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Techniques To Manage Sales Team For Achieving Sales Goals More Quickly and Effectively
Sales teams are the actual performer of the task a sales manager has outlined. The success of sales goals achievement largely depends upon how the sales teams are managed, as such how to manage the sales team effectively – a challenging task for sales managers.
As a sales manager, your basic goal is to unlock your company’s true revenue potential through proper planning and sales teams management. But it is not that simple, some salespeople are not just interested, happy on sales manager’s tasks, they may be misassigned, and so forth.
The main goal of the sales manager is to build an effective sales team that best works to meet sales goals. Here is how you can build & manage your sales team and achieve revenue & growth for your business by following techniques.
Set Clear Sales Goal
Sales goals are what you are positioned as a sales manager. The first task is to set what sales goals you and your company want to achieve. The sales goals you set need to be realistic, attainable, and acceptable by the sales reps.
The best practice in setting goals is to set SMART goals. This means the goal should be specific that clearly show what is to be achieved, its performance should be measurable, it should be attainable by efforts made by sales teams, should be realistic not too ambitious, and should mirror the time when the goal is to be achieved.
SMART sales goal enriches the likelihood sales teams will accept it and achieve it at the right time and this is how you can start managing your sales team developing your sales goal.
Hire Sales Personnel
To manage sales teams first you need to have a team of sales personnel. After setting sales goals you need to recruit people who can turn your paperwork into reality.
In your company, the top management may have mentioned criteria relating to what types of people you have to select. The criteria in hiring sales personnel may include educational qualifications, skills, work experience, age, and so forth.
While hiring sales personnel besides considering the criteria they should have passed through written tests, questionnaires, and interviews. And, the people who best fit with sales goals criteria should be selected.
Train Them
Once sales personnel are hired your next task is to assemble them in a team and give necessary training. Just being passed through selection hurdles they may not be best prepared to perform tasks.
They need to have given proper training explaining what is their goal to achieve, familiarizing themselves with the company, with the market, strategies of competitors, and ultimately converting their knowledge into a skill.
Moreover, most importantly a sales team needs to train on doing prospecting, handling objections of customers, closing sales, and retaining the customers.
Right Person To The Right Job
The sales manager should make sure that while assigning tasks to the sales team’s individual the task should be assigned to the right person. The duties and responsibilities assigned to a salesperson should best fit with his/her knowledge, skill, and capacity to perform.
The right job to the right person brings better performance to the sales manager in turn reaching near to the desired sales goals. Opposite of it may withdraw the interest of sales teams in doing duties.
Give Incentive To The Team
Sales teams are not free to work, they need to be given fair payment in return for their work. Incentives greatly work as a motivator for the sales reps to make them do something excitingly.
In addition, the sales manager has to encourage them, make them believe that their efforts are for their growth, they have devoted their effort to the right place, they are developing their career.
Incentive with encouragement is so powerful. The sales manager has to choose the right incentive plan that excites sales teams to do better.
Set Targets
As an attempt to effectively manage a sales team the manager has to also offer exciting targets. The targets you may set as “20% commission in every 100 sales of a prodcut”, “attractive reward on achieving exceptional sales goals.”
The rewards on targets motivate salespeople to do more. They are driven by their very effort to achieve target goals and get offered rewards. Setting targets not only help them to get exciting rewards but by doing it the number of sales closing also increases as such increases the sales revenue to the firm.
Be Transparent
Being transparent means being open to sharing every aspect related to sales goals, planning, costs, payments to the sales teams. The sales manager has to show all the activities he has done are for growth for the company and the people in it.
Transparency in the company helps salespeople to make sure that they have not lied, all the activities are recorded which is shown to everyone, and all efforts are for the betterment of people and the firm. This further helps to build the trust of salespeople in the company.
One-to-One Meeting
One-to-one meeting with salespeople and sales managers (top-executive) is a great way to build trust, make them feel valued, receive feedback, share concerns, and ultimately coming with new insights to improve performance.
Though, sales managers have a busy schedule, just because of the busy schedule ignoring the concerns of the sales teams, is a great mistake. The sales manager has to make time to meet sales reps and work and meet their expectations.
Deliver Feedback
Considered, personal meeting with salespeople is a great way to give feedback but moreover, the feedback should be given in detail. The feedback should be delivered respectfully.
Tell the sales teams how they are doing, if seem imperfections suggest ways to improve. It is seen that more than 65% of employees want to hear feedback from their work. The feedback is not just to tell how they are doing rather it further creates a way to do it more rightly.
Ongoing Training
Just one-time training is not enough to manage the sales team effectively, they also need to have trained in their way of performance. As time passes the market condition, expectations of the customers, competition, technology, marketing tactics, and sales goals have changed.
To meet the changing environment of sales and marketing they also need to get informed. Likewise, to best fit with changed events, they also have to be trained with new tactics and strategies to implement.
Two-Way Communication
Communicating with sales teams is a great way a sales manager gets to know how is his teams are doing. Only assigning tasks to them and not letting them tell their concerns may not let the firm close sales as much as it wants.
The communication needs to be two-way, as per the need the sales teams should have a right and proper means to be in a contact with the sales manager.
Participate Sales Reps in Planning
When planning and setting sales goals participating sales reps in such events is a great effort successful sales managers used to make. It makes salespeople feel that they are valued, their concerns are given importance, they are further motivated to devote their maximum effort.
In addition, the real experiences with the client’s sales reps further help to set more effective plans. As such plan is established with mutuality between sales executives and sales reps it tends to perform better.
Let The Sales Teams Be Ahead of Competitors
To get exceptional results from the sales teams, the sales manager has to encourage them to stay ahead of the competitor’s position and strategies. Its the prime duty of the sales manager to knowledge his sales teams on how the competitors are doing, what strategies they are employing, why they are achieving their goals.
And, providing new insights tools to perform better than competitors is also a great attempt a sales manager makes to manage his sales team.
Appreciate The Sales Team
Only the financial benefits always do not best work to bring the best performance of sales teams. People want to feel appreciated, they want to build an image, they wish people remember their works.
By appreciating the work of sales teams the manager can better encouragement in his sales teams to do more, he has to show the real worth of their effort. In addition, giving names, fame, and appreciation letter for great works also positively influence them.
Oversee Performance
The performance of sales teams should be watched. The sales manager has to watch the performance of his sales team – how they are doing to manage them effectively. If the teams are performing well – moving the way they should be, it is ok, good. But when sales teams are found in the going wrong way, the corrective measures should be assumed to again step them on a right track.
Retain Sales Team
After all, all efforts are applied and sales goals achieved the sales manager should not forget that retaining sales teams is also as important as achieving sales goals. As the success of the business determines the effective follow-up, the success of achieving sales management also is determined by effective management of sales personnel (team).
Sales reps want to work in firms where they see their bright future. To retain a long-term sales team the sales manager provides them a place to succeed, good motivation, appreciation, regular opportunities to grow, and creating a working environment they enjoy being a part of.