Strengthening The Front Lines

Selection Mistakes

1) Promoting superstar sales reps to FLL positions 

How many sports coaches can you name who were previously star athletes? Not many. It turns out that, counterintuitively, being really good at doing something doesn’t make you really good at coaching it, which holds true in pharma sales. Even if a high-flying rep doesn’t really want to be in a managerial role, they may pursue an offer since promotion into management is often the only way for individuals to increase their earning potential (which is why you should have other ways to increase salary/earnings outside of becoming a manager).

2) Hiring FLLs from a completely different operational model and expecting their experience to translate

When entrepreneurial organizations hire FLLs from large, well-established organizations – and vice versa – it is too often assumed that their experience and success will easily translate. Revisiting the sports analogy, it’s similar to hiring a successful college football coach and assuming they will be successful in the NFL. On the surface, the jobs appear quite similar. But the differences between them can cause unnecessary stress that makes or breaks an FLL’s overall success with the company.

3) Hiring FLLs without the use of a validated assessment process

Selecting the right candidate can be a challenge, which many overcome by hiring the same way they’ve always hired. This could entail a résumé review, a single cognitive ability test, and several interviews that include broad, generic questions about the candidate’s background. However, such selection methods may cause unconsciously biased hiring decisions based on race or gender (which can lead to costly legal issues), bring about high impression management or faking from candidates, or simply be poor predictors of a candidate’s performance on the job.

Communication Mistakes

4) Not encouraging them to work well in the cross-functional sandbox 

Selling a product is always a team effort, with no one group possessing sufficient knowledge or skill to solve complex problems. Nevertheless, in the rush of expectations, sales goals, and KPIs, groups can become territorial and defensive, which sometimes turns into an internally divisive “field vs. home office” mentality that can hinder progress and collaboration. Moreover, such hindrances in social support and collaboration relates to reduced resilience, which can hurt the group’s ability to succeed when large setbacks arise.

5) Failing to communicate the Why

Collaboration and commitment to the organization as a whole start with good communication. If sales leadership is assigning orders and adjusting tactics but they aren’t explaining the reasoning behind those decisions, it makes it all too easy for FLLs – and the reps they oversee – to feel ambiguous about those decisions or to fill in that gap with attributions that may or may not reflect the actual motivating factors. That ambiguity can lead to burnout and eventual turnover, and individual biases (e.g. interpretation bias) related to those attributions are not often going to be in leadership’s favor.

6) Telling them what to think about their reps

Speaking of biases, consider the confirmation bias: the tendency to seek out and interpret new information within the lens of existing beliefs and assumptions. When leadership gives their perspective on sales reps to new FLLs, it can unnecessarily prejudice FLLs’ perspective towards their reps, making it difficult for them to form their own opinions, relationships, or explanations behind people’s behaviors. Fostering diverse perspectives, coaching reps based on their individual needs, and solving reps’ issues using innovative methods are all more difficult when FLLs get locked into a pre-existing perspective. 

Operational Mistakes

7) Not investing in their leadership development

Entrepreneurial organizations often tell themselves they are going to be too busy to ask FLLs to spend much time on their own leadership development. This is correct, of course. Much of the allure of joining a smaller company is getting away from non-value added bureaucratic processes. However, we would posit leadership development for arguably one of the most important positions in the company is a critical success component, not a “big company” thing to avoid. By failing to invest in their growth and development, organizations miss out on an opportunity to help their leaders improve job performance and feelings of self-efficacy. 

8) Hiring reps based on experience rather than behaviors

Too often, FLLs are not given the support they need to hire effectively, even though they are largely responsible for bringing on many of the people who will represent your company on the ground. Without a clear model describing “what good looks like” in terms of sales rep behavior and associated measurement tools, FLLs often lock in solely on candidates’ specific experiences. This is also important to keep in mind for D&I initiatives, as studies show that FLLs are crucial to D&I progress. 

9) Over-indexing on processes and under-indexing on people 

If sales leadership relies too heavily on processes, it can cause people to be seen as less valuable while impeding progress. For FLLs, this approach makes it difficult for them to solve complex problems in creative, innovative ways. 

9) Not providing direct, behavioral feedback

Sales organizations exist to hit a number at the end of the day.  The objective nature by which performance can be judged makes it easy to miss opportunities to provide feedback to FLLs on the “how.”  The adage “people join companies and leave managers” is true, and if FLLs are not given constructive behavioral feedback they may drive turnover and ultimately impact productivity.

How to Set Your FLLs up for Success

So, how do you avoid these common mistakes while strengthening your salesforce? There are three primary initiatives you should take: enhance and improve your selection process, prioritize clear and open lines of communication, and implement processes that balance people needs with business goals. Let’s take a closer look. 

Enhance and Improve Your Selection Process

What do the first three mistakes have in common? In short, a lack of objectivity when promoting reps and hiring new FLLs. All of the different subconscious mechanisms that get us through the day – including seeing things in a way that confirms our existing beliefs and avoiding things that illuminate our mistakes and shortcomings – can cause problems. They can cause biases that hurt the successful prediction of good performance, and they can hurt the consistency of how candidates are evaluated from day to day. 

Falling into these traps isn’t hard. The fundamental attribution error – which states when we create explanations for mistakes, we tend to attribute others’ mistakes to their personality while attributing our own to the situation – is fundamental for a reason. 

This is why we firmly believe that bringing objectivity into the equation can make a significant difference. When you have proven methodologies for assessing the capabilities of your FLLs – including their ability to inspire, build and implement strategy, form their own highly effective teams, and collaborate with others – you reduce your chance of making hiring and promotion mistakes that could be detrimental to the success of your sales team. 

Prioritize Clear and Open Lines of Communication

While assessing FLL candidates before hiring or promoting is a good first step, being intentional with your FLL management should continue post-onboarding. One of the great things about using valid, job-relevant assessments is that it gives you a strong foundation for coaching and communicating with FLLs. You understand their strengths, their opportunities, and their personalities better than if you had not done assessments. This gives you focus with your coaching and training, allowing you to help your FLLs feel more empowered and connected while strengthening your organization as a whole. 

That said, while communication is one of the most important levers for improving performance, it isn’t easy. It takes commitment, perseverance, and the willingness to accept constructive criticism and feedback. That’s hard work, making it easy to simply doll out marching orders, tell them what to think about others, and neglect explaining the reasoning behind high-level strategic decisions. While this approach may be easier in the short-term, it can lead to longer-term cultural rifts that are difficult to remedy after the fact. 

Implement Processes That Balance People Needs with Business Goals

Leadership is always a balancing act: figuring out how to empower and support your people while also ensuring that the organization’s goals remain the number one priority. Being a strong sales leader starts with understanding your people and building communication habits based on that understanding. 

But it also requires processes that bring consistency and structure while speeding up decision making. Considering that every organization is unique, there is no perfect way to do this. That said, our approach is usually of flexible structure. 

This means that you intentionally outline processes for key activities, including how to hire sales reps and what to do if a FLL isn’t performing in their role, while not treating the process as gospel. Systems and processes should serve both the organization and the people. If processes are prioritized over common sense, your organization can begin to take on bureaucratic characteristics that can harm your culture. That said, if the organization becomes too individualistic, it can lack the structure that your team wants and needs to be successful.