Measures to improve the efficiency of the sales department. Provide customer feedback. Improving the work of the sales department

16.03.2020

Not every businessman understands that his business is not only clients, but also his team. After all, if there is no team that works directly with customers, then there will be no customers. In addition, often people come to the company to some particular manager. So, how to organize the work of the sales department so that the whole team works smoothly for a common result. We will talk about this in our article!

How to organize a sales department from scratch

1. Head of sales department. To organize the work of the sales department from scratch, you will need to find an experienced manager or someone who could become a leader and organize the work of the entire department. It is the manager who will recruit staff and supervise the work of his subordinates.

2. Materials. The leader will also prepare all necessary materials for new employees: this is information about the company, typical customer objections, materials about the company's product, etc.

3. Analytics. To create a sales department from scratch and organize its work, the manager will need to track the KPI of each employee and the department as a whole in order to see the dynamics of the development of the sales department.

This makes it easy to see the weaknesses in the department that need to be improved. Each employee must maintain his own reporting document, which reflects the number of calls to customers, the number of sales, the conversion of the manager's work.

And in order for the indicators to grow, use the following sales management tools and recommendations.

Effective management of the sales department

1. Newbie portfolio. When the company comes new person, then it is important that he organically join the team, get to the heart of the matter as soon as possible and start selling. Therefore, you should create such a portfolio for a beginner, which will contain all the materials necessary for studying: information about the company, about the company's product, typical customer objections and answers to these objections, examples of negotiations with customers, a reporting document for the manager, job description, here you can also add the mission of the company and its goals.

2. Regular meetings. If you want to build a powerful sales team, then it's important for you to be aware of everything that's going on. Therefore, hold regular meetings with the sales team, at least once a month, discuss upcoming events, launches and listen to managers.

Perhaps they have some local problems that require your participation. After all, no one knows your product or service better than you, and no one can sell them better than you. Teach managers this. Regular meetings will increase the motivation of managers, which will only positively affect the result.

3. Morning calls. Hold morning meetings to find out what plans and goals managers have set for themselves for the day and what tasks they have to solve. This will help you plan your day and results.

4. Use a CRM system. To track the effectiveness and activity of each manager, start a CRM system that will reflect all the actions of the department, as well as record the results for each client.

Here you can track the work with each client individually, the plan of calling and meeting with the client, see the objections of clients and listen to the calls of managers. Bitrix24, Trello, Megaplan can be used as a CRM system. CRM-system will help you to establish the correct work of the sales department. Here you will assign tasks to managers and monitor their implementation.

5. Brainstorm. When you build an effective sales team, you will one day realize that your employees know more about your business than you do, because they are constantly communicating with your customers! Therefore, conduct regular brainstorming sessions with managers to get new ideas for improving the company.

6. Create a system to reward and motivate managers. Managing a sales department is not an easy task, because you need to be able to find an approach to each employee and understand what motivation is especially important for him. It is important for someone to be encouraged in the form of praise, someone likes to participate in contests to determine the best manager months and receive bonuses, but money motivates everyone!

Therefore, it will be great to create such a system of motivation when people will strive to do more sales. And for this you do not have to constantly kick them. They will just know that after completing a certain amount, they will receive bonuses.

7. Study calls from managers. Recordings of calls can show you the weaknesses of managers, somewhere the manager misunderstood the client, somewhere he lacked stress resistance, and somewhere the client seemed to be ready to buy, but the manager was not so competent to bring the client to a deal. These things can be discussed at planning meetings, at general meetings and help managers cope with such moments.

8. Educate. When you find new information in sales or attended a course, be sure to share these chips with managers and train them. You will see for yourself how much stronger your team will become.

Try your hand at the 10-day business game "Your Start", in which you will start earning on your business, using your talents and strengths!

9. Be always in touch with the sales managers. It will take a lot of effort to organize an effective sales team, but it is important to always be close to your employees, so be in touch. Young managers who do not have sufficient experience in negotiations will probably ask dozens of questions, and the main thing for them is to get answers and your help in a timely manner. Are you interested in sales? Then help them! Mistakes will be much less, you'll see.

10. Create "about the company" materials for the sales department. Answering the question “How to organize a sales department correctly?”, You should prepare materials not only for newly-minted managers, but also for those who have been with you for a long time in the team.

Employees should know what's new in the company, what novelties appear, what customers have become more interested in. Therefore, materials for employees should contain links to the company's main products, product descriptions, customer objections and competent answers to them. Materials should always be updated so that mistakes are not repeated in similar situations.

The sales department should be first of all aware of what is changing in the organization, because they are the face of the company!

The right sales department is not a utopia, and it is based on 3 pillars: a competent employee motivation system, manager training and department efficiency analytics.

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Do you want to teach your managers to work effectively with clients - to build loyal relationships and make more sales?

To do this, you will need to implement such a tool as a checklist for a sales employee. Therefore, right now, read the article "Checklist for a sales manager."

Was our article helpful to you today? Then give us feedback, click "Like"!

So, you have a sales department. What to sell - it is clear, which organizations and enterprises can be your clients - is also known. The sales department is already staffed with employees who are actively searching for and attracting customers.

The work is going on, but you have a clear feeling that it could be done much more intensively and more effectively. Question: what is the reason that the work is not going as well as we would like? And what can be done to significantly increase work efficiency, increase sales and increase company revenues?

To analyze this situation, we have at our disposal a formula for sales effectiveness:

Sales performance = Number of sales managers ( sales representatives) X Number of meetings x Meeting efficiency

The analysis of the situation you have must be carried out according to this formula in strict sequence. Let's do this analysis - point by point, one by one.

Let's start with the first key question: How staffed is your sales team?? In the sales department, in accordance with staffing, a certain number of sales managers should work. So the question is - do you have as many sales managers as you should have according to the plan? Is the sales department staffed? Or do you have fewer sales managers than you should?

If your sales team is understaffed, it is risky to take too much action to increase sales. Half the trouble, if the sales department lacks one person. But if two or more employees are missing, you are at very serious risk!

Not only is the understaffed department weakened. Much worse, the lack of specialists in the sales department significantly reduces the stability of the sales managers working in it. Their loyalty is falling, their self-doubt is growing and that they are working in a promising company. As a result, the lack of managers in the sales department significantly increases the turnover among those remaining in the department.

In such a situation, you should not press hard on employees in order to increase the intensity of their work and increase sales. Of course, you can influence them with positive methods - praise, persuasion and encouragement. But the main thing that you need to do in this situation is to get out of it as soon as possible. What needs to be done? Of course, a set of frames!

Separate question: how many employees should be in your sales department?

The minimum allowed number of employees in the sales department is five sales managers plus one sales manager.

However, with the same number of employees, four managers plus two sales managers working in a hierarchy (for example, the head of the sales department and deputy, or the commercial director and the head of the sales department) are more effective.

Active sales departments with fewer employees than this number are more likely to fall apart on their own. That is, to the question: “why did my sales department of three people fall apart?” I answer: “Because there were three of them!”

This situation is connected precisely with the specifics of active sales. For example, in sales, two employees, or even one, can work stably on incoming customer requests. Moreover, it will be more profitable for an employee to work alone than with someone together. The company's sales volume is likely to decrease - but the employee will be more profitable. Perhaps he will miss some of the deals - but all the "fattest clients" will definitely go to him.

AT active sales the situation is fundamentally different. Employees must find and attract customers themselves. Together, with their efforts, they create pressure on the market. The stronger the impact on the market is created by the entire sales department as a whole, the easier it is for each employee of the sales department to work. So it turns out that in a larger and more powerful sales department, it is easier for each employee to work than in a small one.

In addition, the sales managers themselves differ greatly from each other in terms of level and performance.

On average, out of five sales managers working in one department, there are two or three strong salespeople.

If there were four salesmen working in the department, only one or two of them would be strong. One strong businessman leaves the department - and the whole work of the department collapses like a house of cards. This means that the minimum allowable number of employees in the sales department is five managers and a sales manager. And better - four managers and two sales managers.

Do you know how many jobs are needed for such a sales department? Two fully equipped workstations (table, computer, phone/fax) and eight chairs. And for a department of ten people, including two or three sales managers - three fully equipped workplaces and twelve chairs. An exception to general rule are sales departments working according to the scheme of "traveling teams". In this case, one fully equipped workplace provided for every two employees of the sales department.

The fact is that it is a big misconception to consider the sales department as the workplace of a sales manager. The workplace of sales managers is in the "field", on the territory of customers. And the sales department for sales managers is nothing more than a base for operations.

What is the difference between a workplace and a base of operations? Imagine how German submarines acted in the second world war. "Jobs" for them was the Atlantic, the North Sea and other seas and oceans. And the base for operations could be, for example, the base submarines in Kiel.

Sales managers should spend as much time as possible away from the office, negotiating on customer premises. Ideally, the only time when the entire team of employees should gather in the sales department is during operational meetings and planning meetings. The RAM ran out - and immediately part of the employees went to the clients. Too comfortable environment in the sales department will have a detrimental effect on the results of commercial work.

If you provide each sales manager with a fully equipped workplace, the intensity of his work will decrease by an average of 30%. If workplaces have unlimited access to the Internet, the intensity of work will decrease by at least 50%. And if you also pay sales managers a fairly high salary, you will not force them to work by any miracle.

Well, we figured out the minimum number of employees in the sales department. What is the optimal number of employees in the sales department?

A well-equipped sales department consists of 10 people, two or three of which are sales managers, the rest are ordinary employees. With such a department, it is already possible to ensure a serious impact on the market!

The required number of employees in the sales department can also be calculated based on the need to cover your market segment. To do this, you need to take into account how many clients can be closely worked out by one sales manager at the same time:

30 to 40 small and medium clients
Or 10 to 15 medium and large customers
Or from 1 to 3 especially large clients - this is how VIP-Account managers work.

And in order to tightly control the market, it is necessary to keep at least a third of the clients of this market in simultaneous study. It turns out that you work with one third of the clients, the second third is preparing for work in the future, and the remaining third is resting - it is "fallow".

Now we can calculate the number of sales managers you need for dense market coverage. Suppose you have about two hundred corporate customers - medium and large companies. We divide this number by three - we get 67 clients. We consider: 67/10=6.7, 67/15=4.5. In round terms, it turns out that 5-7 employees in the sales department are necessary and sufficient to tightly control the market segment of interest to us, which consists of two hundred medium and large corporate customers.

And what if we are interested in medium and large customers - a thousand? In order to tightly "graze" such a number of customers, 22 to 33 merchants are needed. It is unlikely that you can afford such a number of employees in the sales department! So, you will have to proceed from your real possibilities. Let's say you are ready to form a sales department of 10 employees - but no more. So you need to select from total weight clients 300 - 450 companies, on which you will focus in the first place. It turns out that we had to further narrow target segment our clients, so that these clients can be “herded” properly.

In the next issue, we will continue the topic and talk about what we should pay attention to first of all in order to understand how effectively the sales department works.

Improving the performance of sales departments is a complex and time-consuming procedure. Since each case has its own characteristics, there is no single “recipe” for it. The length of the customer acquisition cycle, the need to target sales to certain types of people, the ability or inability to reach all customer groups at the same time - all these and many other factors must be considered. Let us formulate general principles.

Experts identify two key factors that affect the effectiveness of the sales department: the personnel management system and the competence of employees. Each of these factors, in turn, consists of several aspects. Let's consider each of the blocks in more detail from the point of view of measures that increase the efficiency of the "salespeople" as a whole.

Sales personnel management system

This includes aspects such as structure, planning, incentives and control.

1. Structure

Depending on the specifics of the company's activities, it is necessary to form the optimal structure of the department and determine the size of the selling unit. Most often, it is advisable to divide the sales department into several sub-departments, each of which takes on a specific area of work. It is this structure that usually happens in financial and credit organizations whose activities are aimed at serving customers from various industries.

It is also necessary to determine the concept of the formation of the number of sales departments: either the organization hires a small number of employees - sellers of the highest qualification with the appropriate level of payment, or for the same money the company hires a larger number of managers of average qualification.

2. Planning

We can talk about an effective planning system if the fluctuations from the plan are no more than 10-15%, experts in the field of sales management say. Therefore, planned indicators for "salespeople" must meet a number of criteria:

their achievement requires significant (limiting, but achievable) efforts from employees;
they are expressed in specific figures;
tasks are set for a certain period of time;
all figures are under control (it is possible to track the stages of the plan).

Note: reporting for any period, sales managers should not be burdened with the need to prepare and write purely formal reports. This situation can often be seen in large companies, as well as in organizations where the department is headed by a person who has not left the field of sales - experts say. At the same time, employees are forced to spend a significant part of their working time not on business, but on unnecessary “scribbling”.

3. Stimulation

When building an incentive system, it is necessary to take into account at least two principles - transparency and fairness. Despite some abstractness of these criteria, there are fairly accurate tools that determine the compliance of the incentive system with these requirements. The incentive system is considered transparent if the employee can independently calculate the level of his income for the selected period of time, and can also plan his position in the company when certain results are achieved. The sales employee's perception of the incentive system as fair or not can be determined through regular surveys. And best of all, if this is done by a specialist in personnel management.

Achievement should be rewarded - this is a rule that should always be observed. Indicators can be, for example, the number of calls per day, the number of newly attracted customers, the amount of orders for the period, the percentage of returning customers, the percentage of successful calls.

4. Control

We can talk about an effective control system if all the processes taking place in the department are “transparent” for the head of the sales department. To this end, it is necessary to formalize all business processes, from customer search to after-sales service. Experts recommend, depending on the size of the company, to use various CRM systems. Many of them allow not only to structure work with clients, but also to track the performance of their duties by employees. The main thing is to position the filling of control forms as an integral part of the work. To do this, it is necessary that the information contained in the reporting forms is important for employees, for example, it allows them to calculate their income for the current month.

Note: the data obtained during the control process should provide objective information about the capabilities of each specific manager.

For example, if a manager makes 20 meetings per month, and only 1-2 of them end in a contract, and the average ratio for the department is 30%, this means that the manager must determine the cause of failures and help the subordinate work more efficiently and earn more.

Personnel Competence

The competence of personnel is understood as the presence of such components as motivation, qualifications and personal qualities necessary for effective work in the field of sales. The main skills of sales personnel, according to experts, can be considered the following:

the ability to establish friendly relations with clients;
the ability to convey the benefits that the client receives by purchasing the product;
ability to counter objections and work with failures.

It is these employees who should be hired to work as “salespeople”. And in order for the department to work effectively, its revision personnel it is necessary to carry out with a frequency of at least 3 times a year - professionals advise. One of the tools that determine the state of the human resource is an assessment. Assessment is a specialized in-depth methodology for appraising personnel and evaluating candidates for vacant positions.

Note: the success of many sales managers obeys the law of the sine wave. First, the rise (accumulation of the client base, sales growth), then - the top (success, accumulated client base, high sales), and then - the "curve" goes down. Therefore, the head of the department should feel in time that the subordinate is “on the verge of recession”, and entrust him with a new interesting business.

5 reasons preventing you from increasing the efficiency of your sales team

1. The sales manager doesn't want to sell

In the labor market, the vacancy "sales manager" is perhaps the most in demand. But alas, only a small proportion of applicants go to this work with motivation and sincere desire to sell. Therefore, it is not uncommon that managers call or approach clients through force. A common fear of sales managers is customer rejection. Fear of asking a difficult question to the buyer or complexes that prevent dialogue and close the deal. Factors like these can and should be addressed to help your managers improve efficiency.

2. The sales manager does not have the necessary set of skills and abilities

The sales process has a general structure, but there are significant specific features in different businesses, structures, industries. Often sales managers moving from one company to another, believe that the difference is not significant.

Having got used to the fact that he closes the deal relying on his skills and experience, or maybe luck, he begins to believe that he can sell anything, even equipment, even complex complex products / services. Such an employee either does not change his usual work style, believing that everything is in order, or does not see how to do it (and here you should come to his aid).

3. The Sales Department Doesn't Have a Sales Process Scenario

Scenarios for working with clients are needed not only for beginners, but also for experienced staff. Of course, each dialogue has its own unique component. But, if the sales manager does not know the structure of the sales process, does not know the typical questions that should be asked to the Client and in what sequence, what knowledge about the product / service will help him, he will never be able to work effectively. Help your salespeople be prepared in advance for typical customer work situations.

4. There is no training system for the sales department

Of course, without basic training for new employees in the sales department, you should not count on high results. Even if your company does not have employees responsible for training, we recommend building a mentoring system. Remember that the effectiveness of your business depends on the quality of adaptation and training of beginners. Conduct several trainings or meetings of the head/mentor with the new employee of the department.

Periodically, it is necessary to conduct training for experienced sellers. In this work, a “shake-up”, a motivation for further success and development, is very important. Your employees must have an understanding that their work is valued and you are ready to invest in the further growth and development of your team.

5. Not enough data for sales analytics

To build the effective work of any department, the manager always needs to have up-to-date data. The sales department is no exception. It's not just about standard KPIs for employees and departments. Think about whether you have information about each of your employees, at every stage of their work with a client? Do you have enough data to identify problems and develop effective measures to solve them? Now on the market information technologies There are many solutions to improve sales analytics. Think about what data you are missing, how you can get it, and how you will use the information received in the future?

How to solve these and other problems?

Training newcomers and professional development of successful employees

Only competent employees who are able to interest a potential client in possession of information about the proposed product can increase sales efficiency. What to teach? At a minimum, create a knowledge base. Make training and workshops mandatory for all employees. Directions for training sales managers:

negotiation training;
training in dealing with customer objections;
the ability to establish contact with "difficult" clients;
identification and analysis of the main mistakes made by managers of a particular firm.

Engage in the development of work rules

Documented rules for department employees can improve sales performance, especially if there is staff turnover. Both new employees and old employees must adhere to the standards and methods of interaction with customers adopted by management.

Make it a rule to keep statistics of customer requests

An effective sales team uses advertising (outdoor, network, radio and television, print media) to promote its product. Learn about performance advertising campaign it is possible by analyzing how many people applied to the company (and thanks to what type of advertising).

Test different options for client meetings

It is better when 2-3 experienced (if possible) sellers participate in a conversation with a client, who know the full picture regarding the conclusion of the transaction and the intricacies of the product (service provided). The buyer significantly increases the degree of its importance and the level of confidence in the company, which is able to send several of its employees at once to discuss the contract being concluded.

Adequate and effective motivation

Saving on the sales department, you reduce the company's revenue. Therefore, you should take care of the remuneration of sales staff in advance. In practice, two concepts are most often used. According to the first of them, the amount of remuneration of an employee depends on the volume of the plan. In the second case, the employee is paid remuneration as a percentage of sales or profit. Which method is more correct depends, first of all, on the specifics of the business.

"Extra links"

Make sure that there are no superfluous management links above the employees of the sales department, dealing only with sales plans and reports. As practice shows, in case of successful implementation of the plan, the “extra links” usurp success, proving that it is solely their merit, and in case of failure, on the contrary, they shift all responsibility to others. Which, ultimately, comes down to the dismissal of salespeople or a banal shuffling of personnel.

Caution - empty formalities!

Make sure that salespeople are not burdened with the need to prepare and write purely formal reports. This situation can often be observed in large companies, as well as in organizations where a department is headed by a person who has not come out of sales. In such a situation, employees are forced to spend a significant part of their working time not on business, but on unnecessary writing.

Real profit

Make sure that the sales team does not have an incentive to attract customers with an excessive degree of risk (for example, in the financial or banking sectors) or “empty” customers and thereby ensure that the sales plan is only “on paper”. A contract has been concluded for a large amount, but there are no real shipments or financing under the contract. In this case, the remuneration should not depend on the amount for which the agreement was concluded (for example, on the funding limit set for the client), but on the amount of the transaction carried out within the framework of this agreement(for example, the amount of financing paid to the client under the contract).

Dismissal of inefficient

The saddest point. If you can’t “stir up” an employee in any way, evaluate his diligence and personal qualities. If it's suitable for another job (such as handling contracts or supporting current clients), translate it. He himself will be happy, because no one likes to work badly. If there are no options, talk to him politely and ask him to write a statement. This is your business and you can't sponsor underperforming employees.

We have analyzed the main ways to improve the efficiency of a sales manager. After completing these simple steps, you can take on the jewelry work to increase conversion at each stage of sales for each specialist.

Sales department management. The main tasks of the manager and tools to improve its effectiveness

Ilya A. Heavenly

By making certain decisions, the head of the sales department affects the efficiency and productivity of his unit. The result of this influence largely depends on how the manager allocates his limited time between various functional tasks.

In the article, we will consider the main functions of the head of the sales department, the recommendations of experts on the distribution of time, as well as ways to improve management efficiency by automating individual functions. The head of the sales department is understood as the head of the first line (first line manager), directly managing the sellers.

The head of sales is responsible for achieving the financial goals of the company for the growth of its revenue and profit. To do this, the leader performs three key features (1):

Business management (business manager)
Personnel management (people manager)
Customer management (customer manager)

All three roles are important to sales success. First, let's look at the main tasks inherent in each role, and then we will see the effective distribution of the manager's time.

Business management

The main task of this role is to align the strategy and interests of the company with the operational work of salespeople. The main functions of the role include the following:

Detailing and explaining the company's strategy and other corporate requirements and procedures
Interaction with senior management to align customer needs and company strategy
Unit resource and communications management
Reporting

Personnel Management

Competent personnel management is a powerful source of increasing the efficiency and productivity of the sales force. Within this role, the manager performs the following main functions:

Setting and monitoring goals and objectives
Search, recruitment, adaptation, training and coaching of personnel
Implementation of bonus and motivation programs
Performance management

Client management

Growing the number of customers and increasing their loyalty are the key tasks of a sales manager. As a client manager, the manager performs the following functions:

Distribution and profiling potential clients
Organization of the sales process
Participation in big deals
Customer Satisfaction Control

Distribution of time between roles

How to correctly allocate time between business management, personnel management and customer management? The answer to this question depends on many factors, the main of which is the complexity or complexity of the sales process.

In long complex sales, the executive spends more time in the customer management role. If the sales cycle is simpler, then more time is devoted to personnel management. Experts give the following average figures for the distribution of time between managerial roles (2):

Business management - 20% -35%
Personnel management - 30% -55%
Client management - 25% -40%

Efficiency Tools

In the conditions of constant changes in the market environment, effective sales management is impossible without automation of key management procedures. Such tasks are solved by systems of the Sales Performance Management (SPM) class. . Let's look at some possibilities this class business applications on the example of the SPM Soft system.

Sources

(1) The Complete Guide to Accelerating Sales Force Performance: How to Get More Sales from Your Sales Force. Andris A Zoltners, Prabhakant Sinha, Greggor A Zoltners

(2) Building a Winning Sales Management Team: The Force Behind the Sales Force. Andris A Zoltners, Prabhakant Sinha, Sally E Lorimer

The sales department is a key division of any commercial organization. And not only today’s business directly depends on the work of its employees. financial stability firm, but also the prospects for its growth and development. Therefore, this unit should function as efficiently as possible.

Specialists highlight two key factors affecting the efficiency of the sales department: personnel management system and employee competence. Each of these factors, in turn, consists of several aspects.

Let's consider each of the blocks in more detail from the point of view of measures that increase the efficiency of the "salespeople" as a whole.

Sales personnel management system

This includes aspects such as structure, planning, stimulation and control .

1. Structure

It is also necessary to determine the concept of forming the size of the selling unit: either the organization hires a small number of employees - salespeople of the highest qualification with the appropriate level of payment, or for the same money the company hires a larger number of managers of average qualification. The first tactic is most often recommended when selling goods or services requires an individual approach to each client and deep knowledge in a particular area. The second tactic is usually applied if the sale of goods or services is a standardized procedure and does not require deep knowledge and understanding of the company's business.

Note: over the employees of the sales department there should not be superfluous management links dealing only with plans and reports. As experts note, in case of successful implementation of the plan, “extra links” usurp success, proving that it is solely their merit, and in case of failure, on the contrary, they shift all responsibility to others. Which, ultimately, comes down to the dismissal of salespeople or a banal shuffling of personnel. And as a result - extra expenses and endless search for new employees. And most importantly, this state of affairs has a demoralizing effect on sales staff and encourages them to move to work in other companies.

Important: a lot depends on the head of the sales department, so it is important to correctly assess his professional and managerial level, if necessary - to train, in extreme cases - to replace. As a rule, only a high-class salesperson with organizational talent and managerial training can effectively manage a sales department. Sales should be managed by people who understand the process “from the inside”, know its specifics and have achieved significant success in this area. But the ability to sell and the ability to manage a department are two different things. Therefore, in successful companies, department heads are nominated “from the bottom”, from former sales representatives, but only after special training.

2. Planning

We can talk about an effective planning system if the fluctuations from the plan are no more than 10-15% - experts in the field of sales management say. Therefore, planned indicators for "salespeople" must meet a number of criteria :

Their achievement requires significant (limiting, but achievable) efforts from employees;

They are expressed in concrete numbers;

Tasks are set for a certain period of time;

All figures are under control (it is possible to track the stages of the plan).

Note: reporting for any period, sales managers should not be burdened with the need to prepare and write purely formal reports. Such a situation can often be observed in large companies, as well as in organizations where the department is headed by a person who has not left the field of sales, experts say. At the same time, employees are forced to spend a significant part of their working time not on business, but on unnecessary “scribbling”. Therefore, sometimes it even makes sense to hire an assistant who would do all the paperwork, leaving the sales staff the opportunity to do the real work.

Important: do not neglect old clients in favor of new ones, even very large and promising ones. It's no secret that attracting new customers costs companies five to six times more than maintaining relationships with existing partners. Satisfying the needs and requirements of old customers as much as possible, the company significantly reduces the cost of attracting new ones. The presence of such "satisfied" customers (of course, belonging to the category of regular ones) affects sales volumes, allowing you to plan activities for several months and even years in advance.

3. Stimulation

When building an incentive system, it is necessary to take into account, at a minimum, two principles- transparency and fairness. Despite some abstractness of these criteria, there are fairly accurate tools that determine the compliance of the incentive system with these requirements. The incentive system is considered transparent if the employee can independently calculate the level of his income for the selected period of time, and can also plan his position in the company when certain results are achieved. The sales employee's perception of the incentive system as fair or not can be determined through regular surveys. And best of all, if this is done by a specialist in personnel management.

Achievement should be rewarded is a rule that should always be observed. Indicators can be, for example, the number of calls per day, the number of newly attracted customers, the amount of orders for the period, the percentage of returning customers, the percentage of successful calls. These indicators, and in particular their values that managers need to achieve, each manager chooses depending on the specifics of the business and the functions assigned to the sales department, on the vision of the sales process.

Note: the amount of remuneration should be clearly related to the real results of work - that is, the achievements of sales managers should be real, not imaginary. For example, employees in a department may recruit excessively risky or “blank” customers to serve them and thereby ensure that the sales plan is only “on paper”. For example, a contract is concluded for a large amount, but there are no actual shipments under the contract. Therefore, in all cases, the remuneration of the manager should not depend on the amount for which the contract was concluded, but on the amount of the transaction carried out under this contract.

4. Control

We can talk about an effective control system if for the head of the sales department all processes are transparent occurring in the department. To this end, it is necessary to formalize all business processes, from customer search to after-sales service. Experts recommend, depending on the size of the company, to use various CRM systems. Many of them allow not only to structure work with clients, but also to track the performance of their duties by employees. The main thing is to position the filling of control forms as an integral part of the work. To do this, it is necessary that the information contained in the reporting forms is important for employees, for example, it allows them to calculate their income for the current month.

Note: the data obtained during the control process should provide objective information about the capabilities of each specific manager. After all, only in this case it is possible to determine the success of his work, to help develop the necessary skills to increase labor efficiency.

For example, if a manager makes 20 meetings per month, and only 1-2 of them end in a contract, and the average ratio for the department is 30%, this means that the manager must determine the cause of failures and help the subordinate work more efficiently and earn more. Or it may turn out that the manager spends a lot of effort on working with new clients, without getting any return. In this case, it is necessary to analyze its potential client base: perhaps it simply works in a non-target segment. Or the reverse situation: the employee "sits" on the old base and is not engaged in attracting new customers. Then even if financial results the employee is very high, you need to set him the task of attracting customers, adding additional bonuses for this.

Personnel Competence

The competence of the personnel is understood as the presence of such components as motivation, qualifications and personal qualities necessary for effective work in the field of sales. Experts note: a sales manager must be motivated with a focus on the result, not the process; have sales experience and possess such qualities as determination, stress resistance, leadership, etc.

And the main skills of sales personnel, according to experts, can be considered

the following:

Ability to establish friendly relations with clients;

The ability to convey the benefits that the client receives by purchasing the product;

Ability to counter objections and deal with rejections.

It is these employees who should be hired to work as “salespeople”. And in order for the department to work effectively, an audit of its personnel should be carried out at intervals of at least 3 times a year - professionals advise. This will allow you to determine the state of this resource at a given point in time, plan activities aimed at improving the success of the staff.

One of the tools that determine the state of the human resource is assessment. Assessment is a specialized in-depth methodology for appraising personnel and evaluating candidates for vacant positions. This is a two-way exchange of information between each employee and the management of the organization in order to establish strong and weaknesses a person as an individual and as a specialist, in the existing service environment. As well as a program of individual training and development, taking into account the existing potential.

Note: the success of many sales managers obeys the law of the sine wave. First, the rise (accumulation of the client base, sales growth), then the top (success, accumulated client base, high sales), and then the “curve” goes down. Therefore, the head of the department should feel in time that the subordinate is “on the verge of recession”, and entrust him with a new interesting business.

For example, the manager works with a certain region. You can offer him to expand the area of operation or engage in a deeper study of the region: create branches or joint ventures there. Sometimes the manager feels that the manager has gained experience and is capable of more. In this case, you can appoint him as the leader of the group.

In an emergency- you can offer a subordinate to take a break from work. After all, accumulated fatigue is a factor that greatly affects performance. One to two week trips organized by the firm for a successful but in crisis employee usually nice results. You can send a person to study or on a regular tour. The main thing is that he should change the situation and be charged with positive emotions.