The 3 Steps to Managing Your First Sales Team

Like anything in life managing a new sales team is easy when you know how. To make life simple. The list below gives you a start that will work now and in years to come. Because these steps look so simple don't underestimate their power.

These specific activities form the process all successful sales managers employ to enable them to manage their new sales team quickly.

Review Each Resume

This is so easy to do and a mistake many sales managers make. Some simple questions and research is all it takes and will build amazing on going rapport because you know what you are talking about. So what do you need to know?

Have any of your new sales team worked outside the current industry you are both now in. If so what skill set did it require? Can it add to this role now or take away. Do they come from an industry you are now selling to? Let's say they worked in the I.T industry. Could they help in planning and organising sales data?

How long have they been in the current industry? Did they work for a competitor firm who excelled at something e.g. prospecting, organising meetings. Could this be used to your teams advantage.

How long have they worked for you current company. What have been the highs? Have they worked in any other department?

Outside interests and hobbies. I know it seems strange. Keep your mind open. Imagine you have someone who is very creative. They could be the ideal person to help you develop a new campaign.

Identify Star and Poor Performers

Every team has them. Its how the game of sales and life works. If you really want to manage a sales team well it is best to identify who falls into which camp first. Is it a skill or will issue each is handled in a different way. When you do you can turnaround performance quickly and easily.

Analyse the Teams Performance on all levels

This can be done in two ways sitting at your desk and looking at the data and spending time with your sales team and customers. I suggest both. When you are new to a role or team it is far too easy to make assumptions based on very little facts.

Look at the sales trends from your team and also your competitors. What is customer activity like? What about repeat business. You know the drill. So what are your sales team actually like with customers? What is the skill level how about relationships. When you have done this you are in a really strong position to make changes for the good.

Route Visit Planning

The sales department has specific tasks to get on the market. Sales need to periodically visit customers, check credit, to generate, monitor deliveries of products, introduce new product or promotion, products of goods, negotiate a new post, another handful of complaints, etc. much in the same retail outlet. Now imagine reproducing it in a large number of outlets.

The universe of outlets that are targets of the company, and the number of salespeople and sales managers may be different from one company to another, depending on the branch. It may also depend on the company's strategy on the market. However, each company in the industry will try to cover as many outlets as possible with employees.

It is very easy to explain this intention. More outlets cover you directly through your representatives, more sales, you can expect. Although you can access the retail outlets indirectly, through wholesalers, it is always better to have direct contact to the market.

Although the company tries to cover as many customers as possible, it also seeks to engage optimal number of representatives on the ground. Optimal minimum means necessary to achieve desired results.

We see that the point is to find a balanced approach between the cost of employment, training and support to the number of sales representatives on one side and the achievement of budgeted sales volume of the other side. It is a problem typical of the FMCG companies that sell a huge volume of a broad portfolio, which sells fast through ramified network of retailers, which are more or less dense distributed throughout the geographical area of the market.

In such a situation, it is important to have a good sales planning for road sales representatives. This is done through several stages:

1.) Evaluation of the world market is the stage of collecting data from all retail outlets in the market. The investigation involves the collection of baseline data, estimates sales and potential, the output size, frequency of visits of buyers, etc.

2.) When you gave your universe sales outlets you rank in the categories ABC.

A - Major outlets large volume and potential, located in urban areas. The number of such outlets is generally relatively low

B - medium sized outlets, urban areas with growth potential. Number of outlets B will be moderate

C - Small outlets, always useful to visit. Probably there will be many outlets in this category

There will be some outlets that you might want to run out of planning your route. It is very difficult to cover all points of sale on the market. In certain sectors, where there is the small number of outlets, it will be possible in May. But for a company FMCG with thousands of outlets, it is more realistic to skip the lowest points of sale for planning the route.

3.) The next step is the creation of the visit of the frequency output categories. Here you apply the principle of Pareto. Given that most of the company's sales comes from the relatively small number of outlets, they deserve more frequent visits. Therefore, the model of the frequency of visits in May look like:

A outlets - weekly visits (or even several times a week)

B outlets - Once in 2 weeks

C outlets - Once a month

4.) After the classification of retail outlets and setting the frequency of visits, it is necessary to calculate the average time spent at point of sale for normal activities. In addition to this, you calculate other time, for example, driving time, etc. Finally you have the number of people you need for better coverage of world output. Of course this May be expensive, in case of sale of these representatives can not directly justify their number and density in the market, thanks to increased turnover.

Therefore, you must start with a minimum number of sales people. If their contribution to the company is justified, then the number of representatives can be increased gradually. He is the best way to re-assess and plan the sales force during the annual business planning.

ABC Route planning must be done gradually. The expansion of the sales force must come in phases. In each phase, it is necessary to gain increased sales, profits and market share to justify the next step.

Apply Successful Sales Strategies to Your Bulk Vending Machine Business

One of the main areas of many distributors in bulk operators is developing a simple strategy for selling them in bulk vending machines. If you try to get single gumball machines placed or large bays of machines in places of high traffic, good sales strategy is needed. For large distributors, a "sale" referred to in this article is a positive decision to allow you to place your vending machine in an enterprise.

Here are some tips to help you start developing a sales strategy:
1. Develop a mental picture of being able to go into a company and a secure location. Replay image that more and more to build confidence.
2. Read the matter legendary vendors to gain experience in how to sell.
3. Take notes of questions that require sellers to move prospects of a positive decision.
4. Make every effort to get the decision maker as quickly as possible to get the highest probability of winning the sale.
5. Learning to persevere and not take the first "no" answer. Many people quit selling after the first "no". May 5-7 you get negative responses before finding a way to win the maker of interest and close the case.
6. Establish a sales script you comfortably use to present your service to the decision maker. A script gives you more confidence that you use in interaction with policy makers. A script can help focus the value of what you offer, and to defuse any objections to the decision in May manufacturer.

Automatic is a game of numbers. For every ten new ATMs puts you in an enterprise, 2-4 of these machines should be placed elsewhere because of low sales.

If you look at effective sale, you can move quickly around your machines to new companies and average your machine quickly. Good average, you can have fewer machines on site and less money invested in your business, but much of cash flows. If I could choose to develop a skill, more than anything else, it would be within the competence of sales. It will help ensure a good cash flow from year to year, and cash flow is the life blood of any business.

Lead Management Should Be a Vector, Not a 360 Degree CycleLead Management Should Be a Vector, Not a 360 Degree Cycle

We have been sucked into this paradigm of sale leads needing 360 degree views. Lead management should be a vector (magnitude and direction), not a 360 degree process cycle.

Every time I hear this sort of analogy for sales I think of a treadmill--lots of motion, but no forward progress. Your lead management tools should be designed to drive prospects through the sales funnel to a close.

Qualify Every Lead

Jump off the 360 lead cycle. Typically sales people get into a vicious cycle of round robin distribution of new opportunities and then cycling through the same nondescript lead over and over. The result: frustrated sales agent and frustrated customer.

The quickest way to exit this cycle is to specialize your sales process to continually qualify the lead. This starts from the moment it enters the sales queue.

Some teams actually use a front line team of junior sales representatives to triage and categorize each lead. Other sales organizations use technology within their CRM software to do this early qualification.

However you decide to accomplish the task, the goal should be clear--qualification and soft sell. The priority for this initial qualification is to properly categorize and route the lead. This gives the customer and the sales person the best opportunity for a good experience.

Sales Leads

Getting the top performance from your sales team requires them to be focusing most of their time on sales leads. Following up on general inquiries and making prospecting calls is not productive sales activity. Soft inquiries and general requests for information should be a different process. Feeding these "suspects" into experienced sales professionals is a losing proposition. They will lose motivation and you will lose performance.

Leads can be qualified by through a variety of methods, from automation to human triage. Make sure you qualify. Mindlessly loading lists or recycling leads is hoping for a miracle.

Clean Sales Pipeline

Most sales effectiveness is lost in the pipeline. Which makes it not entirely ironic that this is where the 360 degree lead analogy originates. Leads get trapped in vicious cycle of calling and emailing. I call it the sales blender. The effect: no relationship and a lot of abused customers.

Prevent this meaningless churn by placing a disposition or status on every lead as it is handled. This lead status should determine if it stays in the pipeline or is transferred to another process.

This status typically is associated with a propensity to close. At some point your efforts on a prospect has declining returns. When this point is reached, efficiently clean it out and hop off the treadmill.

Lead Nurturing

The best place for most of these ejected leads is in a lead nurturing process. That's right it is a sales process. And it's not a cycle. It is another methodology designed with forward motion in mind.

Lead nurturing does not mean recycling the leads. It is more akin to a marketing process than a sales process. Lead nurturing is a systematic process of touching the customer with information and contacts to stay top of mind and seed the buying intent.

Most likely the customer did not close simply because the product or the timing were not right. Keep in touch with email, mail, and calls to see if that changes.

Lead Nurturing - Email Drip Marketing Will Not Close Sales Leads

Lead nurturing has become the hot topic in sales CRM. The problem is most sales processes equate this term with drip email marketing. Let me tell you the secret distinction between these two concepts: lead nurturing produces sales leads, email drip campaigns yields irritated people. I am going to quickly walk you through how lead nurturing can help you close more sales leads.

Start with a Lead

The moment you get a new sales opportunity or lead you need to think about lead nurturing. Sadly, the term lead nurturing caught on. The flaw in the term is the word lead. Leads make us think of things--cold, unimportant, things. Leads are actually people and people respond best to good conversations, not email or marketing blasts.

So, think of lead nurturing as a process of getting to know the customer and building trust. Start this process from the moment you get a customer inquiry. Respect them and attempt to contact them immediately.

Evaluate the Opportunity

As you work through your sales pipeline evaluate each opportunity. This should include some lead tracking that sorts your leads into ranges of probability to close.

This tracking does not have to be sophisticated, but it must quickly help prioritize your sales activities. Tracking opportunity level also allows you to quickly move declining opportunities into lead nurturing channels--taking you and the customer out of the sales blender.

Status Every Lead

Regardless of whether you make contact with the sales lead or not--status the lead on every touch. This can be in the form of a status, note, or tag. If done correctly you will be building a very organized sales pipeline. This active sales queue will be filled with actionable markers.

The nice thing about tracking leads in this way is that they become neatly categorized by propensity, probability, and/or time to close. Theses tracking categories can be readily used for lead nurturing--triggering phone calls, mailings, product updates, even emails. The difference is there will be logical context to each nurturing touch.

Build a Relationship

Lead nurturing is about building a relationship, not dripping into someone's email inbox. Structure your campaign as such. A good mix of email, mail, and phone calls with help build more natural communication.

Also attempt to build you process such that is triggers from logical events and behaviors. For example, if the borrower emails a question or calls in for service maybe that triggers a mailing from their sales rep. Or, perhaps the customer has not been talked to in months and you just release a new product--time for a call or email.

From Performer to Coach

In the professions of dancing, music, sports, and acting, as in selling, it is not uncommon to see someone who moves eventually from 'performing' into teaching. In the first four professions it seems a natural enough progression and performers generally welcome someone with experience, especially if that experience was successful. The best of those teachers eventually graduate to become professional coaches, and again, it is not unusual to hear professional performers extol the virtues and merits of their coaches, especially when those performers are receiving awards or accolades. This is, however, with the notable exception of salespeople who appear from my research to have a less than charitable view of their managers.

In selling, there's a phrase that is often used - "Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach. Those who can't teach, administrate". There is an attitude of mind in selling that training is a soft option. The way to corporate fame and success is through the sales management channel. This attitude fails to realise the power and strength of sales coaching. It is primarily because of this attitude that many of the best potential sales coaches never consider joining the profession of coaching in the first place. Sometimes the average performing salesperson is moved into the training department rather than the best salesperson. It underlines the confusion and misunderstanding that there exists between coaching and training. In the vast majority of sales forces, the way that a salesperson most often moves from a selling role into a potential coaching role is via promotion. On Friday evening the best salesperson in the team leaves work to resurface, almost butterfly-like on Monday morning into what used to be a sales management role, but now in many companies is called coaching.

We have heard for the last twenty years that the skills needed to be a successful salesperson are not necessarily the skills needed to be a successful sales manager. However, the practice of promoting salespeople into management positions on the assumption that because they were good at selling they will be good at sales management continues unabated. That's not to say that assessment, development, and selection processes have not replaced the 'tap on the shoulder'. It is however only cosmetic. I have been on enough selection panels and met enough salespeople turned sales manager to know that the "tap on the shoulder" still exists but the process now takes longer. The game of objectivity still has to be played but the outcomes are the same. It usually starts by someone saying, "Look, you can have who you want. It's just that we have to go through this to make it appear fair" No wonder so many new sales managers fail at the first hurdle. The pain of this failure is most acutely suffered by the poor unfortunates in the sales team who have to pay the consequences of an untrained sales manager. By the time the average sales manager has built up some semblance of sales success they have left behind them battalions of sales casualties. I should know - I was that sales manager.

And now? Now sales managers are supposed to be coaches. Yet I see as much preparation for this role as there generally has been for sales management, with about the same level of success. In the fields of sports, dance, music and the theatre, the job of the coach is clearly defined, understood, and respected. In simple terms, the role of the coach is to elicit the best performance possible from his or her charges. They have no other function. In the world of selling, this coaching role is completely misunderstood and expectations are simply not realistic. Many 'coaches' have a variety of responsibilities of which coaching is merely one. If coaches have additional responsibilities such as: -

· Personal sales targets

· HR responsibilities

· Administrative duties

· Budgeting

then they are not and never will be effective sales coaches. Being a sales coach is a full time occupation. The sales coach has to be able to concentrate on and dedicate their time to the following areas: -

· Creating and selling a successful vision of the future

· Creating a positive learning environment in which the team feels free to experiment

· Making time available for everyone to learn and to practise

· Reinforcing positive behaviours

· Planning a long-term skills strategy for success

In 1992, I completed a coaching programme delivered by David Hemery (of Gold Medal Fame) and Susan Kaye. With ten of my colleagues I had just scaled a wall, which stretched endlessly skyward, or was it really only fourteen feet high? 'Scaling' implies some kind of professional approach, when in fact most of us, men and women, had been hauled over the wall quite unceremoniously. It was at the end of three long days, where we had climbed mountains, crossed ravines, walked along dangerous obstacles, and care-freely thrown ourselves from great heights into the waiting arms of companions. Our journey was along the 'Challenge of Excellence' during which our course had sparked our imagination, stimulated our desire to succeed, and watered the seeds of our greatness. It was David who first told me about the seed of greatness. He believes that each one of us has that seed within us. On completing the Challenge of Excellence, whilst my sense of achievement knew no bounds, I was unsure about the greatness of the seed. In hindsight, he was right. We all have it. For me it was one of the major milestones in a long project to discover a better way of managing and of training and developing people. I had been working for nearly two years previously, convinced that coaching from the athletic world could be combined with managerial motivational psychology, to form a more effective style of developing and managing salespeople.

The seed of greatness exists for all those who say they can improve, and even within those who say they cannot. Coaching can release that seed, not just for the person being coached, but also for the coach. Coaching has represented for me a model upon which personal performance issues are clearly defined, structured, and acted upon. It could do the same for you, and for the people you seek to develop. It is the missing piece of the development jigsaw.

How To Be A Good Persuader

I always remember the first sale course I have ever attended and the definition of sale that was drummed into my brain.

"The sale is the art of creating a desire in the mind of a buyer and satisfy this desire, so that the buyer and seller benefit."

Now that May seem a bit old for many of today's sellers, but I think the principle is still valid especially if one tries to persuade another person whether a member of our team, a colleague or client . If you are going to convince someone to change their behavior, their point of view, their attitude, any other aspect of their business or personal life, then you are talking about a change in attitudes.

If someone is going to change the mindset that they need time to consider the benefits that outweigh their current circumstances or situation.

If you are a person who is persuade, then you need skills, qualities and characteristics that make you credible and credible.

The conviction - Successful persuaders believe in themselves and what they're talking about. After all, if you do not believe in what you say, how do you want someone else?

The enthusiasm - I know people who believe in what they say but are unable to communicate with any enthusiasm or passion. Britons in particular, the difficulty in finding this, but if you want to persuade someone, you'd better find a way to get enthusiastic about this.

Knowledge - you need to know what you're talking about, so make sure you have all the information, facts, figures and statistics to make your case.

Empathy - Put yourself in the other person's shoes. What do you think is important for them? Consider carefully why they should accept what you say.

If someone is afraid of flying, it is useless to tell them not to be stupid and stop behaving like a baby. You must think about how you might feel in these circumstances, and what might persuade you to change your mind, you must prevail over fear with the benefits to the individual.

Persistence - if you want to convince someone, do not give the first "no" or rejection of what you say. Persistent and persistent - but do it well!

Customs People necessarily react negatively to your persistence when they realize you really believe what you say.

There is a fine line between being persistent and being a nuisance. Watch the other person and whether the reactions, it seems that you are too persistent - stop!

Energy - save energy in all your interactions with other people. Fuels enthusiasm, we are persuaded by people with energy.

Many TV presenters use their energy to sell us their ideas. Think of the celebrity chefs on television persuade us to generate fabulous meals or other presenters that we all enthusiastic about re-modeling our homes or gardens.

Consistency - Anything you do or say is important, any account. If you want to be a powerful persuasion then you must be consistent. If you are trying to persuade someone to keep their promises, then you must always keep your. If you say - "I will phone you in ten minutes, then phone in nine minutes.

To be a powerful persuasion you need many skills, qualities and characteristics. Even with all in place, there is still no guarantee of success. However, people are more likely to be persuaded by people they trust, they like and have a good relationship.