Without question one of the most difficult things to accomplish in business is the continually successful management of the sales team. There are times where every shiny object seems to distract them, and more time is spent getting focus than getting results. IF YOU ARE A SALES PERSON, KEEP READING WE REALLY DO LOVE YOU!
There are volumes on the subject of how to manage, how to motivate and how to combine the two. I will speak not on theory but what has worked for me and for the clients I work with. That is simply, there must be a carrot and there must be a stick.
The carrot: Often sales managers and CEOs alike seem to spend a lot of time on this subject. Carrots to the sales team are simple, they are compensation. They are not Friday casual day, they are not work parties or even vacations they are money. Sales people, those that live on commissions (if you have sales people who do not live on commission they are not sales people they are employees that sell, more on that later.) are motivated by commissions. Period.
It is important to remember this as you structure you compensation package and as you look to refine your caret. As employers of sales people there is also a need to enroll our sales team into our vision, it is important that they have a clear picture of who we are, who are client is, what are product is, what the purpose of our product is and who is the most likely candidate to purchase that product. It is equally as important that you do not spend the majority of your time on this subject, although motivation is important, by itself it simply does not generate RESULTS!
As you look to refine your caret remember that it needs to be a win, win, win! The salesman needs to win, the company needs to win and the client needs to win. Simply increasing a commission rate or increasing the product price to pay a more significant commission may not always be the right answer. Look for ways to generate interest and motivation for your sales people to go the extra mile, to make the hard calls and to close deals that otherwise would not get closed. We have seen effective programs around paying healthy bonuses or spiffs for deals that are closed off the lost opportunity or cold lead lists, perhaps you pay twice the commission for leads that are not generated by the company but rather from the direct efforts of the sales person. Things of this nature are more likely to motivate them to action that falls outside waiting by the phone for a warm lead to fall out of the sky.
The Stick: Equally as important as the caret is the stick. This is not that there is a looming execution at every turn but simply a ruler to help make sure that they continue on the needed path and that they are meeting their goals.
The best sales manager I have ever worked with would sit with each of her employees and would help them create their plan, she would talk about the revenue that they wanted to make, what they had to make and what they thought their sales numbers would be. She would take copious notes and would create a brief document that would lay out what they had told her. She would then load all of that information into her Sales Management System and would use their goals, their projections to hold them accountable to what they were or were not doing.
If I told you that I wanted to make 100K a year that is a good start, that can be reverse engineered to mean that i want to make $8333 a month, $2083 a week, $416 a day, and if I work 45 hours a week, a healthy $46 per hour. If I sell something that costs $1000 with a 30% commission and as a company we close 65% of all of the leads that translates to 1.4 sales per day or 2.5 new leads per day.
What she was masterful was not math but rather enrolment, by the end of her meetings the sales person felt like he had just told her exactly what he was going to do, he had a goal and a vision of what that needed to look like to make happen, it was not a “I want to make a 100K” conversation it was a “I need 2.5 new leads a day” conversation. The translated into the stick, when sales people were not meeting THEIR goals they were held accountable, there was no fighting about quotas, no conversation about what was possible or not there was simply clear communication about the fact that they were not meeting their expectations of what they told her they could do and what was going to happen to fix the problem.
The other thing that made that particular organization so effective was consistency. Far too often in the busy world we live in we fail to keep our eyes on what is going on until there is something on fire. I have seen countless good sales people leave organizations because no one is watching for good or bad indicators and making the needed changes to keep the sales team on track. Use a solution like TotalBGE.com to build a reporting system that does not require extra work on anyone’s part to prepare, devote time each day to look at what is happening, who is on track, behind or ahead of their numbers. Stay consistent with your review of progress GOOD & BAD. If you are doing a review and need to correct behavior use clear data not feelings or hearsay. If you are using a CRM like TotalBGE, you can watch what is going on, set alerts and ensure that if things are going wrong you know it before anyone else so you can take appropriate action.
Managing the sales team is a complicated task. Each person requires different levels of interaction, reward, discipline and motivation; however, results are results. Using what is actually happening, what is not happening and ensuring that actions are being taken to put in line the goals, actions and results will impact your sales organization. You will find that this type of reality based management will make the job easier, more effective and more enjoyable.
In the 2 years I worked with that sales manager, she never fired a sales person, the good continually got better and the dead wood left of their own accord. Her sales team was simply the most effective and streamlined I have ever seen and, most impressively, she only worked 2 1/2 days a week!
Keep in mind that if your sales team is not producing; the issue is most likely not the sales team but more likely, the leadership and how they are interacting, motivating, rewarding and managing that team!
Far too often, companies pick a carrot or a stick and find themselves having to constantly rebuild, revamp and rehire. Together they make a powerful combination, alone they make a sales manager crazy!
