5 X Tips For Effectively Managing Sales Professionals
If you’re a new Sales Manager; or perhaps someone wanting a little more insight into effectively managing Sales Professionals, then you’ve come to the right place. In this article we’ll look effectively managing Sales Professionals, in an easy to understand manner.
There are plenty of tips out there on managing Sales Professionals or a sales team. In this article, we’ll just focus on the five most important areas to focus your attention.
5 X Tips For Effectively Managing Sales Professionals
In this article, we’ll be looking at the following areas for managing sales success:
- Having a roadmap and plan
- Understanding goals
- Making training a priority
- Creating incentives
- Be approachable and transparent
Managing Sales Professionals Tip #1 – Having A Roadmap
The first step in managing Sales Professionals, is having a clear and concise roadmap of where it is you need to be as a business – and a plan to get there.
Being a Manager (or Business Owner), your sales team will be looking at you for guidance on how to get to where they need to be and become successful with whatever the goals or outcomes are for the business you work at.
Overall, this can be split up into three distinct areas:
- Having a marketing plan
- A sales targeting strategy
- Metrics & KPI’s
A Marketing Plan
A marketing plan; also known as a marketing strategy, is a step by step approach to finding out who your ideal clients are, how to reach them, and understanding their wants and needs.
Prior to instructing your staff to go out there and pitch, they need to understand who your potential clients are and why. This will give them clarity on how your product and solution solves your ideal prospects needs; which will further help them understand how to both identify them – and to sell to them.
To learn more about setting up a marketing strategy or marketing plan, read the related article below for a deep dive in how to do so.
Related article: Marketing Strategy 101 – What You Need To Know
A Sales Targeting Strategy
The second step in managing Sales Professionals, is giving them instruction on how to get in touch with your potential clients. As mentioned, you can find out how to identify your potential clients by completing your marketing strategy.
Your staff can be taught how to effectively prospect, by following a Sales Targeting Strategy.
The Sales Targeting Strategy is the step by step process in how you can reach your ideal clients.
Generally, there are two types of sales prospecting activities. These are:
- Inbound lead generation
- Outbound lead generation
To learn more about implementing a Sales Targeting Strategy and Prospecting methods, check out the two related articles below:
Related article: Sales Targeting Strategy – Your Complete Guide
Related article: Two Types of Sales Prospecting Methods For More Sales
Metrics & KPI’s
Thirdly; when managing Sales Professionals, there will need to be accountability.
As Peter Drucker once famously mentioned, “What gets measured, gets managed”; you’ll need a number of KPI’s and metrics to measure whether you’re on target or not, and whether your sales team is effectively meeting their outcomes and goals.
KPI’s are Key Performance Indicators, and are a data driven measurement to clearly see whether you’re reaching your targets or are on track to do so.
To learn more about KPI’s and Metrics, see the related article below:
Related article: Why You Need To be Focusing on Metrics In Your Business
Managing Sales Professionals Tip #2 – Understanding Goals
The first tip shared in this article is focused around understanding who are your ideal clients, how to reach them, and thirdly holding you and your team accountable in reaching them.
An important and necessary tip is managing Sales Professionals, is having a clear understanding of goals.
This can be broken into two areas:
- Your company’s goals
- Their personal goals
Your Company’s Goals
What are your company’s goals, and why?
How many people need to buy per month to ensure your business is healthy?
Once you understand how many people need to be spoken with to close a sale, you’ll have a better approximate understand of how many contacts and leads are required for a sale.
An important when managing Sales Professionals is being clear on what the company’s goals are, how many products or services need to be sold be month, and how many contacts on average are required to make a sale.
This transparency creates an important yet clear understanding of exactly what is expected for success in their roles.
According to Psychology Studies, certainty and security is important for a person if you want them to work towards self-actualisation. This means that a person needs to be and feel certain; and goals need to be clear if you want them to perform at their best.
Their Individual Goals
Clarity of company goals are important; but a lot of Sales Manager’s or Business Owners forget to ask what their individual employee’s goals are too.
What gets them up every morning, and motivates them to do what they do?
Is there a reason they’re in sales, and what do they want to do next?
Do they have dreams and desires that they want to achieve in the next 10 years; and can you or your company help them get there?
The fastest way to motivate your team to reach your company’s goals – is to help individuals achieve their own personal goals.
In the article below, we break this down further to help you understand how to set goals the right way, including how to train your team (or yourself) on setting goals you’ll actually achieve.
Related article: How To Set Goals The Right Way
Managing Sales Professionals Tip #3 – Make Training A Priority
A massive difference between sales teams that win, and sales teams that are mediocre; is how often they run sales training and role play exercises.
If you try managing Sales Professionals with a know it all attitude, it’s be a difficult task because they’re not going to have a growth mindset.
A growth mindset is important because the world – and business is constantly evolving, and a growth mindset will be required if individuals and teams want to successfully evolve with these changes.
There are a number of topics you can consistently train your sales team when managing sales topics:
- Goal setting for success
- Sales psychology
- The importance of following a sales process
- Building rapport
- Setting pre-frames
- Power questions
- The pain process
- Future pacing and pleasure
- Talking about money
- Presenting
- Handling objections
- Closing
- Inbound lead generation techniques
- Outbound lead generation techniques
If you want access to this training to help you and your sales team level up their sales performance, click the link here to learn how.
Related article: The 5X Benefits Of Online Sales Training
Managing Sales Professionals Tip #4 – Creating Incentives
Incentives are a fantastic way to motivate your sales team into taking action and getting them hungry about reaching their sales targets.
The great thing about incentives, is that they don’t need to be expensive either.
Importantly – incentives are more about being recognised as important team members, and making your sales team feel special when they do something that stands out. Bringing out and celebrating wins like this is a great step in creating an environment of positivity.
When managing Sales Professionals, it’s important to work towards creating a positive environment whenever you can.
Management Tip #5 – Be Approachable & Transparent
While coaching and managing Sales Professionals, you’ll need to be approachable and transparent.
As per this related article in Entrepreneur, being approachable and transparent with your staff will help foster the following:
- Builds better relationships
- Better alignment with goals and outcomes
- Problems are solved faster
- Your people will be more engaged with you, and your work
Final Thoughts
Managing Sales Professionals is an important task in any company, because sales is the lifeblood of any business; and Sales Professionals are an important part of any business’ success.
The five key areas mentioned in this article are imperative when managing Sales Professionals effectively.
Do you have any other tips you’d like to share? If so, feel free to drop them in the comments.
Want To Close Sales Easier?
Are you committed to closing sales a lot easier, and consistently?
If so, you should check out our self-paced and affordable online sales training program; The 5% Sales Blueprint.
It’ll give you everything you need to close sales consistently.
To learn more, simply click on the link below for more information.
Our Online Sales Training Program – The 5% Sales Blueprint.
