Like most sales managers, you expect a lot from your sales reps; you expect them to meet or exceed their quotas. But many of the factors surrounding a potential sale are out of their control — so make sure your expectations are realistic, and that you’re helping them with the factors within their control.
Can they do it?
- Your sales reps can’t control whether a prospect needs, wants or can afford your company’s products/services.
- They can’t control whether a current customer needs to place a reorder.
- They can’t control your competitor’s marketing, advertising, pricing or promotions that eat away at your market share.
- They can’t control the market demand or economic forces that impact demand, for your product/service.
What can they control?
- The only thing your salespeople can control is their own behavior. Regardless of the economy, market demand or the competition, there are specific activities you can help them focus on and hold them accountable for performing daily, weekly and monthly activities that will keep them moving toward the accomplishment of their goals.
What can you do?
Help and encourage your salespeople to identify new customers:
- Establish a prospecting plan — one that identifies specific activities such as cold calling, networking and generating referrals to be performed on a regularly scheduled and recurring basis.
- Hold your salespeople accountable to the prospecting plan activities.
- Hold your salespeople accountable for contacting a specific number of prospects daily or weekly.
- Identify and inform your salespeople about specific target markets to focus on and the unique advantages your products/ services provide for those markets — i.e. develop a specific target market prospecting message.
- Inform your salespeople about the company’s marketing and advertising activities so they can focus their time.
Maintaining profitable accounts, weeding out unprofitable accounts and replacing accounts should also be a prime objective. Here are some things you can do to assist your salespeople with existing accounts:
- Identify criteria your salespeople can use to analyze and categorize accounts in relation to growth potential.
- Analyze the amount of time salespeople invest with each account category.
- Help your salespeople develop specific growth plans for each account — i.e. if an account has been cherry-picking your product line, the goal would be to broaden the depth of their purchases or perhaps, replace them.
When you help your salespeople focus on business development activities they can have control over, expectations will be met — yours and theirs.
Dave Harman is an associate with Sandler Training. He has over 30 years’ experience in sales and sales management with Fortune 500 companies as well as small, family-owned organizations. He has held positions from sales to senior management with companies such as Conoco/Vista, Amresco and Ohio Awning, and owns his own business. He earned his MBA with a concentration in Marketing from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. You can reach him at [email protected] or (888) 448-2030.
