Ruth Badger: 12 teams.

Financial services

Over the course of her business career, she has encountered all sorts of salespeople and seen a variety of techniques used to manage them.

During her time in financial services, Badger ran 12 sales teams with one manager and ten staff in each team.

Which one are you?

Drawing on that experience, she reckons there are three distinct types of sales manager. Do you agree and, if so, which one are you?

The naïve manager

This type of manager wants to prove more than anything that they can manage and that they can get the team to succeed, so they do 60% of the job for their members of staff. This was her when she started her sales management career, Badger admits. ‘This is usually a very short-lived thing because the managers actually begin to hate their staff because they realise how lazy they are.’

The sympathy vote

According to the Badger, the second sort of manager is the poorest: these are managers who get people to do things for them because they feel sorry for them. ‘One manager I had (just before I left) couldn’t manage a piss up in a brewery, to be honest.’ The Badger asked her to improve: ‘I said to her “You’ve got one week to turn around otherwise I’m going to release you from your position and you’ll be out of there”. So she went out and told the team and the team performed.’

The professional manager

The third type of manager is perfection, according to Badger. ‘That is people who actually manage.’ They not only concentrate on performance and are very fair, they are professional in relation to all aspects of running a team. Being up front, honest and realistic about what can be achieved is an important characteristic in terms of earning the Badger’s respect.

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