwork. That's dumb.

Where are these people supposed to learn how to develop and coach their people? Or even how to hire the RIGHT people? The truth is great salespeople don't necessarily make great managers. The same is true for people in customer service or call centers.

Promoting a top performer to a front-line supervisor or manager role is great for morale. However not providing that person with the skills they need to be successful is not just short sighted - it can be disastrous. Just like in sports or any other profession, a top player doesn't always make the best manager.

Why? Different skill sets are required. Just because a person has mastered one skill set - doesn't mean they know the other. Training your front-line managers and supervisors is the best investment a company can make. It pays many dividends and the ROI is easily measured with increased performance and operating results. Not investing in training them is also easy to measure and far more costly in the long run.

The extra time spent learning the job on their own, will produce frustration and lower than anticipated results. And when they move the new manager into the position where the previous manager was not doing a good job, they not only lose a good individual contributor, they also set the stage for another failure. Sadly, it is highly likely that many other people reporting to the new manager will also be negatively impacted and overall performance and productivity will spiral downward. It can be as depilating as the most deadly disease and spread if not treated.

Don't senior executives know why their managers fail? It's rarely because they weren't right for the job. All to often it's because they didn't receive preventative treatment - the coaching, support and training they needed to be successful. That is really dumb.

Fortunately, these problems are fixable, and the solutions can provide a rapid improvement in organizational effectiveness. Here are Five Basic Principles for Effective Management. It's how you can avoid the cycle of management failure and create a success system that will keep you on top. It's not theory - it's based on our careers as sales executives and our work with many sales and customer service organizations over the past sixteen years.

Principle # 1 - Managers Make a Difference
The overall effectiveness of a sales or customer service organization is directly related to the effectiveness of its front-line supervisors and managers. The time you invest training these people will reduce turnover, increase productivity, and build a strong base of satisfied and repeat customers that can be leveraged into opening new accounts. That will produce higher profits. Investing in training your front-line supervisors and managers is smart business.

Principle # 2 - Managers Lift The Entire Organization
If you're not investing in your front-line supervisors and managers, how can you improve the quality of your sales and customer service people? Training the individual performers alone will fail. We've seen it time and time again. Clients will train their individual contributors and either don't include the supervisors or managers or don't train the managers on what to do afterwards. Our smartest clients train the entire team.

Principle # 3 - Effective Training is a Process, Not an Event
Any engineer will tell you that an effective process requires training, supervision, quality control and reinforcement. This is particularly true for sales & customer service organizations trying to increase their production and effectiveness. They require skills training. When the training is delivered as a one-time event (like at the annual meeting) it doesn't last. People are left to go their own way. They quickly fall back into their old bad habits or unproductive activities. Events certainly can be fun - but don't confuse them with training. Implementing best practices is a process that requires time and effort. Our smartest clients reinforce this process with their front-line supervisors and managers.

Principle # 4 - Effective Managers Coach All Their People All the Time
We have seen huge improvements in the effectiveness of sales and customer service organizations when managers are trained to coach their people all the time - not just when things are not going well. It's usually too late then. The most effective managers know how to set goals & expectations, create the right emotional climate for their people, conduct performance reviews offering praise as well as constructive criticism, and listen to their people. Too many senior managers are unaware of how paying attention to these issues actually drives results. Our smartest clients know the importance of coaching all their people all the time.

Principle # 5 - Practice Manager Fundamentals Consistently
Keep investing in the training and development of your front-line supervisors and managers. Practice the fundamentals of good management consistently and constantly. If you develop your frontline sales and customer service management team, it's likely they will be focused on developing their people and driving your business. Strong leadership examples begin at the top of any organization. That's smart!

That's why we believe: managers make the difference! Remember that good managers are not magicians or miracle workers. They don't have a bag of magic pixie dust to sprinkle on their people. Your sales and customer service teams needs both great coaches (front-line supervisors and managers) and great players. It's impossible to hire all the great supervisors and managers you'll need from the outside. You need to develop them as coaches internally. And they in turn will help will develop their people - the people that touch your clients and customers.

If you want to improve the quality and production of your sales and customer service organizations, start by improving the quality of your front-line supervisors and managers. Provide them the tools to be successful. Not to do so would indeed be dumb! It is also costly. As our sign says - you can't fix dumb!

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About Jack Cullen - A co-founder of CRKInteractive, Jack Cullen also has over twenty years of senior sales and administrative management experience. He was Vice President of Sales for Okidata Corporation and Zenith Data Systems prior to starting in the sales training business. Jack adds his real world experiences and extensive training expertise to each and every CRKInteractive course.

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About CRKInteractive, Inc. - CRKInteractive is devoted to helping its clients realize employee potential through tailored learning experiences. CRKInteractive offers diverse training courses and professional services for companies that want to dramatically improve productivity, customer satisfaction and employee retention.

Our curriculum focuses on these critical skill areas designed for business:

• Sales Skills
• Customer Service Skills
• Leadership Skills

Our Professional Services group specializes in website and course development for online corporate learning.

We deliver our curricula via flexible delivery formats, including traditional classroom; live instructor-led training over the Internet or corporate Intranet; and self-paced Web-based courses. For more information please contact us at (978) 474-8657 or visit us on the web at www.crkinteractive.com.