Three Things Your Sales Manager Should Never Have to Manage

Your Attitude: Your sales manager should never, ever have to manage your attitude. Your attitude is really your belief system, your blueprint of how to get along in the world. Your attitude is going to determine the level of success you achieve in sales—and everything else in life.

Your sales manager isn’t responsible for managing your state. You are. Your attitude is 100% your responsibility. No one else—least of all your sales manager—should have to try to change your blood type to B+.

Your Activity: If your sales manager has to manage your activity—or ride you to get you to generate any—you misunderstand the relationship and you are both going to be unhappy.

Your sales manager is your leader. It’s his or her job to help you, to support you, and to coach you to your best performance. But they can’t help you if you aren’t willing to take the requisite action.

Guess what? They’re just as unhappy having to ask you for activity, as you are their asking. They’d rather help you with bigger, more important outcomes—like winning deals.

You are going to be unhappy being asked for more activity because it feels like you are being micro managed. But here is the rub: If you don’t do what is necessary without being told, you are always going to have someone telling you what you should be doing.

Your Goals: Your quota is your sales manager’s goal, your sales leader’s goal, and your company’s goal. They are holding you accountable to reaching your quota because it’s what gets them to their goal. You don’t have to settle for their goals.

Your goals should be your own. You should decide for yourself what you want to achieve instead of settling for your sales manager’s goal. What your sales manager and your company need from you is the baseline. Anything above and beyond that is yours. Like activity, no one should ever have to manage something as important as your goal—financial or otherwise—for you.

Your sales manager should never have to manage your attitude, your activity, or your goals.