Top 40 Sales Management Actions for 2010

In the past few blogs, we've been covering various topics to prepare sales leaders for 2010. The strategic sales leader is already thinking of compensation, sales training, budgeting, and hiring and recruiting for next year.

To help our clients fully understand all of the components of job sales management, we've compiled a whitepaper describing the purpose of and the steps necessary to build a high-performance sales organization. Below is an excerpt of the document (to download the entire article, go here):

A Prescriptive Approach To Defining the Duties and Responsibilities

The ideal sales manager acts as a sales leader, a catalyst for change and continuous improvement, and a positive force within the entire organization. They understand their priorities and their team and have a vision for the future.

The purpose of this document is to define key actions that the sales manager (SM) must take to be effective, describe the purpose of each action and explain why it's important. Note that the actions are not placed in any order of priority.

Sales Achievement

• Purpose: The top objective of sales management is to drive sales, capture new revenue, and exceed monthly sales and margin objectives. The purpose of the action list below is to keep the objective of sales achievement as a constant focus.
  
  
  • Perform sales strategy development with each salesperson on Monday morning, at a minimum, and in a formal one-on-one meeting during the week.
    
    
    • This action is to ensure the salesperson is focused, has effective strategies in place and is working on the right opportunities.
      
      
  • The sales leader must use strategic tools and questioning techniques to ensure the prospects are qualified and the strategy is valid. This will also teach the salesperson to use the same tool set, how to think strategically and to work smarter.
    
    
  • Attend key sales calls early in the sales process and help close sales opportunities.
    
    
    • This action is to help the SM better understand the opportunity and the people involved; when the SM is involved at the end of the sales process, a relationship with the prospect is initiated.
      
      
    • The SM's role is important in establishing company credibility, if required; early visitations will help the SM be a better coach.
      
      
  • Review pipeline analysis and qualification to ensure adequate values exist.
    
    
    • This action is critical because the SM must be looking 90 days beyond the current month to make sure sales and marketing pipelines carry the necessary sales opportunities in units and dollars to meet goal...

And finally, as a parting thought, check out the comment reader Donald R. Hacker recently gave in response to this document:

In the fourth paragraph of your Sept. 28 blog entry, you summed up the attitude of #4 as, and I paraphrase, "telling your team(mates) that we can still win." Nicely said! Leaders lead with attitude, followed by action. Such values cannot be merely taught; they must be caught! There must be buy-in to the principle that you can fail your way to success if you persevere. Perseverance takes character and character is earned through results-driven action. Albert Einstein said, "Genius is 90 percent perspiration, 10 percent inspiration." In this vein, I have observed that those considered lucky tend to be those who also work hard, persevere and do not give up until they create a new opportunity.

Ken Thoreson, president of Acumen Management Group Ltd., "operationalizes" sales management systems and processes that pull revenue out of the doldrums into the fresh zone. During the past 12 years, our consulting, advisory and platform services have illuminated, motivated and rejuvenated the sales efforts for partners throughout North America. Move up and move ahead! Acumen Management provides keynotes, consulting services and products designed to improve business performance. 3f4qb8v9ge

Posted by Ken Thoreson on November 03, 2009