The Definitive Guide to Sales Management

The Definitive Guide to Sales ManagementThe Definitive Guide to Sales ManagementThe purpose of a sale manager is to provide their schlussverkaufpeople with everything they need to succeed, including coaching, training, and motivation. The actions of a successful sale manager can include anything from overseeing the onboarding of a new sales team member to firing a salesrolle who wasnt ever going to cut it. (Because in that case, what the person needs to succeed is a different job.) A great sales manager ensures their salespeople know how theyre performing so they dont fall behind on their monthly quota or fail to sell according to the companys priorities. And if someone is lagging, the manager is capable of determining the salespersons weakness and empowering them to fix it. Coaching The fruchtwein crucial role of a sales manager is a coach for the members of their team. A salesperson who is suddenly not making enough appointments might not realize that their script has gone stal e and they sound like a robot during cold calls. In these kinds of situations, the sales manager is ideally placed to both identify the problem and help to fix it. Coaching is a learnable skill- even for people for whom it doesnt come naturally. Not all sales managers are good at coaching. Some prefer the administrative side of management, while others like to spend as much time as possible on the front lines selling. Fortunately, coaching is a skill you can plektron up with practice. Asking the Right Questions In many ways, coaching is like selling. Youll need to figure out what is holding a salesperson back and then nudge them into realizing it for themselves. As with sales, this is often best accomplished by asking questions rather than directly telling the salesperson what they must do. The sales manager might ask the salesperson who is struggling to make appointments questions like What is your cold calling process? and What exactly do prospects say when you call them and they turn you down? These questions help your salesperson to identify the problem and the solution, which is a lot less confrontational than if you simply told them what to do. It also gives them a feeling of ownership of the solution, since they came up with it themselves. Working With All Team Members Good sales managers take time with every salesperson, not just the top and bottom performers. Every salesperson has both strengths and weaknesses you should recognize the former and help with the latter. Often the best way to evaluate a salespersons best and worst qualities is to accompany them on sales appointments and see how they operate with prospective customers. Ideally, youll want to shadow each salesperson on your team at least twice a year. While its important to spend time with each member of the sales team, realistically most of your time will be spent with the salespeople who are having the most trouble meeting their goals. A salesperson who is trying hard but hasnt been able to succeed may need an intensive coaching program involving several weeks of observation and assistance. It will be time-consuming, but if the result is a salesperson who exceeds their quota every month instead of failing or struggling to meet it, the time will have been well spent. Coaching wont do much good with a salesperson who doesnt realize they have a problem. Any salesperson who blames their poor performance on outside factors simply wont take a coaching program seriously. In this situation, it may be necessary to fire the person before their bad attitude contaminates the rest of the team. Providing the Right Sales Tools Another important part of sales management is making sure your salespeople are equipped with the right tools. These tools can make all the difference between success and failure. At the very least, theyll make selling a lot easier and your salespeople much more efficient. First and most basic, your team should have an ideal customer profile. Every compan y has an ideal customer. The ideal customer profile is simply a list of the characteristics that your best customers and prospective customers share. This profile is incredibly useful in qualifying prospects early on and enables your salespeople to focus their time and energy on the very best kompetenz customers. Second, you should set up a sales metrics tracking plan. Tracking your sales teams metrics helps both you and them. It helps you because you can see exactly where theyre strongest and weakest in their sales abilities. If a salesperson hits a slump, you can use metrics to see where in the sales process theyre losing those sales. And it helps your salespeople because they can identify potential problems before they start to cut into sales. If a salesperson knows theyve booked half as many appointments as usual this week, they know they need to hit the phones big-time- before their pipeline empties out. Third, take a look at your new hire training program. Even the most experi enced salespeople will need training when they join your company. At a minimum, theyll need product training and training in your companys sales software and customer relationship management (CRM) program, which encourages customers to remain loyal to your products or services. Its also a good idea to assess a new salespersons basic sales skills and decide how youll help with any weak areas. The faster you get your new hire up to speed, the faster theyll be earning revenue for your company (and you). Ongoing Training Youshould also evaluate your continuing training program. If a sports team doesnt train regularly, you wouldnt expect them to win. The same applies to your sales team. Like most professionals, salespeople need to broaden their skill sets and pick up new strategies on a regular basis. But just signing your team up for random training sessions wont help. You need a plan based on what skills they most need to develop so that you can look for the best training options t o fit your teams specific needs. Establishing Differentiators Next, consider your product or service differentiators- the factors that make your products or services different from the competition. It may require a sales meeting to find out which differentiators your salespeople use and confirm that theyre consistent across the team. If your companys marketing department hasnt come up with some official differentiators, work with your sales team to brainstorm at least one for each product or service. Every time your company develops a new product or service or changes an old one, youll need to come up with new differentiators. Meeting Company Goals Finally, youll need to make sure that your sales team is aware of and working in line with the companys sales goals. Your company probably has certain products or services that it wants to push because theyre the most lucrative, others that are less important, and a few that are loss leaders, meaning they exist to attract new cust omers but dont make the company any money. Make sure your sales team knows which products or services to prioritize during sales appointments. And work with company executives to build a compensation plan that rewards your team members for making the highest-priority sales. A sales manager is ultimately judged by the success of their team members, so leading them to greater rewards will bring rewards for yourself as well.