By Ahmed al-Akber/Dubai
Your team is in place – you’ve spent time and money on getting them to where they are. You have big targets to achieve and you need a plan to ensure that they pull their weight. Now you need them to perform. Where do you start? Here are three things to keep in mind:
1) Develop their skills. This element is comprised of two parts. The first is training, which is usually the most obvious. I would go further and separate training into two parts – product and sales training. Product training is about all the elements of your product or service that the sales reps should know. The second is sales training, which includes all the sales processes and skills that the ideal sales person should have. They both are critical, and you can’t have one without the other. Never assume if you hire someone that they don’t need this kind of support.
The second part to developing your sales teams’ skills is coaching. Coaching varies from training in a number of ways: mainly that training is a one-time event, whereas coaching is ongoing. Having access to a coach to check on strategy and tactics is very important and can make or break the success of a sales person. Every sales director or VP should have make the time to coach his sales people regularly.
2) Provide incentives. This is comprised of two parts: the first is the most obvious, money! People don’t work unless they are incentivised to do so. You can’t expect someone to go the extra mile unless they know that somewhere down the line, there is money waiting for them to collect. Ensure that commission structures are clear so that there is no question of how sales teams get paid.
The second thing to keep in mind is recognition. There is nothing better than receiving an award for good performance. My brother, a sales professional living in New York, recently received an award for top performance in his company. Six months before receiving the award, it was all he talked about: “I’m working hard to receive the Circle Award.” It got to the point where I was sick of hearing it, but it worked!
3) Measure progress. The famous adage “what gets measured gets improved” applies here. You must have systems in place to ensure that the sales reps are measured for the key actions that you want them to take. For example, if you want them to make five sales calls a day, how do you measure that to ensure its happening? Some companies have a manual process, others use more sophisticated tools like Salesforce. But the bottom line is you must invest the time in setting up the systems and monitoring this constantly.
Getting sales teams to perform is no easy task. But it is achievable. Take the time to develop the way you manage your sales team and you’ll very soon find that the time and energy will pay off.
*Ahmed al-Akber is the managing director of ACK Solutions, a firm that helps companies to improve their marketing and sales results by offering more effective ways attracting customers and significantly better products and services. Ahmed has worked internationally in marketing, sales, and strategic planning at companies such as the Coca-Cola Company, Philip Morris International and Dell. Questions or comments can be sent to Ahmed on [email protected]
