A sales manager should be able to help the sales team identify its strengths and weaknesses to drive performance. They should also be able to develop a strategy that aligns with the salesperson’s strengths and provide constructive feedback in order to help the salesperson improve in areas where they are not performing well.
It doesn’t end there. There are many other tasks a sales manager should be focusing on to improve team performance. We will be covering it in the following sections.
Develop a sales strategy with the company’s key players.
Sales managers should be able to simultaneously communicate with senior management and the sales staff because they are at the heart of the organization. Even though sales managers function as sales coach the majority of the time by offering sales training to their team, they should also manage to build relationships with top executives in order to develop plans for an effective sales process.
To add on, It is also very important to make sure that all departments of the organization work together, especially the marketing and sales department. To do this, the sales team must set goals that are in line with the marketing strategy and find a good middle ground between the short and long-term goals they set for their team.
It’s easy to get caught up in day-to-day administrative activities, but good sales managers recognize when they need to take a step back and work on the business rather than in it.
Recognize and reward the sales team
No amount of words will be enough to motivate your team. However, money talks. You must compensate your salespeople appropriately, with a clear framework and a consistent frequency, because they are motivated by the money.
That said, there’s a lot more to motivation than just numbers. Sales managers need to come up with ways to make their employees want to win, have fun, do better, and be recognized. In addition to monetary compensation, salespeople profit substantially from the use of variable or cyclical incentive plans.
The American Psychological Association discovered that in order to stay motivated, salespeople must have a sense of purpose in their profession and the belief that their effort is appreciated by their supervisors and the firm as a whole. Praise is a fantastic place to begin. (Trusted source)
Think of sales management strategies for sales
If you’re starting a sales team from scratch, the first thing to consider is the buying process your customers take.
- How many people must agree on the purchase decision?
- Are there any obstacles that might prevent them from doing so?
- If multiple stakeholders must be influenced, a sales team must initiate conversations, respond to queries, address concerns, and negotiate terms to eliminate friction points.
Here’s a tactical approach to this.
Sales teams should have a different approach to selling to each buyer persona. They should customize the sales pitch based on the buyer persona’s needs or work. For instance, if a potential prospect is unsure of your solution or a service, maybe work with the services/product team to provide an exclusive offer (free one-month trial, free audit).
You must identify all decision-makers and classify them into groups. Next, create a strategy for each group. Finally, make sure you hire people who can work well with them.
Provide sales training
Many sales leaders think they’re coaching when they’re actually just telling employees what to do.
Successful sales managers earn their sales reps’ trust. This allows for open discussion of performance issues. Sharing experiences also builds a two-way friendship.
Start by sharing personal and professional experiences. For example, a seasoned manager may tell of their first disastrous sales call, emphasizing inadequate preparation, aggressive posturing, and lack of empathy. The manager would next address these flaws by practicing calls and researching the prospect’s background, business, position, and pain issues.
The next thing to keep in mind is to let your team members evaluate their own performance. Representatives who can assess what they do well and where they can improve become more self-aware. Self-awareness leads to self-confidence, which leads to more consistent sales. Following self-evaluation, they can consider their areas of error and devise a plan of action to address them.
Using software to your advantage
Sales managers use a variety of metrics to measure the sales performance of a team to spot the high performers and areas they want to improve. However, this process can be time-consuming as It requires a lot of time and effort to go through the data, find insights, and then present them in a meaningful way.
Fortunately, the whole process can be streamlined by utilizing SPM software with a broader range of functionality and advanced sales analytics capabilities. Sales managers utilize sales performance management solutions because of their gamification, territory and quota management, incentive compensation management, and reporting capabilities.
A sales team needs sales performance management to educate and help your team to set sales goals and satisfy customers. Managers can use sales performance management software to track sales performance on a per-rep and team basis using key performance indicators (KPIs). SPM solutions enable sales leaders to monitor and guide sales reps in ways that improve their ability to sell by linking performance and revenue analytics. They also provide sales reps with insights into their own and others’ performance.
If you are looking for SPM software that can help you measure your sales team’s performance, then Varicent might be the right fit for you. Learn more about Varicent and what they have to offer.
What Factors Affect Sales Performance?
Other than the above pointers, there are a few other factors that affect sales performance.
Product
Most sales managers know that the pricing and the quality of the product is one of the important factors that drive sales. It’s in the hands of the organization to make sure the product is reasonably priced and its quality is maintained. However, sales managers can still be resourceful by forwarding the feedback they get regarding the current product to the core departments of an organization.
Economic cycle
The economic cycle can affect product sales in two ways. First, the economy can affect how much disposable income people have available to spend on luxury goods. The second way is that the economy affects what people are looking for in their purchases. For example, during tough economic times, people are more likely to buy necessities and less likely to buy luxury items
Sales managers should be aware of the current economic cycle and adjust their strategies accordingly. They should also be prepared for a recession by developing contingency plans for such an event.
Sales activites budget
The sales activities budget is a key factor in the success of a product. If the budget is set too low, the product may fail to reach its full potential. On the other hand, if it is set too high, then there might not be enough money left for marketing and advertising. It is important to know how much money should be spent on sales activities in order to achieve maximum revenue from a product.
Sales managers should start by looking at their past performance and forecasted growth to determine what their budget should look like. They also need to factor in any new initiatives that are planned for the year
