The.Machine

Sales Development Lead

Micromanage

This might sound weird but there are instances that I feel absolutely helpless and can't control myself to micromanage.

I'm a fairly young manager/leader and there are so many times that a few, chosen ones in my team don't take accountability for their work and push every damn thing for the last minute. They skip SKOs, catch up there activities only a few minutes before daily wrapup.

I'm trying vv hard to not be the bad guy but they tempt me so much to ping them every 2 hours to see if they are having any trouble doing what they are supposed to do.

Any advice on how I can go about this?

🧢 Sales Management

15 comments

Sort by:

Kirby

Politicker

Sales Representative

Manage people based on their numbers from yesterday, not their current numbers for today. And ask people how they like to be managed. Some will like the reminders, but most won't.

There's no fucking reason to baby people, and if you do, your best people will leave and you'll be left with middle-of-the-road reps.

Focus as a manager on how you can help above and beyond, not on being a number tracker. My favorite SDR manager was the one who was looking through my accounts and saying "Oh, I've got an idea on how to break into this account," or "Hey, just found this awesome new account for you - they just received funding, and here's a code for sending them a Sendoso gift" or "Hey, I just saw a bunch of people commenting on this LinkedIn post - probably great for prospecting from. Let me know if you want help making a sequence for them."

The.Machine

Politicker

Sales Development Lead

Taken. I've had a manager like that too.

So no accountability for any metrics at all if it's afternoon and they've not done a single activity?

Kirby

Politicker

Sales Representative

I think there should be accountability, but checking mid-day is what makes it feel like you're micromanaging them. And I'm curious, are they hitting their quotas?

If they're not hitting their quotas, and they're not doing time-sensitive tasks at appropriate times, then definitely call them out either the next day or your next scheduled one-on-one.

Examples of time-sensitive tasks would be responding to inbound leads, and responding to leads who have replied to an email. Making cold calls *might* fit into this category. If they're making all their calls between 1 PM and 3 PM, and they're not hitting quota, then they need to start calling more often and earlier. But if they're hitting quota, I don't see the problem.

Kirby

Politicker

Sales Representative

For some more context, when I was an SDR, my wife would work evenings. I often do a little work in the morning, and then do the majority of my work from 1 PM to 8 PM. I would hit the phones from 1 to 3, do my prospecting, and then write emails to send the next day. And it pissed me the fuck off when one of my SDR managers would reach out and be like "Hey, why haven't you made any calls yet?" at 11 AM. I never missed quota, but they'd still badger me about not doing more work in the morning.

The.Machine

Politicker

Sales Development Lead

Yeah "that" definitely sucks. I would want to identify such managers and either get them fired for ruining culture or train them better.

If you're hitting quota then its absolutely great!

Mediocre SDRs who sometimes hit and sometimes don't hit are the real pain :)

Tres

Politicker

Account Executive

One thing that helped me, was to understand that sometimes you have to let a rep struggle with it on their own for their long-term good. It may be easier, quicker, and faster to step in and help them, but it does them more good to figure it out or make mistakes in the short-term.

Incognito

WR Officer

Master of Disaster

I had this problem, and I learned that sometimes I just needed to walk away and leave them alone.

If they don’t have any buy in (as in , just following orders vs they took initiative and have some of the blame if it fails and credit if it succeeds), they will never give you anything other than bare minimum effort at best - extra mistakes at worst because they’re so worried about being reprimanded.

Best advice I have ever received: hold people to their highest standard, not yours. 🤘

cw95

Politicker

Sales Development Lead

It’s a very fine line. It really is. Commenting as I’m in the same predicament as you are.

The.Machine

Politicker

Sales Development Lead

True. Worst part is you don't wanna hurt culture and make them start false narratives in their head.

TheDuchess

Opinionated

Sales Enablement Queen

Tough balance to strike when managing reps! If you’re noticing they’re not doing enough activities or not being productive, what impact is this having on their performance today? If they’re still hitting quota then I don’t see a reason to call them out, but rather an opportunity to learn how they’re being more efficient so you can see if there’s an improvement to be made with the wider team. Of course, if they’re not hitting quota, then it’s worth having a conversation. Consider keeping track of their activities over the month/quarter and then instead of chastising them, use it as a way to plan for the next month. You can use this to suggest to them that increasing their activities could help them get to quota next month since they missed last month, for example. If it continues then it’s worth being clear that there are expectations for this role and they’re not currently meeting them. But always worth going with a vision of what they can do to be successful, rather than simply calling out that they’re not doing enough - it simply isn’t actionable. Out of interest, do you have 121s with them and what format do these take? Are you just going through their activities and current performance or do you use this time to coach on a skill or goal that adds value and can help them get incrementally better at their job?

TheDuchess

Opinionated

Sales Enablement Queen

Wow ok spaces between these paragraphs would have helped!

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

Is this only your challenge or other managers are also going through the same.

For me one thing worked was I use to talk to my team members one-on-one to understand their individual goals and accordingly have separate action plans. Its very important to make sure that they have similar goals and vision as the company and this behavior tells me they don't and there could be multiple reasons (either issue within the company or employees). Try to decipher more and more (and keep patience in the process...)

JustGonnaSendIt

Politicker

Burn Towns, Get Money

The key here is to establish trust. You essentially need to sell them on why what you're asking is important - Not only to you, but to the rep and the company as a whole.

Each rep will be different in how they will participate in this. Some will need more reminding.

But again, it's about the trust to know who you need to watch more closely and who you don't.

Some reps will be able to push it all to the last minute yet still get it done. Some will proactively do it all ahead of time. Others will see it as low priority and will need reminders.

Your biggest concern is the ones you'll need to remind. Help them trust that you're reminding them because it's a team goal, not a punitive micromanaging activity. Essentially, it's easier for you to give them the air cover to do things their way if they play ball to a certain degree.

You can reinforce this trust by actively advocating to your teams up the food chain. Such as pushing back on stuff you know your reps hate and provides low value. Buy them some air cover to focus on what's important, then help them with the important things on an individual basis based on how they operate.

Seems like you need to spend a little more time just building that camaraderie with your reps on a 1:1 basis to figure out how to manage each one.

Alternatively, you could just publish a public score board / tracking system and use shame and competition to drive compliance. But I suspect you'll start developing an attrition problem if you take that approach.

LordBusiness

Politicker

Chief Revenue Officer

Don’t mistake management for micro management. There is no employee who is above being managed in their role. Be the guy, your job is to prefect them from Their own poor choices go achieve consistent performance. There is a time to lead, and a time to manage

softwaresails

Politicker

Sales Manager

Yeah this is definitely a fine line to walk. Something I try hard to do is manage based on the previous days numbers, not what they are currently doing. But also, I have policy for myself where I will never fly off the handle. If I think something that needs to be corrected I will take a step back, work on something else, and revisit in an hour or two and see if I have the same thoughts / feelings.

I never want to manage purely off of emotion.

Bravado is a community of trusted sales professionals endorsed by their customers.

Products

The War Room Jobs Salary Guide Tech Sales U

Company

About Us How It Works Blog Bug Bounty

Contact

Press Careers

If you are hired as a contract sales rep by a Bravado customer, we may ask you to prove access to the employee email account provided to you by that customer. This data will be shared with customers to track your sales productivity; customers can use this data to confirm you meet the minimum activity requirements to pay out your ramp stipend and commission.

The.Machine

Micromanage

15 comments

Related posts

How to tell micro managing boss to give you some space/trust?

I had a manager once tell me "You'll need to lose those morals if you want to be successful in sales"

Manager said I have to pick up my numbers for the sake of my peers