Posted by Tom Rothrock on Fri, Oct 30, 2009 @ 12:38 PM
Cold Month End Sweat!
There have been times, more often than not, when you've likely contemplated, "As a Sales Manager, what really are my key responsibilities? My boss creates fire drills and my sales team seems to need parental guidance! On top of that, I have to hit the numbers!"
All of that seems to "hit you" when you awaken at 2 a.m. in a cold end of month sweat wondering if your new rep updated the CRM with the closed deals so you'd make the quarter-end numbers. Or, when you're busily draining the swamp and avoiding the alligators.....
5 Key Buckets of Responsibility
Across global sales organizations of all sizes and in all market segments, we've seen the key responsibilities of sales manager broken down into 5 buckets:
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Meet sales/financial goals
- Build an effective sales team
- Individual rep development: skill and behavior
- Express clear communication
- Provide leadership and direction
Top Performers Have Expectations of You
As a sales manager, your top performers will expect you to:
Remember that in your role as manager, your behavior is looked up to by your direct reports as a model to emulate. For them to grow, they need a leader who exhibits behaviors that are worthy of following.
All of which, of course, is accomplished by your unyielding focus on building a foundation of integrity and trust.
How do you build that foundation?
A good start is to focus on skill areas which will provide your team the greatest return on their time and offer them the opportunity for the highest levels of professional growth.
Start by downloading our Free Guide to Pre-call Planning. By coaching your team on the valuable techniques found there, you'll be building the basis for long term performance and you'll go back to getting a well deserved and good night's sleep!
Photo credit: dgilder
Posted by Todd Kasper on Thu, Oct 15, 2009 @ 03:00 PM
The Conversation Economy
An important emerging trend in the selling profession today is how to deal with the new "conversation economy." One of the key takeaways from the Chicago Sales 2.0 Conference in early September was that as information becomes easier for customers to get, the sales function's role becomes less about providing information and more about having conversations with customers.
Fortunately, the rise of both the social media and Sales 2.0 movements have made this transformation easier for sales professionals. Lead management, personal introductions, prospecting, forecasting, pipeline management, and even contract signing are now much easier than even just a couple of years ago.
Despite the rise of these wonderful tools, customers still know more than ever about our products and services. Furthermore, they are as busy as ever before, and when combined with email, IM, and other means of communication, all of this means that we have to make the most out of the limited time that we actually have in "live" conversations with customers.
Blocking & Tackling Still Works
Given this new environment, the basic sales fundamental of pre-call planning is as important than ever. While pre-call planning is certainly not "flashy" in a world with all kinds of new sales toys, it is still a fool-proof way of guaranteeing that sales professionals are maximizing their return on time spent in front of customers.
Pre-call planning includes research and due diligence, but centers on tactical preparation for what is going to happen during the actual meeting. It covers the objective of the call or meeting, questions to be asked, answers to possible customer questions, contingency plans, and other factors.
In an environment where only a small minority of sales people take the time to actively think through the mechanics of an upcoming conversation, effective pre-call planning presents a tremendous competitive advantage.
It's the Little Things
Many times in sales, as in sports, it's the little things that make the difference in the end - almost everyone does the easy stuff.
Consider the following statistics from the 2008 PGA Tour. The overall adjusted scoring average leader was Sergio Garcia at 69.12 strokes per round, and with $4.85 million in Tour earnings. By contrast, Pat Perez was 22nd in adjusted scoring at 70.08 strokes per round and $1.76 million in earnings.
Less than one stroke per round separated 21 spots on the scoring list, and represented a difference in $3.1 million in earnings!
Pre-call Planning
Virtually all sales people take at least some time to prepare for customer meetings - even if it's just to look at a past purchase history or the customer's website. However, very few professionals go the extra mile do the special "little things" in preparing to fully anticipate how that conversation may proceed.
In a world where live conversations with customers may be getting harder to come by, those little things will, metaphorically speaking, shave that one stroke off your game (at least), and represent a lot of ranking spots (and money!).
Photo credit: Seattle Municipal Archives
Guide to Pre-Call Planning
Learn more about successful pre-call planning, its benefits, and impact on vital functions in your sales organization.
Download our Guide to Pre-Call Planning.
Posted by Tom Rothrock on Tue, Oct 06, 2009 @ 05:57 PM
Several of our previous blogs have talked about identifying, interviewing, and using assessments to hire top performing sales reps for your sales team.
So let's say by now you've enacted those points, built a benchmark and have introduced assessments to your recruiting and hiring process. Further, you've brought aboard a strong "A Player" who's really making the numbers happen and is going to make plan before year-end in a territory where that's never occurred before.
Congratulations!!
Next, by capitalizing on your use of assessments, we'll move forward on how you can use them to strengthen your sales team beyond the hiring process. [Don't worry, if you haven't used assessments yet, you'll benefit from the discussion, too.]
How do you build strength?
Seasoned sales managers and, yes, veteran coaches of every sport will tell you, "Observe, coach, observe, coach, observe, coach." You spend every available moment in the field observing your team and stressing the use of sales strategies and techniques to advance the sales cycle in pre-call and post-call coaching sessions.
The use of an assessment will give you a "heads up" on your coaching efforts by telling you what areas to focus on and what areas are of a lesser concern that can be set aside for now.
For example: The assessment data tells you your new "A Player" is very social. In sales, we know that's a good thing as we'd prefer having our prospects and customers relating to a personable, outgoing rep instead of a remote, indifferent one.
However, your rep's need for social interaction can stymie sales performance. If the rep takes too much time "making friends instead of sales," sales will suffer as the result of too many "howdy calls" instead of executing calls with a clear sales objective. There are also prospects and customers who'd rather stick to business and forgo rapport-building. Your rep needs to know the difference between the two and react and respond accordingly.
A properly structured assessment report will identify characteristics like these and provide you coaching steps to overcome them.
Who Moves Up and When?
Every sales manager knows that at some point in time, they'll get asked, "Who's your successor?" When you do, you'd better be prepared with an answer. That question comprises a big part of our job responsibilities and planning succession is a critical process to ensure the continued success and growth of your sales team.
When planning succession moves, you'll need insights into your candidates beyond the scope of their current assignment. Your assessment data will help you out here, too.
Many sales organizations have promoted their top performing sales reps to sales managers, based on the logic that the rep's performance can be duplicated and translated in the managerial role to their new subordinates. This approach has worked in some cases but, in others, it has not.
The challenge is that a sales manager's role takes on aspects which are opposed to the classic sales rep function. For one, there's an administrative reporting responsibility to assume that presents a struggle for many former reps to address.
There's also the issue of structure. Reps generally are autonomous and independent while a large part of a manager's job involves enforcing policy which can present a transitional challenge for the new sales manager.
As in the case of our coaching example, an assessment on a managerial candidate will tell you if the candidate is "cut out" for the managerial function. Your starting point - as in the case of indentifying our top performing sales reps - will be to establish a benchmark for your managerial position that your candidates can be measured against.
Then, your assessment report will tell who you who is up for the challenge and who needs more "polish." Again, you'll be spending time developing those who'll be likely candidates as opposed to those who're not.
If I can aid you in using assessments for building your sales team strengths and depth, please do contact me at precallpro.com.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ggvic/