In my years of experience in sales and sales management, I have seen many small to medium sized sales teams. They often struggle to perform at full capacity and meet their goals, and it is often a sales management issue. Sometimes it’s because the CEO or owner of the company is the de facto sales manager and has many roles. They are often too busy with their business or too spread out. Sometimes they are the technical experts in their field and their experience and time are used to improve products, systems or services. Sometimes it’s because a high-performing salesperson has been promoted to a sales management role and their strength lies in salesmanship and generating revenue for the business personally rather than in a broader sense. Here are five things you can do to improve sales management at your company now.
1. Schedule
Many business owners have, at best, a rudimentary sales plan. If they do have one, it often consists of higher and higher sales goals, without considering what will drive that new business. Will a new product line be added, a new market open, or new additions to the sales team? Will the company be able to bear the added expense while markets open up and new sellers are trained? How much risk will the company take? A good but simple sales plan takes this into account. Takeaway: Make a better sales plan with concrete steps to get to your desired goal.
2. Modernize
There are many new technologies that make it easier to interact with prospects. These include CRM systems, collaboration tools, the cloud, bookmarks, email tracking, prospect and customer information systems. Existing systems are updated all the time with the newest capabilities. All are designed to more efficiently and effectively reach more buyers, spread information, warm them up, and help make sales. Social media platforms allow a business to expand their reach cheaply and make their business more visible to search engines like Google.com. Bottom line: Assess new technology regularly to ensure you stay current and upgrade as needed.
3.Training
Training salespeople has three purposes. The first is that it gives them the opportunity to hone and update their skills. The second is that it reminds them that performance is important and that expectations are high for them to perform well. The third is that they show a willingness to invest in them and that they are part of the organization’s long-term plan. Conclusion: Make sure you offer training to your sales staff every year (a sharp ax cuts better than a dull one).
4. Lead Generation
All businesses need sales and most small and medium sized businesses are subject to the feast/famine paradigm. When they are busy, the first thing that gets left behind is prospecting for new business. Until business slows down. Then there is a flurry of sales activity and soon business is back where it should be. For a moment. Most small businesses don’t have the bandwidth to prospect effectively and consistently.
The lists must be very specific and updated regularly. Technology must be used and a proven process followed. The technology should enhance the process rather than detract from it. Senior management must enforce the use of technology and monitoring of the process. Use social media and blogs to expand your reach cheaply. Finally, no one can be an expert in everything, so get help from the professionals when needed. Takeaway: Make prospecting part of the routine and company culture and call in the experts when needed!
5. Measurement
You get what you measure is the old adage and for the most part it is true. The challenge is that senior management often struggles to pin down the exact actions, activities and behaviors they are trying to encourage and measure. Here is a practical example. Perhaps senior management believes that offering free webinars will increase sales since it has worked well in the past. So the goal is to run well-attended webinars.
How will these webinars be promoted to potential clients and clients? Will a set of emails be sent, starting a few weeks before the first webinar? Next, you will need to purchase and upload a prospect list with email addresses and create an attractive email invitation.
Will prospects be called and told about the webinars? Then the phone numbers will be needed, it will be necessary to create a script and designate a person to make the calls. To track the results of your calls, you should periodically create and run an activity report to test your messages, make sure your calls are going through, and analyze responses from potential customers. Will the report be grouped by lead type (or industry, state, city, or source)? That data will then need to be captured or imported for each lead.
Finally, the reports should measure the success of each webinar so that the results can be tabulated. Measuring how many people signed up and attended, as well as what happened to the prospect after the webinar was completed, is important to determine ROI. Takeaway: Create reports that measure actions, activities, and behaviors that drive sales success, run them regularly, and share the results.