As a manager, if you constantly need to ask for updates from your sales team, and chase them for follow-ups, are you actually driving performance or micromanaging them?
On one hand, accountability creates a sense of ownership. On the contrary, micromanagement creates dependency. So, rather than watching every move of your team, let them own the journey.
1. Set clear expectations
A sales team can only be held accountable for their actions when expectations are clear. Managers may think that their team is clear about the ask while the salesperson may be working on something entirely different. For eg. Improving conversation may mean better opportunities or follow-up can indicate an email for one person and a client discussion for another.
Managers should be clear about:
The end goal: What are we trying to achieve?
The deadline: By when do we need this?
The benchmark: What does success look like?
The priorities: What matters the most?
The escalation matrix: When should they involve the management?
Thus, set the expectations clearly and allow salespeople to work independently.
2. Track results over activity
Being busy is not same as making progress. A manager sees that a salesperson makes 40 calls in a day, send regular follows-ups, and attended multiple customer discussions during last two weeks. However, the pipeline reviews depict a different picture. The deals are not getting closed and the calls are not reaching the right target audience.
The problem here is a lack of meaningful progress. Accountability shouldn’t just focus on “What did you do?” but “What did you achieve because of it?”
Focusing on results rather than activity can actually help in moving the needle.
Suggested Read – Beyond the Sales Funnel: Why Revenue Infrastructure Is Becoming the Next Competitive Advantage
3. Check in regularly but don’t chase
When a key deal is at risk, managers need to take the charge. However, there is a difference between supporting the salesperson and taking away their ownership. The goal is not to provide an answer immediately, but managers can ask below-mentioned questions to help salespeople sail through difficult situations:
What are the blockers?
What actions have you taken so far?
What is the customer’s main concern?
What are the next steps?
It’s important to note that managers need not stay away completely from every deal and rather step-in when their support actually makes a difference.
4. Trust the CRM
A lack of visibility often leads to micromanagement. When the pipeline information is spread across mails, chats & spreadsheets, the problem becomes even more bigger. CRM helps managers keep up to date without repeated follow-ups.However, instead of becoming an administrative burden, CRM should act as a single source of truth making it easier for salespeople to manage opportunities while keeping managers informed.
The objective is: better visibility, less chasing and more ownership.
Quick Read – 9 Biggest Sales Objections and How High Performers Handle Them
5. Ownership comes with accountability
An unmet target doesn’t always tell the full story.
Instead of asking “Did you hit the monthly target?” managers should ask “Did you take the right steps to improve the result?”.
Consider two sales professionals in the same team who missed their target. One had fruitful client conversations and built strong customer relationships, but still a few customers didn’t come back with their decision. The other had various customer discussions but rarely followed up with them on the next steps.
The goal is to hold people accountable for actions which are under their control rather than blaming them for things beyond their control.
6. Accountability is a two-way street
Accountability always works best when it goes both ways. Managers should understand the obstacles that may be holding back their team’s performance.
For instance, some client conversations are not progressing. The manager asks “Why are the prospects not answering?” The sales person explains that while some of the deals in pipeline are waiting for budget approval, others cannot progress until our internal compliance team provides the relevant information. The conversation could have easily ended with “You need to keep following up, and what have you tried till now.”
When sales professionals feel comfortable in flagging the challenges without a fear of blame, problems are likely to get resolved early rather than becoming last minute surprises.
Finally, when managers provide clarity and set the direction, they start driving performance
