Have you ever felt that your team members are not committed to your latest sales initiative? Maybe you sense their lack of trust or confidence in you. You’re not alone. While rarely discussed openly, these are common insecurities for many sales managers and team leaders. Business and the workplace are constantly changing, so sales leaders need to adapt to these changes through continual development as a manager. Additionally, it’s important they ensure they are aware of the triggers that could lead to their sales teams losing confidence in their leadership.
Why Should Trust be a Priority?
As a sales manager, there are surely hundreds of concerns that need to be prioritised. However, trust should be at the forefront of them all. This is crucial, because a loss of confidence from your team can ultimately impact business outcomes, employee engagement, and potentially retention. According to the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer, employees who trust their employers are far more likely to stay loyal to their employer and be strongly committed to their jobs and the customers they serve. It is clear that treating employees with respect and dignity should be the highest priority, so why is it so difficult for sales management to win over their team’s trust? Let’s explore the top five reasons that sales colleagues lose trust in their managers and how to prevent this loss in confidence.
1. Lack of Support and Communication
Without the right engagement, transparency and honesty, a sales manager will not be able to appreciate and address their team’s concerns. As soon as healthy communication is lost, trust goes along with it. Team members who don’t have a leader communicating with them about the direction of their team and their individual progress will certainly lose trust. It can be easy for managers to get caught up in focusing on sales results and forget to communicate their feedback and future vision with their team.
Solution
Employees care about having open channels of communication with their leaders, so creating a healthy environment where honest conversations can take place is essential to gaining trust. Communication includes everything from team vision casting to individual confrontations. Every team member must know their line manager has their back and is invested in their career and long-term development.
They need to know that it’s not just about the short-term, day-to-day objectives for their manager. This involves the manager understanding and discussing individual team member’s motivations. Most importantly, they’re ensuring there is adequate opportunity for providing them constructive feedback and recognising their training and development needs.
2. “Do as I Say, Not as I Do” Culture
Managers must lead by example. When they don’t, trust and respect erode, with questions raised over their ability to do the job and provide strategic direction. When a sales manager gives orders that they wouldn’t or haven’t done themselves, team members are less likely to follow their leadership. Once doubt and discontent set in, there is a ripple effect whereby everything is challenged.
Solution
The best leader is one who leads by example, becoming a role model for their team members to look up to and follow. If you’re sensing resentment or hesitation from your sales representatives in following your lead, it may be that they need to see you dive in first. At London School of Sales, we follow a simple rule: we will not ask anyone to do anything that we are not prepared to do ourselves. Therefore, make it a priority to lead by example, and be sure that your team will follow in your footsteps with confidence.
3. Not Knowing When to Step Back
Trust is a mutual exchange, in which the sales manager must also participate. Although our focus is on gaining team trust, a sales manager must first show that they trust their team. More often than not, sales managers can become a “helicopter boss.” In other words, they don’t step back and give their sales staff room to make mistakes and learn from them. Instead of stepping back into a managing role, sales managers may tend to step in to save the deal. However, this lack of letting go shows the team that their manager doesn’t actually trust their abilities to get the job done. This in turn leads to a lack of confidence in themselves and an even deeper lack of trust in their manager.Solution
As difficult as it may be to let go of the reins, it is in the best interest of your team. Letting go may lead to losing a few sales, or more mistakes by your team, but in the long term, it will lead to stronger team cohesion and engagement. This aligns with our belief that the sales world is constantly changing, so a sales department should constantly be learning and adapting. As your team members learn from their mistakes and build confidence in their work, they will trust you as their manager as you trusted them.