My thoughts on empowerment
em·pow·er [em-pou-er]
–verb (used with object)
1. to give power or authority to; authorize, esp. by legal or official means: I empowered my agent to make the deal for me. The local ordinance empowers the board of health to close unsanitary restaurants.
Every leader will have a different opinion about how much empowerment members of their team should have. And that's fine you know your organization better than I do.
I want you to know that your teams need to have it.
Remember back when you interviewed your salespeople. You probably thought "Hey, this person can get the job done! I want them on my team." Now after saying that why shackle them with all kinds of restrictions. By all means don't let them give the farm away, but give them an arena to operate within, and make sure that it provides wiggle room.
A great sales manager once told me "Don't come to me unless its going to cost more than 10% of the total sale to fix." Perfect. I knew that if it was more than that I had to come to her. Guess how many times I needed to approach her? Once. That was it, to the customer it gave me the freedom to work with them and develop a stronger relationship. To the company it kept things in check, and didn't let me give away the farm. And she knew the more I granted to the customer the smaller my bonus would be.
The Selling Point:
To have a successful sales oriented organization you need to have a strong sales manager, that's a given. But it should be a manager that empowers their people to work towards the solution that is in the best interest of retaining customers. Too often, in my opinion, sales managers try to keep their team in check by micro-managing them.
What a waste of time, much like herding cats.
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