Sales Management

Wearing the Mantle of Leadership As we begin to wrap up this book on sales management, we’re obligated to spend some time on you. Are you the leader you would like to be? Do you have the necessary passion and competencies ... [full story]

Succession and Legacy Planning In most cases, the departing sales professional possesses certain competencies and attributes that have made them successful. Many sales mangers, when faced with the task of replacing these folks, search for someone just like them. This is ... [full story]

Preparing for Turnover Preparing for turnover will allow you to stabilize the disruption that it causes. There will always be turnover, but some elements have created an environment of necessary change that has led to higher turnover rates. The new elements ... [full story]

Professional or Career Goals What do team members want out of their careers? This may or may not be tied to the jobs they are currently doing and the company by which they are currently employed. Somewhere in their minds, ... [full story]

Personal or Life Goals What do your team members want out of life? A personal goal could best be described as what a person would like to achieve during his or her lifetime. These goals might include financial security for ... [full story]

Organizationally Directed Goals Of course the most obvious goals team members have, and the ones that will support the others, are the goals you and the organization have assigned to them. They can be a certain sales revenue attainment, skills ... [full story]

Creating Career Development Plans for Your Sales Team Members A primary responsibility of all sales managers is to develop a career plan for each and every salesperson and sales support person on their team or in their area of responsibility. It ... [full story]

Managing Dismissals Intelligently Many corporations prefer that the human resources department handle dismissals to avoid any legal problems. You may not have this option. If you’re required to let someone go, please do it respectfully and intelligently. They are human beings ... [full story]

Counseling the Problem Team Member If you consider the areas in which you can counsel, the process is very similar to the coaching model with a few exceptions. Make sure you have the facts, not just rumors, or worse yet, personal opinions. Let ... [full story]

Dealing with the Difficult Times Unfortunately, sales managers do encounter problems in their sales teams. This is not pleasant, but it needs to be dealt with quickly and intelligently. Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is what you ... [full story]

Creating a Motivational Environment One of the great misconceptions is that you can motivate people. You cannot. Think about motivational speakers. Is the company really any different after they speak than it was before? Probably not. The enthusiasm was based on ... [full story]

The Office Coaching Session This type of session, as mentioned earlier, is typically designed for management and administrative skills, as opposed to the field ride-along, which coaches selling skills. In an office session you have more focused time to concentrate on ... [full story]

The Ride-Along or Co-Calling Coaching Session It’s a natural tendency for sales managers to enjoy, and excel, at this form of coaching more than any other. Part of the reason is that it’s comfortable to step back into an environment that, ... [full story]

Coaching Skills to Improve Performance Perhaps, after planning, the coaching skill is the most important competency that a sales manager can develop. In fact, planning and coaching are the ‘‘bookends’’ of the job. You start by planning for improvements and then ... [full story]

The Art of Coaching Your responsibility is to determine what it will take to get a salesperson to be a better salesperson, as well as a contributing member of the organizational community. Next, you need to help the individual incorporate your ... [full story]

Areas of Executive Concern Expense management Revenue attainment Margin management Brand equity Shareholder value ROI, ROIC, RONA, etc. Productivity of sales personnel Highly visible events or activities Intraorganization operational smoothness Projections of all of the above Communicate with your senior management and executives in their language and view the ... [full story]

Communicating the Results to Senior Management You now have several tools to forecast the future of sales generated by your team. What should you do with these forecasts? Communicate, communicate, and communicate! As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, senior ... [full story]

Identifying All Contributors to a Forecast Identifying All Contributors to a Forecast One of the biggest mistakes that a sales manager can make is to believe the forecast is between the sales manager, the salesperson, and the target market. It would be ... [full story]

Recognizing Individual Challenges If you use your evaluation tools effectively, you can begin to determine the individual strengths and weaknesses of each and every salesperson under your command. Make sure you understand individual challenges that a salesperson may have and make ... [full story]

Understanding Changes in the Territories and the Marketplace That Impact Performance One of the great challenges is to determine the proper interval between evaluations—monthly, quarterly, or annually. This is of particular importance in today’s business environment, where change is an ongoing ... [full story]

Evaluation Tools One often overlooked tool for evaluating performance is pipeline management (sometimes referred to as funnel management). This time-tested method can be brought up to date with modern technology, such as the hardware and software mentioned previously (for example, ... [full story]

Rating Systems As you begin the process of measuring and managing performance, you may find the task overwhelming. Let’s face it—it is easier to complain about salespeople and their performance than to determine exactly what their performance is in relation to ... [full story]

Sales Forecasting As you discovered in the earlier chapters, basing your forecasts on current trends and projecting them into a future time slot can be more accurate than you realized. With that knowledge, you can determine the future performance of your ... [full story]

Making the Plan Fair for Everyone There are a few points to keep in mind that will make the plan more acceptable and fair to everyone. In selecting the right balance between fixed pay and performance pay, try to keep it ... [full story]

Fine-Tuning the Plan A sales compensation plan is not chiseled in stone. Your responsibility is to continuously fine-tune the drivers to adjust to changes in the business environment. Some of these changes might be: Changes in organizational direction Changes in organizational needs Changes in ... [full story]

Watching for Negative Results Always be aware of the actual behaviors resulting from a sales compensation package. Negative results might take the form of poor sales figures, declining customer satisfaction, gains by your competitors, or other areas of concern for the ... [full story]

Weighing Compensation Plan Variations When designing a new or revised compensation plan, always begin with one that is supportive of your best or most successful salesperson. After all, isn’t this the way you would like all the members of your team ... [full story]

Making Sure Your Compensation Plan Drives the Desired Objectives One of the most important considerations when designing and deploying compensation plans is not to get caught in a ‘‘legacy trap.’’ More than one sales manager has found that she inherited a ... [full story]

Sales Force Compensation Sales Force Compensation One of the first challenges is to create a plan that supports both experienced professionals and new hires. The experienced veterans usually feel that they contribute more to sales success than they are rewarded for and ... [full story]

Getting the Sales Professional’s ‘‘Buy-In’’ Sending salespeople off to training, in whatever form it takes, is often not successful for several reasons. Among them are: They may not feel they need it. They may not feel it is important. They may think they are ... [full story]

Creating Individualized Plans for Growth The frustration in preparing a training plan for the individuals on the sales team is that they are very different from one another on the outside, and even more different from each other on the inside. ... [full story]

Determining Strengths and Weaknesses of Individual Sales Team Members Determining Strengths and Weaknesses of Individual Sales Team Members Most likely one of your key activities as a sales manager is to determine the strengths and weaknesses of each sales team member. In ... [full story]