Category Archives: Sales Management

Set Your Salespeople Free … To SELL

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What’s your current sales team set-up based on?

Is it …

# 1 : Each sales rep being essentially self-sufficient i.e. get their clients, keep the clients and do all that needs to be done, including process the order and collect the payment?

Or is it …

# 2: Configuring your sales “production” process much like you would in manufacturing/factory environment?

I favour the latter. For years, I’ve been calling for companies to start isolating sales tasks and activities and to set up individuals to manage this for the external sales team. Specifically when it comes to sales research (aka qualifying new prospects and opportunities). By doing this, you will free up your external sales team to do what they were employed to do – be out there, all day, every day seeing quality new prospects and making meaningful appointments.

Ten years ago, I thought we would be seeing job ads posted on LinkedIn and on career portals for specialist “Sales Researchers”within a few years. People whose job it is to literally tee-up potential opportunities from prospects as well as existing clients. People whose job it is to stay on top of all new developments in market verticals. People whose job it is to provide insights to the external sales team who in turn use the information to provide even more value to customers.

But this has not happened. We are nearly all still stuck with outdated sales thinking which requires a salesperson to manage the entire sales process on their own – even dragging them into pre-sales social media marketing and post-sales customer care responsibilities too .

Justin Roff-Marsh, based in Australia is the guru behind re-engineering the sales process. I highly recommend that you take a look at his work. This ‘division-of-labour’ principle is working wonders for many companies around the world. Sales have soared and costs have plunged.

In simple terms, the system is based on separating the admin of sales from the face-to-face of sales. And then going further by employing internally-based specialists for every phase of the sales process.

When you release your sales executives from having to do all of their own pre- and post sales admin and shift most of the account management/customer service activities to a slick in-house support team, your sales will increase.

Sales and Marketing: Two Departments Perhaps, But One Team

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Believe it or not, many companies forget to keep their receptionist and their sales team well-informed as to when media ads or web-based marketing campaigns are running. Some don’t even let everyone know when they have updated the company’s website or LinkedIn pages with valuable new white papers, case studies or client recommendations that could benefit the sales team.

It’s absolutely crucial that marketing and sales work hand-in-glove to achieve the results from expensive marketing activities. That ONE lead, that ONE phone-in from a small internet ad or PDF download on your website might just be your next biggest client.

By the same token, your marketing team needs accurate and detailed feedback from sales in order to fine-tune future material to support your team’s efforts. Are you satisfied with the information you are providing? Do you make a concerted effort to collect recommendations from your clients?

Get and then keep your sales and marketing folks talking – they are on the same team.

Sales Pipelines Are Not “Optional” – For Sales Professionals

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One of the basics that all sales professionals have in common is owning a clearly-defined personal sales pipeline. Even if it is just a basic spreadsheet typed up in Microsoft Word or Excel. It doesn’t necessarily have to be housed in a state-of-the-art customised CRM software system that your employer has invested in to help you be more successful.

When interviewing job applicants, it really concerns me when a sales executive is unable to produce this selling tool on request. In this day and age, maintaining a well-documented personal sales pipeline is deemed ‘Sales 101’ by ALL sales experts worldwide.

Contrary to popular belief, It is not the sole responsibility of a sales manager or employer to set it up for the team. Having said that, many sales managers and/or their organisations already have an excellent sales process or pipeline framework in place. This should be viewed as a bonus for any sales pro to have as a base to work from. It’s what helps to define a professional sales organisation. But to me, it is still the individual who is responsible.  Just because a company doesn’t have a system in place is no excuse. 

Maintaining a well-documented personal sales pipeline shouldn’t be viewed as a grudge-admin-duty to keep your sales manager (aka The Sales Police) happy. The benefits to your personal sales and your pocket far outweigh this outdated perception. A sales manager has every right to ensure that you keep and maintain your personal pipeline – that’s part of his/her responsibility as a team leader. That’s professional Sales Management 101.

Sales Meetings: Going, going, gone … virtual

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The worldwide trend is for sales teams to meet online … “virtually”.

In layman’s terms:  a virtual meeting is when everyone logs in to a telephonic conference call from where ever they happen to be located. The manager then runs it like a face to face meeting, with a tight agenda of course.

The more sophisticated virtual options extend to sitting in front of webcams on connected speakerphones and logging on to a common software portal via laptops. Each person can hear and see each other and is also able to view a presentation, or look at “live” visuals of their sales pipeline. With virtual meetings when everyone is viewing the same things online, you can easily add a humourous movie clip, a stunning graphic, a useful skills or product training insert and carefully-chosen motivational quote to end off on.

By now you’ll have guessed that quality content for virtual meetings need to be prepared in advance. Nothing says “I’m a professional team leader” quite like a fantastic sales meeting. Taking the time and putting in the effort to raise your sales team’s level of motivation, recognise their achievements, add a sprinkle of humour and teach them something new will pay huge dividends in terms of sales results.  Always end off each meeting on a motivational high, no matter how stressful some discussion points may have been.

Virtual meetings certainly have their advantages over traditional face-to-face meetings. Especially in a sales environment where it’s difficult to round everyone up because of remote/regional locations. Going virtual is also useful in a local office where the new business development team is always on the road, doing what you’re paying them to do i.e. staying out in the field every day, making sales.

Virtual or face to face, in the boardroom, at a local coffee shop or from everyone’s remote location – it’s your choice, however please don’t undervalue the importance of hosting regular and effective sales meetings with your team. It’s absolutely essential. Not bringing the team together regularly and closing the feedback loop from the team and their clients is a management failure in itself. The benefits of hosting well-planned and frequent sales meetings far outweigh both the perceived and the real costs.

Is it time for you to investigate going virtual? Well, if you’re pressed for time or really struggling to get everyone together, you might want to invest in simple tools such as Skype and webcams and/or something like “GoToMeeting”, or “Webex”  or similar meeting technology.   The virtual meeting platform is also perfect for one-on-one coaching and pipeline reviews – it affords the manager the opportunity to really investigate each deal in the pipeline and coach the rep on how to move it forward.

In summary:  Your sales meeting – whether face to face or virtual, is your platform of sales management excellence. Excellent leader, excellent sales meetings. Mediocre manager, mediocre sales meetings.

Question: How Long Should A Sales Newbie Be Given To Ramp Up?

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Answer: A new salesperson should be given a reasonable amount of time to find their feet and ramp-up to full speed. 

But what is the norm for what is considered “reasonable”?

To calculate a fair ramp-up period, the employer should allow for the following:

1. A 20-day product knowledge/learning curve – longer if your products or services are more complex or technical
plus
2. The length of the average sales cycle for your products or services
plus
3. Whether or not the newbie is given existing accounts to work with (which may shorten the sales cycle) or if theyneed to develop new accounts from scratch with no assistance from marketing whatsoever.

To be frank, many sales managers I speak to do not know the average length of their selling cycle and often thumbsuck an answer. Instead of guessing at it, one should do some proper research and analyse the last 10, 20 or 50 sales to get an average time of how long it takes a rep – from finding and qualifying a lead, right through to receiving a signed order with a definite delivery date. 

This is as important as knowing things like how long it takes to turn a non-performing team around. Imagine if you as a sales manager took a new position where the CEO was expecting a sales turnaround in 6 months when it was realistically a minimum of 12 months.  (Again, taking the sales cycle into account, among other factors). You’d be pretty upset to be held to account unrealistically.  The same applies to your reps. Just give them a fair shake is what we’re suggesting.

Here’s a scenario:
A rep joins a company in January. The average sales cycle for the product range is about 7 weeks from cradle to grave. He is given no accounts or existing leads to work with. It’s a complex product. 

The sales manager is so busy that he can’t spend much time with the newbie on training. However, come the end of January, the rep is expected to hit 100% of his target before his commission scheme kicks in. Under serious pressure to deliver results by the end of February,  the newbie has managed to self-study most of the product range and makes his first sale but only reaches 75% of his target. The company has a policy of carrying forward the deficit on the monthly target.

Although he reaches target in Month 3, the rep is penalised because of the deficit brought forward from January and February and receives no commission. This seriously affects his enthusiasm about his new job, he’s completely stressed out and wonders if he’s made a mistake. The manager is already thinking “performance management”.

What do you think? Is this a fair shake? Personally I think it’s a raw deal. Having said that, he should have clarified the company’s expectations of him and the exact sales targets and ramp-up period BEFORE he accepted the job offer. He should have asked how long the sales cycle was and the sales manager should have had that information at hand and ready to discuss it with him properly long before he accepted the offer.

Both parties are at fault and there are serious negative consequences that could have easily been avoided by being very clear upfront.  I’m in the process of educating as many sales reps as I can to ask the right questions of potential employers way ahead of time – in fact if they are working with a recruiter, they should find out all of these details when they take the job spec. Recruiters should be able to share that with the applicants.

In a nutshell:  Calculate and allow a newbie the appropriate amount of time to ramp-up. Be clear about this in your interview. Stagger the targets if necessary. Give thorough and proper sales and product training. Measure performance on sales productivity during the ramp up phase not just gross sales achieved.

The bottom line is:  Look after your newbies and you’ll drastically improve your sales growth, staff retention rate AND reduce your stress and sales costs.

Should Sales Managers Sell?

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If there’s one raging debate in the sales world, it’s whether or not a Sales Manager, i.e. someone who has a team reporting directly to him or her – should also be responsible for having to meet a personal sales target.

I recently asked a few of my friends and colleagues in sales to share their view on the subject in around 100 words or so.  Please take a few minutes to read the varying comments of “yay and nay” and then tell us who you agree with the most.

WHAT SALES TRAINERS, INDUSTRY EXPERTS AND SALES FOLKS HAVE TO SAY …

 Should sales managers sell? It depends!

In general, part time sales managers, like part time salespeople don’t usually work out well in the end. You either manage or you sell.

Sales’ managing is a full time job. When you split the job into two parts, sales and sales management, the incumbent is likely to favour one function over the other. This results in one of three things happening:

1)  Good sales manager and poor salesperson
2)  Poor sales manager and good salesperson
3)  Mediocre sales manager and mediocre salesperson.

There is an exception to the rule and this depends upon the size of the sales team.

If the sales team has 10 or more salespeople, a dedicated sales manager is in order.

If the sales team has 5-9 salespeople, a part time sales manager should be considered, keeping in mind that one of the three conditions outlined above will apply.

If the sales team has less than 5 salespeople, there is no designated, formal, sales manager. This does not mean that they don’t need to be sales managed; it means that there is no dedicated sales manager. In small sales teams, the best sales management is self-management.

I hope these insights help.

 Brian Jeffrey
Brian@SalesforceAssessments.com
www.salesforceassessments.com

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My experience since joining my present company in Lagos was that my National Marketing Manager (19 years with the company) had been allowed to sell cars and keep the commission. I recently persuaded my MD to allow me to change the commission structures to even the playing fields and she resigned.

What was happening , she had built up a substantial client base over 19 years and would not allow any of the sales people to get near her customers and as a result she would out sell them 20 to 1. Not only was this demoralizing for the sales staff but also dangerous for the company the following aspects;

* She had control of a large percentage of the companies customer base.

* Her time was been taken up selling and not managing. 

* The sales staff were looking for other illegal means of earning more money due to lack of proper supervision.

The structure that I now have in place is that my Manager does not actively sell and any sales that do come in as a result of him / her is a “dealer sale”. The manager earns a percentage of the overall sales departments controllable net profit. The sales people were on a fixed Naira amount per vehicle, they are now on a two tier sliding scale , volume and net profit.

Stephen Gladwin
General Manager
Mandilas Toyota
Lagos Nigeria

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 This is probably a hot potato only in our own minds. Usually the sales manager get to this position because he is a great sales person. He is usually your best sales person bringing in the most revenue. He is usually put in the position because we hope that he will transfer his skills in a practical way to his sales team.

We need the sales manager to lead by example and the only lasting way is ‘do as I do’. It all depends on the size of the business, the small & medium size businesses cannot afford for the most effective sales person (usually the sales manager) not to be generating their own revenue. I firmly believe that the sales manager should have their own personal sales target.

Stephen Varty
Managing Director
Life and Analytical Sciences (PTY) Ltd.

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 A sales manager is someone who increases sales by making their people stronger. In essence the sales manager is coach, trainer and mentor. They may still sell but it should be in a modeling – coaching role. When the sales manager is also salesperson, reps question the manager’s motives and it totally undermines the manager. You can’t name one sport where the coach is also player. In my opinion the only time for the sales manager to also be sales person is as a transition strategy while building the sales team. That means 1 year max in a dual function!

Andy Miller
Sales Consultant and Strategist
www.AndyMillerInternational.com

 ___________________________________________

I have been on both sides of this argument.  A sales team needs guidance, encouragement, a sounding board and commercial guidance.  A Sales Manager should drive the overall sales strategy. Also a brilliant sales person does not necessarily make a good manager – and I have seen the downfall of sales teams when the mistake of promoting a successful sales person to manager, has been made.

I strongly believe there is a conflict of interest when a Sales Manager also has their own personal targets. The personal target is going to dominate above the support the sales members needs. And the bigger the sales team, the greater the requirement for support and overall strategy of the sales drive. If, however there is a huge deal that requires the expertise of Management then the Sales Exec can be guided in the process and can complete the leg work required, while the Sales Manager assists with strategy, networking and presentations.

So in short….. No.  Manage a team. Or sell.

–  Ex Sales Manager and Sales Person

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 My two cents. Yes and no.

Yes in the case of :
Small sales force
Short Sales Cycle
Simple Product

No in the case of:
Large sales force
Long, complex sales cycles

Mark Annett
Maximizer GM – Gauteng
www.maximizer.co.za

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 My opinion is that a Sales Manager should not have a personal target.  The main focus of a Sales Manager should be to lead, inspire, motivate and empower his/her sales team, consistently driving sales through facilitating, coaching, mentoring and offering new selling ideas to their team. Sales Manager derived sales can distract from the main focus of her/his role and can lead to unnecessary rivalry and tension between the manager and team.

The sales management and sales person’s skills and personal profile make-up are also almost diametrically opposed.

It is not a bad idea for the sales manager to handle a couple of ‘house accounts’ to keep her/his hand in and be able to tap into the market that the clients are operating in.

Charmaine Brough
Branch Manager: Johannesburg
Homemakers Fair

Motivating the Motivator

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As sales managers, we all know that an important part of our job is to motivate and encourage our team, but who or what motivates the motivator to motivate? What do you do to keep yourself in peak motivating condition?

Honing in on sales team motivation: Personally, all I need to do is to pick up a classic motivational book every now and then, or read an inspiring article about professional selling – that’s what keeps my motivational tank full. If I’m reading something that I already know, it reminds me of the fact that I already know it and that motivates me. If it’s something I’ve never done, read or thought of before it also motivates me because that’s what learning something new does. But that’s me. How about you?

So come the time when my “team” needs encouragement, leadership, direction and positivity I can provide it. 

In his book ‘The Positive Principle Today’, Norman Vincent Peale reminds us that ‘the extremely important qualities of inspiration and enthusiasm are not to be taken for granted; they can and often do decline in force and must therefore be replenished daily by a new intake of motivational thinking’.

If you know what to do to motivate yourself in terms of motivating your sales team and can identify your timeline is for getting your ‘top up’ you’ll always keep yourself in peak motivator condition!