When you’re managing a sales team, figuring out what to change to improve the bottom line can be difficult. Few managerial roles put so many moving parts, egos, and technical issues together in the way sales can, so optimizing a sales team isn’t as simple as others may think. That said, there are a few things any good sales manager should be doing to get their team in line. These sales management tips should push you in the right direction towards a high-productivity, high-morale team:
If you’re reading these sales management tips, you’re already headed in the right direction. Information and knowledge rule sales no matter the industry, so follow a few useful sales information sources to keep abreast of the latest sales techniques, networking concepts, useful technologies, and the like. If at all possible, you want to know as much or more than any member of your team, so you can put these sales management tips to optimal use.
Of course, that’s just the general half of the puzzle. You also want to know as much as you can about the specifics of your business. Here are a few sales management tips for knowing customers
Tools alone won’t make a bad salesperson a good one (and a short list of sales management tips can’t make gold out of lead), but they might shape a mediocre sales team made up of good workers into a good sales team. To enumerate every useful tool would be the work of several articles, but for starters:
Your team needs to have:
1) Useful metrics and 2) A reason to perform.
With the right tools, you should have all the metrics you could possibly need-figure out what’s correlating best with the success of the company and set appropriate goals. No list of sales management tips would be complete without mentioning incentives, but most sales management tips neglect to mention on thing: any system is going to make workers optimize their work to system, not for the betterment of the company. Plan accordingly. Personalized non-cash incentives work best for a few reasons-cash rewards lose their association with good work in the worker’s mind very quickly according to studies on the subject!
Every morning, after you’ve knocked out a few tasks for the day, have a quick session with your team to discuss goal, get everyone on the same page, make sure these sales management tips are doing some good. Communication is key for keeping teams motivated, on task, and working towards a unified end. Just don’t let it become the downfall of productivity-constant email where a phone call or face-to-face would be faster being the most common culprit.
Remember that these sales management tips all have a flip side–too much study and not enough work, useless tools, etc.
Rhys is a tenacious, top performing Senior Sales Recruiter with 15+ years of focused experience in the Digital Media, Mobile, Software, Technology and B2B verticals. He has a successful track record of headhunting top performing sales candidates for some of the most exciting brands in North America. He is a Certified Recruitment Specialist (CRS) and has expert experience in prospecting new business, client retention/renewals and managing top performing sales and recruitment teams. Rhys enjoys spending quality time with his wife, son, and daughters, BBQing on a hot summer day and tropical vacations.