When a small business owner first launches his company, he is usually the one doing the selling. As time passes and his product becomes more successful, the business will eventually reach the point where it's time to hire one or more salespeople, so that the owner can concentrate on running the business. Unfortunately, this is the point where success often becomes fatal. Most small business owners have little management experience – and for those that do, they quickly discover that sales management is quite different from other management roles. Such business owners can find that their new sales team causes profits to plummet, instead of bringing them to new heights. If this is your situation, consider if you are making one or more of the following sales management blunders.
No Product Training – Salespeople can't sell effectively if they don't understand the product. As the business owner you probably know the product inside and out. This level of knowledge can backfire because it often translates into a belief that the product is so simple and intuitive anyone will understand it instantly. Unfortunately, that's probably not the case.
Unrealistic Quotas – The first time you set a sales requirement for your team, you'll probably have to do some guessing based on your own sales efforts. In subsequent months you can use their past sales numbers to craft a more realistic goal. Whatever the result, you should aim for a target that your salespeople can reach roughly 80% of the time.
Keep Them In the Dark – Any time you update your product or otherwise change the buying process, you've got to tell your sales team as soon as possible – hopefully well before the changes go live for your customers.
Distribute Leads Unevenly – A common (but ultimately harmful) sales management approach is to give the best leads to the best salesperson, and hand out what's left to the rest of the team. Sadly, the result is hostility between your salespeople that usually leads to a string of resignations. Play fair and share the leads out equally.
Don't Provide Administrative Support – Your salespeople are there to sell. If they are spending all their time filling out paperwork, entering data, answering non-sales related customer questions, etc. then they won't be able to do the jobs you hired them for. If you can afford to hire a sales team, then splurge on an assistant as well to take these tasks off their hands.
Change Their Quotas Mid-period – Salespeople usually set up a sales plan to meet their goals for the period, and every time you change their requirements, they have to start from scratch with a new plan. They will be particularly upset if they've already made a lot of sales of one type and you suddenly change the requirement to a different type.
Pinch Pennies on Commissions – There are a number of sneaky ways that business owners can reduce the amount of commissions they end up paying to their salespeople. Creating a compensation plan so complex the reps can't understand it, calling large customers 'house accounts' that therefore don't belong to the salesperson and don't count for commissions, and changing commissions requirements without warning are all examples that will inspire your best salespeople to bail out of the company as fast as they can.
Don't Meet Launch Dates – Anyone can miss the occasional planned product launch date. However, doing so on a regular basis will cause your salespeople pain. They have probably made commitments to prospects and customers based on the information you gave to the sales team, and if you fail to follow through they then have to give those customers the bad news. The same goes for product features that don't work as advertised and product orders that you can't actually fill.
By Wendy Connick
http://sales.about.com/
No Product Training – Salespeople can't sell effectively if they don't understand the product. As the business owner you probably know the product inside and out. This level of knowledge can backfire because it often translates into a belief that the product is so simple and intuitive anyone will understand it instantly. Unfortunately, that's probably not the case.
Unrealistic Quotas – The first time you set a sales requirement for your team, you'll probably have to do some guessing based on your own sales efforts. In subsequent months you can use their past sales numbers to craft a more realistic goal. Whatever the result, you should aim for a target that your salespeople can reach roughly 80% of the time.
Keep Them In the Dark – Any time you update your product or otherwise change the buying process, you've got to tell your sales team as soon as possible – hopefully well before the changes go live for your customers.
Distribute Leads Unevenly – A common (but ultimately harmful) sales management approach is to give the best leads to the best salesperson, and hand out what's left to the rest of the team. Sadly, the result is hostility between your salespeople that usually leads to a string of resignations. Play fair and share the leads out equally.
Don't Provide Administrative Support – Your salespeople are there to sell. If they are spending all their time filling out paperwork, entering data, answering non-sales related customer questions, etc. then they won't be able to do the jobs you hired them for. If you can afford to hire a sales team, then splurge on an assistant as well to take these tasks off their hands.
Change Their Quotas Mid-period – Salespeople usually set up a sales plan to meet their goals for the period, and every time you change their requirements, they have to start from scratch with a new plan. They will be particularly upset if they've already made a lot of sales of one type and you suddenly change the requirement to a different type.
Pinch Pennies on Commissions – There are a number of sneaky ways that business owners can reduce the amount of commissions they end up paying to their salespeople. Creating a compensation plan so complex the reps can't understand it, calling large customers 'house accounts' that therefore don't belong to the salesperson and don't count for commissions, and changing commissions requirements without warning are all examples that will inspire your best salespeople to bail out of the company as fast as they can.
Don't Meet Launch Dates – Anyone can miss the occasional planned product launch date. However, doing so on a regular basis will cause your salespeople pain. They have probably made commitments to prospects and customers based on the information you gave to the sales team, and if you fail to follow through they then have to give those customers the bad news. The same goes for product features that don't work as advertised and product orders that you can't actually fill.
By Wendy Connick
http://sales.about.com/
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