“Giving your team what they expect makes you a manager. Giving your team what they want makes you an excellent manager.” | How to be a successful Event Sales Manager
Kate Plowright, Director at Selling Savvy
Expectations and Wants: knowing the difference to deliver success
They are very different and knowing the difference can make a huge impact in your success as an Event Sales Manager.
Expectations are something that the team presume will happen. Perhaps a quality or a process that their previous managers have valued. Meeting your sales teams’ expectations are the fundamentals that you need to do in order to be a good manager. But how can you be a really successful Event Sales Manager? Your team will want more than you just meeting their expectations. They will want you to go above and beyond in several different ways. They may have experienced some downfalls in other managers and will be hoping that you are different. Their expectations are based upon presumptions of day-to-day work life, whereas their wantswill usually be connected to them feeling stable and supported overall.
Want to be MORE than an excellent manager? Read this blog post: How to be a Great Sales Leader
Your team will be expecting a sense of authority from their Events Sales Manager. Alongside this authority they will expect that you have experience and knowledge in the events industry and even perhaps running events. They will expect that you have successful sales experience and that you will understand the boundaries of profits margins and additional revenue opportunities. They will wantyou to convey this knowledge and experience to them. From my experience, most Event Sales teams want to learn as much as they can in order to progress and therefore they will be keen to hear your opinions on different scenarios when they come up against them. Having a wealth of experience is excellent, and most likely what got you the job in the first place but empowering your team by imparting this experience onto them makes you an excellent manager.
Your team will also expect you to support them with day to day goals.
This could be doing their chases, supporting them to convert a booking or encouraging them on showrounds.
Learnt lots about being a successful Event Sales Manager? Want more information on the importance of shadowing? Read this blog post: Shadowing as a New Manager
However, they will want you to support them with their overall career. Remember that not all venues have personal development plans or structures in place to empower their team members. Some business’s run a strict and task orientated culture where employees don’t feel valued. If you can make your Event Sales team feel valued, appreciated and developed, you will be giving them what they want. This will result in them being happier, working harder and overall the results will be better. And that is how you become a successful Event Sales Manager!
As a manager you will more than likely be meeting their expectations anyway, as that is why you were offered the role. However, the key to being a great manager is to not only indentify what their wantsare, but to make sure you are prioritising them.
How can Selling Savvy Increase your conversion?
There are so many more ways you can increase sales revenue through supporting your team. We work specifically with business’ within the events industry including hotels, event venues, caterers and furniture hire companies.
Do you want some other ideas to increase conversion? Did you know we offer 100% free no obligation consultations with Sales Directors or Managers to discuss how a sales teams’ conversion rate can be increased? We can cover anything to do with reactive or proactive sales. Drop us a line and let’s discuss how Selling Savvy can increase your conversion.
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