| So you want to improve your sales team's | | | | developing, directing, planing, coaching, communicating |
| performance. | | | | expectations, measuring success, and managing |
| There are so many places to try and squeeze | | | | change on a daily basis. This is where the rubber |
| additional performance improvements out of your | | | | meets the road! |
| team. The question is...where do you start? | | | | I have worked with hundreds of Sales Managers |
| Do you start with better tools like Sales Force | | | | from small businesses to fortune 100 companies over |
| Automation (SFA) or Customer Relationship | | | | the last 5 years and the vast majority of them were |
| Management (CRM)? Maybe implementing | | | | great salespeople that got promoted to Sales |
| opportunity, account, and territory management | | | | Manager. Most of them have spent years struggling |
| methodologies would work. How about improving | | | | to develop the heart of a manager. Most have |
| sales skills? You could train them in value/relationship | | | | developed their management systems and skills |
| consultative/collaborative/strategic selling or | | | | through trial and error or imitating previous managers. |
| negotiation. The truth is if your company is weak in | | | | Each quarter brings constant pressure to hit the |
| any of these areas you could experience improved | | | | numbers and each year the pressure mounts as their |
| performance by addressing them head on. I'll discuss | | | | companys' raise the bar. Sooner or later the |
| this in future blogs. | | | | relentless drive to bring in the numbers causes the |
| I can hear some of you groaning already. I know you | | | | Sales Manager to fall back on what they know |
| invested thousands, or hundreds of thousands of | | | | created success for them in the past. Instead of |
| dollars to implement new tools, processes, methods, | | | | leading and developing the sales team they become |
| and training before, but it didn't stick or you got | | | | "super closers" that get the job done by setting the |
| marginal returns on investments. | | | | pace, directing activities and closing sales. |
| Sales Productivity Secret #1 | | | | So what's wrong with that? |
| No matter what you choose to improve, if you don't | | | | If your company does not require the sales manager |
| focus on the Sales Managers first the improvement | | | | to carry a book of business (they have a personal |
| initiatives will only deliver short term results. | | | | quota or list of accounts to call on) then they are |
| The Sales Managers are the key to sustainable | | | | doing the salesperson's job. The very skills that made |
| performance improvement. | | | | the Sales Manager such a great Salesperson are the |
| Why? | | | | obstacles to developing an Elite High-Performance |
| Because they are responsible for hiring, training, | | | | team. |