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Improved sales performance doesn’t come by accident!
If you want to improve your performance then you have to improve the way that you manage. That means that you have to:
The first duty of a manager is to set out a clear vision and strategy. Strategy is an English word that is derived from the Greek word strategia, which means "generalship”. In other words it is about the way in which leaders use their resources in order to meet their corporate objectives and beat their competition.
Most strategy begins with a written strategy paper. These documents, often written for the bank or other investor, can be turgid at best and ill considered at worst. They are rarely focused on the key sales issues that must be addressed to guarantee success. Sales 101 offers an accelerated strategy development workshop to help managers plot the future direction of the business and help them to plan for the resources they will need in order to meet their objectives. This exciting and stimulating program can be conducted in-house, off-site or in Sales 101’s boardroom.
Finding good salespeople is one of the hardest jobs that sales managers have.
By their very nature, salespeople are convincing, build good rapport and (should be good at) driving forward the process and gaining commitment. For managers who are not salespeople this can be bewildering and can lead to expensive mistakes, wasted time and lost opportunity. Sales 101 runs Sales Assessment Centres to help non-sales management to identify candidates who will perform as salespeople. Depending on the need, this can involve running assessment centres, providing aptitude tests and using pre-packaged exercises which help to sort out those who can and those who just say they can.
Once salespeople have been successfully recruited they need to be managed. This means inducting them into the company properly so that they have a thorough understanding of its culture, values and objectives. They also need to understand the systems in place which allow them to sell and be properly motivated in terms of territories and incentive plans. Sales 101 can provide a checklist which can be used to ensure that salespeople have been properly briefed and can get up and productive in the shortest possible time. We can also advise on the design of territories and the construction of incentive and reward plans which will help to maximise the motivation of salespeople and it sure that their objectives are properly aligned with those of their manager.
There are literally thousands of different sales process models. Each has its own promoter and may or may not have particular relevance to a given market or sales approach. Frankly, all sales process models are very similar and simply use different terminology to describe the method that salespeople use for getting from an initial lead to a closed order. A sales process model is simply a route map that is used to navigate through the sale. Although Sales 101 has its own sales process, THE QUEST SOLD, we believe that the other processes that are widely promoted all have their own merits and advantages. The difficulty is that when new salespeople are recruited, they come from different backgrounds and traditions. This means that there is no common language and it consequently becomes difficult to assess the way in which they are managing their sales productivity.
Sales 101 runs facilitated development workshops which help companies to align their sales process and ensure that all salespeople have a common language, approach and the way of describing their progress with an account. This means that that they have a common understanding of the company’s sales development process and this makes it easier to forecast business and control the investment in time and resources being put into sourcing new revenue streams.
Sales 101 also provides pre-packaged sales training tools which can be used by management to carry out a training needs analysis or to undertake specific skills based training for their sales team. At the top of the range we provide The Sales Master TM which is a unique innovation using games to identify training needs. The Sales Master TM provides more than 70 hours of pre-packaged content which sales managers can use to coach and educate their teams. We also provide online sales training modules which can be used to supplement or backfill knowledge gaps. We also have a range of downloadable pre-packaged sales courses which can delivered by the sales leader himself.
Sales process workshops can be used in conjunction with sales training to ensure that both management and sales force have a clear understanding of targets, objectives and goals.
Managing a sales force is a complex and demanding task. As well as outstanding people management skills the sales manager has to have a clear understanding of the sales process, be able to coach and encourage his team and have at his disposal tools which help him to analyse progress towards his objective. Sales 101 specialises in providing support to sales leaders at every level and in addition can help with finding sales books, sales training tapes, sales training videos and psychometric assessment tools designed to ensure that you meet your targets year in-year out.
