We always want more, right…
…and obviously for a lot of businesses that have salespeople, or a sales team, they want them to do better, to get more sales.
In this article, I’m going to cover a couple of things that are really at the essence of getting more sales; it shows how that works and how to get more out of it.
Back in our heyday, we had 35 sales staff up and down the Eastern seaboard; on the phone, door knocking, making appointments, you name it. So we have done it all, seen it all and employed over 300 sales reps over that time.
The two most important aspects by far are;
1. Activity: what is the level of activity you need to be doing?
How many phone calls do they need to be making? How many appointments do they need to be going on, how many whatever! This is a daily measurement and you obviously also want weekly.
But every day you should be getting a report in your inbox saying ‘John had 24 phone calls yesterday and his target is 50’. Why not?
You also want people to self manage, so John should also be getting a note in his inbox that he only made 24 phone calls yesterday, so, ‘I’ve got to make up an extra 25 or so today to make up for yesterday.’
That self-management component becomes very important to sales reps.
2. Pipeline Management: this dictates ‘where I am falling down in this sales process’
You will see little Johnny is blitzing it, hitting all his targets, whereas Bruce over here isn’t. So, why is Brice not hitting his targets?
Without pipeline information, you can’t tell.
It’s simple
- Little Johnny has got 50 leads here and gets 40, 30, 20, 10 sales right.. whatever that may be
- Bruce gets 50 leads but only converts to 20 on stage 2 of the sales funnel
…So you know that’s the gap.
However, Bruce then goes on to convert 15 of them, then to 5 (I’m making stuff up!)
You can now see what the challenge is. That first phone call for a meeting; he’s not building enough rapport. Not qualifying. Now you’re able to identify where Bruce can improve. Similarly, even little Johnny who’s blitzing it can always get better.
Once again you want them to be self-managing. They should be sending you an email every morning saying this is where my pipeline is, this is where my gaps are, this is where I’m falling down, can you help me.
And all of this comes from data. You can automate all of these systems so that every morning there is a dashboard set up in the CRM. Every morning out of the phone system you get the phone report of who has done what. An overview of appointments can be managed through your CRM also.
So that every day, every week and every month, in every year and every quarter, you are getting those three core metrics and five core metrics in your inbox to know exactly what is going on.
And that’s how you manage your sales team better.
Marketing companies don’t normally talk about sales activities… So is Due North not a marketing agency?
Marketing and sales are so interrelated, you can’t separate them.
This is all about how you generate revenue for your business and how you communicate with your target audience. How do you impress their socks off.
To be able to market well, you need to be able to understand sales and how it all works and what the processes are.
Because you can’t do one without the other.
You can’t determine how effective your marketing is without having the right structure in place for your sales.
They are one of the same, you can’t separate them.
