Shoud I be listening to my reps calls?

Short answer:
Yes.

Longer answer:
But only for training/quality purposes and only as-needed. How will you ever share best practices across a team if you don't occasionally hear both sides of those conversations? They (reps) may not like it, but they benefit from you doing this, as long as you turn it into group learning opportunities. There's a what's-in-it-for-them involved here. Additionally, if you ever hire new reps, you can give them real-world training on how these conversations flow, as opposed to one-sided training merely on what they should say.

There is never really a set answer to this - it has to be what you are comfortable doing and your relationships with your sales reps.

But,here are my reasons for yes and no.

No - if they are meeting their numbers and their is trust established in your organization - it might be considered micromanaging. But then again, it depends how you inform them that you will, and how you actually go about it.

If you tell them you are only doing it because your are curious as to what a lot of the comments/thoughts are of the clients/potential clients, they might understand and not be insulted or feel micromanaged - especially if you inform them you aren't doing it to try to find errors on their part. Tell them it's part of your ongoing realtime research of the demands and needs of the clients & it will help you keep your business afloat to know them more.

Plus, if you only do this a few times a year - say once a Q, then they would see it as a normal process of business.

Yes: There is always room for improvement in a sales reps conversation with a client or potential client and same with customer service with customers.

1. You might pick up on something they are saying that is actually taking away from the sale.
2. You might discover they are missing a really big opportunity to upsell or to fully address a potential client's concern
3. You might be unaware how they really speak to a potential client (vs how they are in sales meetings or even one on one with you). You might like some of the things they do or not like some of the things they do/say and you can fix this immediately or use the things they do say that you really like as 'best examples' for incoming sales reps.

Also, keep in mind: meeting numbers is fine - everyone can do that if they are a good sales rep. But the goal is not to meet the numbers (even if you set the benchmark high). The goal is to constantly challenge the sales reps to surpass the quota!

Boredom/same old/I can do this with my eyes closed sometimes leads to complacency - which sometimes leads to small mistakes that are often detrimental or costly to the business and often undetected without a closer look/listen.

The benefits of surpassing set quotas goes both ways: obviously bringing you more business, and increasing their commissions. But it's more than that.

You are taking the time to develop them as professionals & as an individual -by presenting that challenge & encouraging them to want to constantly tweak/improve what they do or themselves. I see this as an understood responsibility of any leader - whether you are the manager or the owner.

Chet Holmes (author of the Ultimate Sales Machine) is the biggest advocate of monitoring calls, and tons of training for consistency and role playing along with it. Not sure if you read his book. It's been highly recommended, so I picked it up to see if there was something that I didn't know (almost finished it).

My assessment of his book is this: I think he has a lots of valid points, yet I also think he puts his methods in place WAY to much and is extreme with it -to the point of insulting/micromanaging - or as I thought to myself throughout his entire book : 'why did you even hire the person in the first place?'I mention the book here if you would like to find great tips/ideas on what to do with the information once you do listen to calls :) I would recommend this book in a specific matter only like this one.

Why not give it a whirl and listen once - see what comes of it. If you after you do this, you don't feel the need to anymore - then you have satisfied this question. :) I look forward to knowing what you choose to do and how it goes.

I agree with the previous responses, and would add this (expanding on something Jaxi mentioned) - set the expectation for when, why, how, and how often you're going to be listening to the calls, and how the information you gather from these calls will then be used.

If they're surprised to learn about being listened to at your next sales meeting, and you call them out by name to use them as examples of what NOT to do, you'll probably do a lot more damage than good. But just as the public scolding is ineffective, public praise for a job well done is an amazing motivator.

Last thing - many companies now have calendars that are visible to the team - consider putting your plan for listening in on their calls on that public calendar. It will help to hold you accountable to doing it (not easy), and will let them know that it's simply a part of the daily/weekly/etc. continuous improvement efforts.

Yes.

Seems your salespeople are doing what’s expected of them and, therefore, should enjoy the freedom of your trust and support. Do not invest yourself unnecessarily. There’s no problem. DON’T CREATE ONE!

Additionally, good management KNOWS what prospects are saying and has trained salespeople accordingly. You should know that your salespeople know how to sell - because you trained them correctly. Now let them do their job.

Good subject. If you’d like a more detailed response from me, please let me know.

-Steve
.

In a word, 'absolutely'!!!

Unless your reps are so telephone-smooth they can sell ice cubes to Arctic-dwellers over the telephone, there's a chance that a 'second set of ears' can help.

(I'm assuming here that there's a reason you asked the question, and the reason is that you suspect there's a problem with one or more of your reps phone-presence. If there isn't, then don't make an issue where one doesn't exist.)

I was able to assist a new rep in becoming one of my best employees by spending half a day with her on the phone. By the time we were done, I couldn't get her to go home!

Engendering some excitement is sometimes all it takes -- that, and helping your people gain some knowledge, confidence, and 'presence'.

Good luck!

--Will Noble; Aegis Consutling

yes- definitely- absolutely.
Everyone has brought up some excellent points in support of listening and spending time with reps on the phone.
Unfortunately, "listening in" has gotten a bad rap because of inexperienced managers who reacted negatively on this.
Inside sales is a lonely and isolating profession and it helps when someone listens in on their world and validates their skills.

Best of luck-

Josiane