5-23-2014
A few months ago I was asked to be a presenter at a corporate management retreat for one of our clients. I am always enthusiastic about these opportunities and I take a great deal of pride in making sure that I deliver a quality presentation. My first step is to meet with the key principles in the organization to get a clear understanding of what exactly they hope their managers will gain by my presentation. I?ll eventually ask what topics they are most interested in me speaking about, but I have found that by beginning with the end in mind proves to deliver the best return on investment for them.
In this specific instance the goal was to challenge the sales managers to think about how they currently manage their sales operation and to offer up some ideas for them to consider how they might improve. The goal was not to give them a new initiative but rather to get them to think differently and to explore some new possibilities. We brainstormed a variety of topics and in the end decided that presenting several ideas or pieces of advice would be exactly what this group needed. The results were terrific and it sparked a tremendous amount of conversations about sales management and how they could improve. This sort of thinking helped them to have a very productive conference.
Today I am going to share with you just four of the pieces of sales management advice that I offered that day: These are in no particular order.
1. Hire talented salespeople. The best sales departments have the best salespeople. I?ll prove it to you. Are your top performing salespeople better than your bottom performing salespeople? How much better? 100 percent, 200 percent, 300 percent? When I asked the question that day, one manager said, ?Easily, 300 percent better.? What if you had more people like your top performers and less people like your bottom performers? It all starts with talent. Find a sales interview that measures talent (not personality) and stick with it. Be relentless about hiring talent. At The Center for Sales Strategy we have a saying: Lose sleep before you hire, not after you hire. In other words, spend a great deal of time making sure you hire for talent.
2. Realize that talent is not enough. That?s right, just having the talent to be successful does not make you successful. In order to have your talented salespeople find success you need to invest in them. The best investment you can make is to spend time in the field with them, giving them coaching and feedback. Take the time to see your salespeople when they are doing their job of finding needs and presenting solutions. Watching them in the office or interacting with them in sales meetings is not same. Coaching takes place out in the field and not in the office.
3. Get some quality sales intelligence. Big data is finding its way into sales and it?s critical that you have this information at your fingertips. For the last 30-plus years, managers have managed with a sense of gut or, as one manager shared with me, ?sales management is an art.? I understand that thinking but sales managers today need to also understand the science of sales if they are going to maximize performance. Using data, you can learn how to increase win-rates, improve forecasting, speed up the sales process, determine bottlenecks, and analyze close ratios, just to name a few. Guessing this information is frustrating, but using this information when it?s accurate is brilliant and gives you a significant advantage.
4. Get rid of the ?lone wolf? sales structure. We have been talking about this one for a while and we are starting to see some broadcasters make a change. Asking a salesperson to do every single step in the sales process does not produce the best return on investment for your business. The very best activities for your highly talented salesperson are going on appointments where they find needs and present solutions. So build a structure that allows for them to do more of that and less of everything else. It might seem simple, but when studied it appears that salespeople are only spending about 4-8 hours a week (15 percent) doing that, and the rest of the time is spent on other responsibilities.
So now it?s up to you. I hope this sparks some conversations around your office. Let me know what you think.
Matt Sunshine is EVP of the Center for Sales Strategy. E-mail: mattsunshine@csscenter.com.
(5/23/2014 6:57:02 PM)
A Jew-boy with dumbo ears and the face of a jackal gets no respect!
Add a Comment | View All Comments Send This Story To A Friend
