why managing sales activity is easy!
TRANSCRIPT
Why Managing Sales Activity Is Easy!
Sales activity management is easy when your sales culture simplydemands it.
The question is asked by Sales Managers in the context of it being aconstant battle to ensure that their sales people are doing enoughof the right activities to put them in a position to deliver the salesresults required. The discussion is usually around the number ofprospecting phone calls, the number of first and secondappointments per week and so on…….you know the story.
So, we should be ignoring activity management simply because itcan be a constant, nagging and frustrating experience for bothparties? Well certainly not – We simply recommend a differentapproach.
Start by collecting activity and outcome results for your salesteam as soon as possible. You will quite quickly identify benchmarkstandards which predict success in your business and sellingenvironment, by sales role. Without this data, specific to each rolein your business, you will be guessing forever.
If you are new to your role or the business you are working in, gowith your educated guesses in the interim; and within 3-6 monthsyou will realistically be able to collect the data you require.
Expect to see significant variations in the statistics bysalespeople in similar roles. This is caused by variations inprospecting planning, execution skill levels and plain oldsalesperson “number fudging”.
Do not try to fix motivationissues – it is just too hard.Ultimately it is not yourresponsibility to motivatepeople to front up on timeand do what you pay themto do, with enoughfrequency and proficiency.
Where training, coachingand other organizationalsupport does not positivelyimpact activity levels,manage the individual out.
You may be asking how this helps when coming back to yourweekly face to face meetings with your sales staff. Well, it’s prettysimple – making the activity numbers are a pre-requisite forobtaining a weekly cadence meeting with the Sales Manager forvalue adding coaching and discussion. This meeting will not touchon activity volumes in any way because the culture drives theirdelivery.
Ultimately, if you simply establish expectations and salesorganisation accountability you will get to really manage, coach andlead – and not play baby sitter and excuse receiver. The time inweekly meetings is now freed up to analyse and discussopportunities, review the quality of pipeline, work with individualson skill and process improvement development opportunities. Thesecret is for you now to get started on this path.
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