Last
week, I watched a keynote address called Gourmet Living, which had been
about creating a Menu of Your Life, with many metaphors around
cooking.
I
started thinking about what a sales management recipe should be. So if your
team’s sales performance has left a bad taste in your mouth, use the following
ingredients to create a new recipe to make the rest of the year more palatable.
Reduce Fatigue
Recognise
your sales team might be tired or somewhat challenged based upon the past few
years of tight budgets and stress.
Fire
them up with new products or packaging/pricing, change the game with new times
for sales and sales training meetings — even physically rearrange the office.
Once
a month, take your sales team on a “field trip” to visit a customer, let the
customer “sell” your team on your products/services. The customer’s perspective
of your offering is the most important perspective.
Do Some Detective Work
In
sales management workshops, they always talk about “inspect what you expect.”
Once a week review your sales team's activities. Once they know you are
actually reviewing their behaviour they will be more precise and more accurate.
If
you have a CRM system review it to ensure your team are using it properly and
casually ask each team member about certain activities within their key
accounts.
Make
two extra sales calls per month with each sales rep. Validate they can sell
your firm and they are using the proper sales tools.
These
actions are not micro-management, they are designed to provide you greater
opportunities to coach and grow your team.
Find Some Creative Pixie Dust
Read
a book on creativity and share it with your team. The truly great salespeople
are the most creative and it's true that creativity can be learned!
As
a sales manager, creative sales strategies will push you over your quota — get
your entire team into a creativity drive.
Become a SOB
That
is, a Student of the Business. Invest in sales management training, books,
DVDs. Create your own network of other sales managers in allied but
non-competing fields where you can discuss ideas, learn what is working for
others and explore new sales management concepts.
Push
yourself to become a more complete professional. Why not visit other offices
and view how their sales managers run their sales teams?
While
these are just a few ideas, I would enjoy reading your reactions or other
recipes for success. As a team let’s build a complete recipe book for each of
us to use to make the future a feast we will always remember.
I hope this helps your
business to be outstanding.
That is all -
David
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