CEO’s & business owners need to consider hiring experienced Sales Managers if they want to achieve their desired Sales Target. Your Sales Manager should be hunting for Sales Persons with Hunger who they can train every day. They will be responsible to hold the entire sales team accountable to their numbers and track metrics of the sales pipeline all the time. Their main objective is to achieve the company’s Sales Target Set.
It is very important to have proper Sales Management if you are going to get results in today’s age. As I always tell me clients if you go on a football field you never see the coach scoring a goal. The coach creates a strategic plan, gives his Team the tools and then they take action. The duty of the Coach after the game starts is to monitor & track progress like the Sales Manager he or she is going to be the football Coach in your Sales Department or your company.
You may have heard this before, If you can’t measure it then how will you manage it? This not only applies to Accounts and Finance but also it also relates to Sales. In a Strategic Sales Management plan the sales target will be broken down by months, weeks and days. Have you ever heard the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time? One of the biggest challenges I have seen with companies is that they take their best sales persons and make them sales manager. Being a good Salesperson doesn’t say that you will be able to manage people and hold them accountable to their daily activity.
Accountability, Recruiting & Development
If a Sales Rep has a target to make 30 calls everyday and he comes up short one day. Who has that tough conversation with him or her? If you want your Salespeople to become super effective then you should at least start out by giving them the training that is required to become skilled at this profession. In order to become skilled you MUST train. One of the best resources is our FREE Webinar “The Bullet-Proof Sales Process on Monday’s and Friday’s @ 7 PM EST. Click Here to Register for the Live Training.
How often are your Sales People following up EVERY lead? Each Sales Person should have target for their daily activity. In order to gain the best results, you should consider the below metrics to measure daily:
> Number of attempts / messages
> Number of Conversations
> Number of Returned Calls
The Sales Manager should label & stamp out any excuse making for not achieving daily targets. Each Salesperson must own their goals. If we lost a deal we should be able to say, we just weren’t good enough… Think of the last deal that you lost. How and when did you find out that you lost the deal? I am hoping it wasn’t a week after your prospect placed the order with your competitor. It’s shocking the results that shows that 80% of deals are closed within the 5 – 12 contact of follow up. Intense Follow Up is one of a Salesperson’s biggest weaknesses. Some Sales Persons are better at hunting then closing and the Sales Manager must be able to identify that and design the sales team in a structure that gives the best results.
Coaching & Motivating
Are your Sales People missing deals? If so, are you measuring the main reason so you can develop a strategy to WIN? I have news for you! If you don’t track the closing percentage (Ratio) you can’t identify the number of opportunities that are required to be added to the first stage of the pipeline each month. Sales People need to be trained and get an understanding of the “Supportive Buy Cycle”… If you are a Sales Leader and don’t know what this is you need to Register for our Sales Management Intensive 1 and 1 Workshop by emailing us at info@corporatebossja.com
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