Have You Protected Your Assets

Having worked closely with sales teams for the past 20 years one area that seems to get missed is keeping your sales force up to date on basic skills and expertise. As the economy changed, the means to market and sales approach has to change to deal with the customers economic condition. The old "hi Charlie, how much can I put you down for" has all but disappeared. For that matter it did a long time ago and top sales people did not know how to adjust.

So you as a manager need to focus on the following:

• identify weak spots - does your sale team and for that matter customer service people know the company's strategy?
• climate - sales people want new ideas and products so keep the pipeline full including software that will make their job easier and more efficient;
• check for complacency - management should keep communication lines full from strategy to daily updates on sales activity. Keep sales teams motivated through impact marketing, coaching, and weed out poor performers if they continue after development investment;
• adjust territories if needed.

A couple of other housekeeping initiatives such as:

• continue to evaluate your resources
• focus on service excellence
• get people out of their comfort zones
• train towards peak performance
• continuous measurement - post results
• keep their eye on the ball
• create a theme

As a manager are you doing these things to keep your sales team at peak levels and if not you will experience the recession and you will lose the dream for your team. What are your thoughts?

Exceeding Expectations in Sales

There was a feature article in Selling Power this month (July/August 2009) that outlined how to set expectations for sales people. This is a add on to my previous post "Sales Managers - Don't Shoot Yourself in the Foot." (7/29)

As sales managers in a transition economy you should do the following as Selling Power outlines:

• set expectations that are attainable with a stretch not unattainable or unrealistic
• goals should be tied to variables the sales staff can control
• goals should be customized to fit the salesperson situation or territory - goals should be broken down into small bites - management must sit down with sales people and show them a clear path they will take to achieve the stretch target
• if you have to adjust the goals based on economic conditions, re-motivate the team with a goal they consider to be fair.

So are you following these easy steps or are you totally or partially disrupting the dynamics of your team with new goals, alignments, and added duties that take their eye off the goal?

Sales Managers - Don't Shoot Yourself in the Foot

I spoke to a couple of colleagues this past week and there seems to be a pattern that has developed because of the drops in revenue, the economy, and tighter competition. Yes, you are right, tweaking or reorganizing the sales force.

Whether you are managing inside or outside sales teams be careful not to disrupt the rhythm a sales team develops over time. It occurs when teams have been together a while, know each others habits, flow of information, and group motivations. When you are trying to preserve and grow revenue you don't want to demotivate your sales teams by massive restructuring. The outcome will be fewer sales over the short term and depending on your team dynamics could provide less revenue over the long haul.

So be careful not to shoot yourself in the foot by doing a restructure or RIF that will demotivate a team that for all intensive purposes has performed in this tough and treacherous economy. I will continue to advocate, as I am sure you will, that you need to get rid of poor performers in an expedient manner and within the laws in your state. Nothing hurts a sales team than a performer that is dragging down your team and killing the drivers of revenue and profits.

Take a tough stand with lots of input from various sources if there is a need to restructure so you make sure your team dynamics are not impacted. What have you done in this area over the past 12 months?