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Underperforming Sales Reps, Put Yourself on a Performance Plan

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

In most cases, we see an official “performance plan” as the beginning of the end for some poor sales rep.  The performance plan seems to be more of a termination plan as the evidence suggests that the goal is often not better performance, but instead a way to begin documentation to justify termination.  In every case where I’ve seen someone put on a performance plan, that was their cue to start a full court press job search before they were fired.   

So, it’s safe to say that no sales rep wants to be put on a performance plan, right?  Right!

If you are a sales rep facing underperformance, my guess is that you are worried about your job.  You might be hoping no one has noticed, you might spend your time sharing the positive news while keeping everyone’s focus off the negative performance, you might be explaining away your bad sales (customer budget cuts, etc) or.. you might even be job hunting.

Here is something to try instead.  Put yourself on a Performance Plan.   This is a Turnaround Boot Camp style Performance Plan by the way. 

We know that we can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results. That really is the premise of a Performance Plan. 

To get started:

  • Look at what you have been doing and critically analyze exactly how you are spending your time to determine what is producing results and what is not. 
  • Consult with team members who are exceeding goals for advice on what you could be doing differently. 
  • Once you determine which of your sales activities are producing positive sales results, triple your output of those activities.
  • Figure out where you are investing time in non-selling activities (learning a new CRM, sitting on an internal committee, etc) and eliminate those activities from your week. You can politely request to be excused – if you get fired, none of those things will really matter anyway.
  • Start your day earlier and end your day later.
  • Look the part. 
  • Exercise, eat right and get enough sleep.
  • Write out your 30 day plan.  This should include day by day what you will be doing and with which customers or prospects.  For example, maybe every day starts with 50 cold calls, maybe Sundays are research days, Tues-Thurs is for 15 face-to-face appointments, etc. 
  • Have an accountability plan in place – a report, updates in your CRM or something to monitor your progress.
  • Have a clear goal for the end of 30 days and a way to monitor progress along the way.

Now, here’s key element:

Request a meeting with your Sales Manager – NOT during selling hours (you need those).  Have an early coffee or after hours meeting with your Sales Manager to let them know you have put yourself on a Performance Plan, walk them through it and get their input to fine tune it and gain agreement on your course of action. 

By proactively addressing your underperformance with your Sales Manager you will open the doors of communication regarding expectations and possible outcomes of underperformance.  You will show the initiative to address the problem proactively giving your Sales Manager an opportunity to help you succeed instead of look for a way to manage you out.  

Too often we keep moving along hoping no one will bring up the issue everyone knows exists (we do this with customers, too).  If you know you are underperforming, your sales manager knows it, too.  His boss will ask him about it and it will eventually be dealt with.  Wouldn’t it be great if you could change the story by being brave enough to call it out and proactively do something about it? 

So, if you find yourself falling short, stop worrying and start acting.  Build you plan ASAP and start executing with your Sales Manager’s support.

Put yourself on a Performance Plan today.

(Post brought to you by Jill Myrick, CEO of Meeting to Win.   Meeting to Win provides sales team meeting topics for Sales Managers who want to run sales team meetings that aren’t a bore.  Inspire your team with Meeting to Win.  Subscribe here.)

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Posted in best practice, communication, discipline, down economy, how to have productive sales team meetings, management tips, performance, sales activity, sales management, sales manager tips, sales managers, sales meetings | No Comments »

Know Your Risks (Includes Sales Team Meeting Idea)

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

As we continue with Pipeline Health Check week, we want to address risks in pipelines.  If you know your risks, you can reduce the risks or at least manage them more effectively.  As you examine your pipeline this week, check for these risks:

  • A large percentage of the revenue in your pipeline is from one deal.
  • You are not positioned with decision makers in late cycle pipeline opportunities.
  • Your pipeline is heavy on early or late sales cycle deals – no balance.
  • You have not added new “suspect” opportunities to your pipeline consistently.
  • In mid-cycle deals you do not have a crystal clear picture of the decision process and who is involved and in what capacity at each decision point.
  • You haven’t discussed money in mid and late cycle opportunities.
  • You don’t know the competitive landscape in most of your opportunities.
  • Your pipeline does not have at least 3X your sales goal in opportunities.
  • You have deals that have stalled out with no progress forward in a few weeks.
  • You are guessing at the size of opportunities instead of basing it on real diagnosis.
  • You are chasing deals that are not in your company’s sweet spot.

These are just a few of the risks to look for as you examine your pipeline.  Know your risks and take steps to minimize them – the smallest steps can make the biggest difference when pursuing sales performance goals.

Sales Team Meeting Idea:

At your next sales team meeting,

  • Ask your team to bring their pipelines.
  • Go through each of the risks above as a group. 
  • Add risks to the list that apply to your team.
  • Ask each person to honestly assess their pipeline against the final list of risks.
  • As a team, set one action item each person can do to minimize their most dangerous pipeline risk.
  • Plan to follow up as a team and do this exercise again, setting the next action item as you move toward healthier and healthier pipelines.

Meeting to Win provides in-depth sales team meeting agendas with training exercises, practice sessions, discussion topics and ideas to help your sales team sell more.  This Friday’s agenda is the Pipeline Health Check and will lead your team through exercises that will lead to more balanced, healthier pipelines.  Join us and get your own weekly sales team meeting agendas.  Learn more  here.

Posted in agenda ideas, agendas, communication, free sales team meeting topics, how to have productive sales team meetings, opportunity, performance, sales management, sales manager tips, sales managers, sales meetings, sales team, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas, team meeting, tips for meetings | No Comments »

LinkedIn Groups are Valuable Sales Tools – When Used Appropriately (Article & Sales Team Meeting Idea)

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

LinkedIn has become a very valuable tool for me.  I enjoy partnering with my connections for referrals, business opportunities, learning experiences and awareness of our industry and business climate.  In the few years I’ve been using LinkedIn I’ve reconnected with former colleagues, exchanged valuable referrals, developed deeper relationships with clients, kept track of clients when they’ve switched companies, connected employers and employees, created great peer networks and, not lastly, increased sales.  My point?  LinkedIn is a powerful tool in my business. 

In the past year, I have gotten more active on LinkedIn Groups.    I wanted to share my experience and some of my best pratices for using these groups to build business acumen, share and gather best practices and grow as a sales professional. 

  1. First of all, you need to find a group that is well-managed.  This means that the group manager is actively involved in the discussions and ensures that spam or selling is not tolerated.  The groups that add value are made up of a community of peers that value sharing ideas and best practices for the benefit of the group – and ultimately the customers they serve.  Here are three groups I am active in and would highly recommend:  Sales Blogcast, Sales Gravy, Sales Playbook  (If you know of other good groups, please post a comment and share them with our readers.)  Visit one or more of these groups and request to join.
  2. Once you are a member, you should share your ideas and opinions on discussion questions already posted. 
  3. If you are facing a sales challenge such as getting a prospect to take your call, overcoming a price objection or dealing with customer service issues, you can post your dilemma for the group.  These groups are made up of professionals from the sales industry and are great about sharing their experiences, ideas and suggestions.  You will have a great list of perspectives to consider as you decide how to tackle your sales challenge.
  4. Be respectful of your network.  You can disagree -it is actually interesting and valuable to get differing opinions.  Just do it politely and with respect.
  5. Make an effort to share news that might be useful to the group.  Most groups have a place to post news.   If you find something helpful, share it with the group. 
  6. Follow up on discussions you post.  Thank group members for their input and continue to facilitate the discussion until it runs its course.
  7. Be abundant.  In the The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, Dr. Stephen Covey defined this abundance mentality as “a paradigm that there is plenty out there for everyone.”    The Abundance Mentality is in contrast to the Scarcity Mentality.  (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen R. Covey)
  8. Invite colleagues to join and participate in groups you find useful. 
  9. Stay positive.  The groups I’ve recommended manage to stay realistic and positive. They are solution oriented no matter the challenge.
  10. Remember the Golden Rule always.

These groups are a great enhancement to your life and career when you participate appropriately.  Please feel free to share your own best practices by leaving a comment for our readers.

Get active in LinkedIn Groups and reap the benefits immediately.

Sales Team Meeting Idea:

Ask your sales team to

  • all join the same group or
  • each join a different group.

At your sales team meetings, bring one of the discussion questions from your LI group to your own team.  Share the LinkedIn Group’s responses and then build on those.

Or, determine a sales challenge that exists on your team and post it to the group(s) you belong to. The next time you get together, share the answers from the LinkedIn group(s).  Be sure to let your LinkedIn Group(s) know how they helped your team by leaving a comment in the discussion thread, also.

(Meeting to Win offers subscribers sales team meeting agendas every week.  Join us by subscribing at https://www.meetingtowin.com/subscribe.)

Posted in agenda ideas, best practice, down economy, free sales team meeting topics, how to have productive sales team meetings, management tips, maximize tools, new managers, performance, sales activity, sales management, sales manager tips, sales managers, sales meetings, sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas, selling tools, team meeting, tips for meetings | No Comments »

Troubleshooters Gain 100 Selling Hours in 2010

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

(To get a Sales Team Meeting Agenda and lead your team through a Troubleshooters exercise, download Troubleshooters from our STORE now.)

What could you do with 100+ ADDITIONAL selling hours per year? I did the math on this a few years ago and since then have been committed to solving nagging little troubles that arise.  Let me explain.

Often a sales rep will face a recurring and nagging trouble such as invoice issues, late deliveries, collections, implementation schedule conflicts and other customer service/post-sale issues.   Because of my own frustration with these things, I’ve added up the minutes I spend on these issues in a typical sales week.  Believe it or not, 2 hours is a low average.  And, more eye-opening is that it tends to be the same trouble over and over again.  So, this could be a frustration or … an opportunity. 

What if I solved that ONE trouble and gained 2 hours per week back in my selling week?  I chose to make solving that one trouble a priority.  Even when I wasn’t able to completely make it go away, I was able to drastically reduce the time I spent on it each week.  The hard part was to stop and take the time to find a solution instead of just living with it.  What I got was over 100 hours of additional selling time that year – and, in most cases, happier customers and reduced frustration every day.   Everyone wins!

So, quit living with that recurring frustration and get your life back – or at least 100 hours of it.

(This post brought to you by Meeting to Win, provider of sales team agendas for Sales Managers.  Troubleshooters agenda comes out this Friday.  Join us and lead your team through an exercise to take back 2 hours per week per salesperson.  If you have 8 salespeople on your team times 2 hours per week times 50 weeks per year you get an ADDITIONAL 800 SELLING HOURS PER YEAR for your team.  It’s worth the time to solve problems.)

(To get a Sales Team Meeting Agenda and lead your team through a Troubleshooters exercise, download Troubleshooters from our STORE now.)

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Posted in agenda ideas, agendas, how to have productive sales team meetings, sales managers, sales meetings, sales team, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas, team meeting, tips for meetings | No Comments »

Stay “On The Grid” During the Holiday Season

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

It is almost impossible to not “go off the grid” with your prospective customers and customers during the holidays. Everyone is heading to some much needed time off.  You can have a competitive advantage by staying on the grid while your competitors are dropping off.  Here are 5 ways to do it that won’t cut into your much needed and deserved R&R.

1.  Send Happy New Year cards to your clients.  These cards should arrive right before or right after Jan 1st. Your greeting will stand out since it won’t be arriving with the pre-Christmas gifts and cards that get lost in the shuffle or arrive during vacations.  Your New Year’s greeting could include a calendar or some useful information for the new year. 

2.  Send an article or book that is relevant to the current business climate or their current business issues.  They can start the new year thinking about you and gaining some fresh ideas.

3.  Get on their calendar for a January meeting.  The new year is a great time to evaluate the business you did the previous year and set plans for the new year.  Requesting a Jan meeting in December is extremely effective.  Customers want to feel they have a productive Jan set up before they leave for the holidays, also.  Setting up a meeting with a good objective is a good way to help them do this.

4. Help them prepare for new year planning meetings.  If they are a current customer, one way to do this is to send them a slide deck outlining the work and accomplishments in 2009 along with some ideas to continue the good work in 2010.  Your email can start with “Often our clients ask us for a recap of the previous year so they can use it during thier new year planning sessions.  I thought you may also find this helpful.   Please see attached document.  I am happy to walk through the slides with you at your convenience.  Hope it’s helpful as you head into the new year.“  Write it in a way that they could use it with their superiors and in planning meetings.  They will see you as a true partner and you’ll cut their 2010 workload before the year even begins.

5.  Instead of just an “out of office” reply, send a proactive note to your customers and prospective customers several days in advance of your vacation.  Let them know you’ll be out and how they can get in touch with you if appropriate, or at least how to get in touch with someone who can help them in your absence.  They probably will be out, too, but they will have you in mind and feel that you took an extra step to ensure they are taken care of even when you are out.  (It’s a great reason to reach out to them when you return to let them know you are back in the office and move your relationship forward.)

Enjoy your time “off the grid” while a few small efforts will keep you “on the grid”.  Happy New Year!

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Posted in communication, how to have productive sales team meetings, management tips, new managers, new years resolutions, sales activity, sales management, sales manager tips, sales managers, sales tips, tips for meetings, tough economy | No Comments »

The Q4 Push – Are You In? The Time to Act on 2010 is NOW!

Sunday, October 11th, 2009

j0433410This has been a tough year for many.  It’s Q4 and salespeople could be feeling tired and ready to “write this one off” and take another shot at it in 2010.   Here’s the problem with that.  Momentum is a very cool thing and it’s great when it’s working for you and horrible when it’s working against you.  So, even if 2009 is a lost cause in terms of goal achievement, there is no better time (well, a month ago would have been better, but…) to get momentum going for 2010.

To gain more and more momentum as you close in on 2010, try these strategies:

The first five on the list come from the advice my friend Alvin of Tactivity shared in a LinkedIn discussion. I’ve added (and repeated) a few ideas that have helped me, also.

  1. If you’re on pace to the President’s Club in your organization, then increase your activity.
  2. If what you are doing hasn’t been working, then complete a thorough cleansing of the pipeline/funnel: Is it real? Is it good business? Can you win?
  3. Prioritize your activities around the health of your newly cleaned funnel
  4. Brainstorm a list of possible actions for your top opportunities; then choose only the 3-5 activities that will really advance them towards closure
  5. Go get it done!
  6. Conduct business reviews with existing clients to secure relationships, identify risks and uncover new ways to help them.
  7. Examine your territory for new opportunities a tough economy has turned up.
  8. Increase your sales activity.  Oh, did we already mention that one?  Action creates action, energy creates energy.  Make more calls!
  9. Solidify referral partners.  Decide to gain 20 referral partners and stay in touch with them, ask for referrals, be accessible and be someone they would be proud to refer (hint: send them referrals, also).
  10. Stay “on the grid” with prospects and existing customers.  Share useful information to help them run their business more effectively.  Don’t be out of sight or you know where you’ll be…. Out of mind.  Many of their sales reps have “gone dark” lately as companies do lay-offs and reorganizations.  Just being there may differentiate you!
  11. Have a team meeting every week to celebrate successes, share ideas, collaborate on hot deals and challenge each other.  This team accountability and celebration is fuel for your sales engine.  (You know we couldn’t leave this one out!)
  12. BONUS:  Increase sales activity.  In my experience, there is NO substitute.  Commit to accelerated sales activity in Q4 if you do nothing else.  Yeah, it’s worth mentioning 3 times. 

2010 can be an amazing year.  Salespeople that build momentum now can get a head start and be rewarded by helping more customers in 2010 than they ever thought possible.  Not to mention, for some 2009 can be a distant memory….  Get started today.  Staring in January 2010 will be TOO LATE.

To help sales teams build momentum during Q4, Meeting to Win is running a Q4 Push Promotion which means…free sales team meeting agendas for Sales Managers.  Sales Managers can subscribe for sales team meeting agendas and get all of Q4 for free.  First payment of $10/month won’t be charged until January 2010 (sales managers can unsubscribe any time in Q4 and never be charged).  The agendas are designed to motivate sales teams and accelerate performance while continually gaining and maintaining incredible momentum. 

Read more HERE then join us by subscribing HERE and entering the Promo Code “Q4PUSH”.

Posted in LinkedIn, Uncategorized, agendas, best practice, communication, culture, down economy, free sales team meeting topics, management tips, meetings, new managers, new years resolutions, opportunity, performance, sales activity, sales management, sales manager tips, sales managers, sales meetings, sales team, sales team meeting ideas, sales tips, tough economy | No Comments »

New Year’s Resolutions for Sales Managers

Tuesday, December 30th, 2008

I love Dave Stein’s blog and today’s was another good one. Here is a link to Dave’s New Year’s Resolutions For Sales Leaders post: http://davesteinsblog.wordpress.com/2008/12/29/new-year-resolutions-for-sales-leaders/.

I thought we could add a few more to the list:
11. I will commit to open, honest, real communication with my sales team. Sales people could be facing frustrations and new challenges in this economy. Some are scared, some don’t know how to adjust. Keep communication frequent, consistent and open with your teams.
12. I will hold a regularly scheduled sales team meeting for the many, many benefits they bring. This is a great opportunity to share best practices, analyze wins and losses, improve sales skills, learn from each other’s experiences, understand in real-time what impact the economy is having on our customers, etc. The result? Shortened sales cycles, improved morale and a more equipped sales team.
13. I will commit to holding selling time sacred. Increase customer time by setting the example. Don’t let internal meetings take up selling time. Suggest selling hours each day or selling days each week – whatever works in your business. And then, let NOTHING interfere with that, NOT even your CEO. As a sales manager, set aside time each week to get out on sales calls. This time with your team and customers is too valuable to skip.
14. I will ask my team, as a group or individually, how I can better support them. Your team needs you to run interference, push internal issues through, approve terms, etc, etc. Ask them what they need more of and less of and then figure out what course of action makes the most sense. One way to do this is to ask the team about the best and worst managers they’ve had and why they think they were the best or worst. You’ll learn a lot about what your team wants from you and they won’t feel like they are critiquing you personally. You can follow that exercise by asking them if they’d like to see some of those “best” things from you and fewer of those “worst” things to turn it to how you can serve them.
15. I will bring fresh ideas, new activities and valuable opportunities to my team regularly. Don’t let things get stale. Keep bringing ways to learn to your team. Invite guest speakers, give them access to new tools and best practices, put some effort into planning interesting meetings. Keep looking for ways to add value for your team.
16. I will read one new business book per quarter. The benefits of this are endless. Your own creativity flows better, you learn from thought leaders and experienced, successful business people, you get new ideas and you stay fresh. Your team senses this and it sets the tone for your culture. If this is too much, start with Book Summaries and read one 8-page overview each month. (http://www.summaries.com/)
17. I will ask my sales team to read one new business book per quarter. See #16. Plus, you could all read the same book and discuss it or each choose your own and give “book reports” so everyone learns on multiple topics.
18. I will attend regularly scheduled business reviews with our clients. If you aren’t already doing this, commit to scheduling regular business reviews with your top clients. It’s a chance to find out how you are doing, review how you are helping them the way they hired you to, address any challenges and understand how their needs are changing and how that means you should change. Ask your reps to schedule these and attend them religiously.
19. I will commit to focus! It is tempting to have knee-jerk reactions to the changing economy and constantly change the team’s focus and strategy as you go. Resist this urge. Pick your selling strategy and commit to it with regular follow-up, communication and accountability.
20. I will make a commitment to prospecting with my team. New customers and new business from existing customers is a life line. Constantly be working towards new customers and new business from existing customers. Make this a regular activity and help the team figure out what specifically they should be doing and how often. Depending on your business, each person adding one or two new logos or departments could help you sustain long-term sales growth.

Please add yours!
The Meeting to Win Team
www.meetingtowin.com

Posted in etc, management tips, new years resolutions, sales manager tips, sales managers, sales tips | No Comments »

10 Tips for Better Weekly Sales Team Meetings in 2009

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

Sales Team Meetings – 10 Tips for Winning Sales Team Meetings

Sales Managers can immediately impact their team’s performance and morale by committing to productive and positive weekly sales team meetings. This Monday morning meeting sets the tone for the selling week. At the end of each weekly sales team meeting, each participant should feel more equipped to compete and win. This is an expensive hour when you consider your entire sales team is NOT selling for one full hour. These tips can help you invest that hourly wisely. Your return should be more momentum, better morale and sales success.

Meeting to Win, LLC (www.meetingtowin.com) wants to share 10 tips to help you lead more productive, positive meetings right away. Use these tips or subscribe to Meeting to Win agendas (https://www.meetingtowin.com/subscribe). Either way, commit to having great meetings starting next week.

1. Send an agenda in advance. First of all, this keeps a sales manager accountable to planning a productive meeting instead of just jumping on a weekly call and resorting to the roundtable update approach.
The agenda should change for each meeting. If you send the same template each week, they will stop looking at it. Keep agenda’s fresh and relevant.
When sales people know the manager is being proactive and planning for their meetings, they are more likely to take them more seriously, also.

2. Invite RELEVANT guest speakers. Who could join your sales team call and share information that will help your sales people sell more?
This could be an internal product specialist who could clear up confusion or answer questions about a new product offering.
This could be a customer who could give a short talk on their experience working with your company or team.
This could be someone from your marketing team to share some current market research relevant to your customers.

3. Share ownership for a productive meeting with the entire team. Share meeting planning and executing responsibilities with team members. For example, someone can be the timekeeper, someone can lead an agenda topic, someone can send the agenda out in advance, someone can secure a guest speaker and so on. It’s everyone’s responsibility to use this time wisely.

4. Have a Team Book Club. Continually build business acumen by reading and discussing a current business book as a team. Read the chapter before the meeting and discuss it during the meeting for a set amount of time.

5. Assign pre-work. This doesn’t have to be a huge project, just a small amount of preparation so they can contribute to a successful, helpful sales team meeting. And, again, meetings are always more interesting when more people have input.
Give them an article to read before the meeting.
Ask them to think about a topic and be prepared with their thoughts or ideas on that topic.
Ask them to research something for the sales team.

6. Reinforce recent sales training. Most sales training organizations have reinforcement modules designed for sales managers to use after the formal training. Use these. Each meeting, asks a different sales person to “teach” the next module. This encourages the team to study and practice the sales methodologies and skills that will make them more successful.

7. Have fun. Celebrate even the smallest successes and wins every week.

8. Don’t do a data dump. If administrative things can be shared via email, do so. Give the team a chance to ask questions or make clarifications on something they received via e-mail, but do not dump all this info on them during their meeting.

9. Stick to the allotted time. Enough said?

10. Share Best Practices. Make sure this is on the agenda. Ask one sales person to share something they have tried that is working. They should be able to tell the rest of the team how and why they did it and share any tools that will help someone else try it.

BONUS TIP: Analyze losses. It’s painful, but top sales team do this consistently. Everyone can learn from these discussions.

Posted in agenda ideas, agendas, sales managers, sales team, sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, tips for meetings | No Comments »

Win in a Down Economy – #7 – Maximize Your Tools

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

(This winning tip brought to you by Meeting to Win, LLC – www.meetingtowin.com)

Many sales teams are taking a break from investing in new tools – CRMs, on-line sales training, lead sources, Hoovers, etc. Most spending now is on customers, not on ourselves. That may not be such a bad thing. I see it over and over again. The corporate office is looking at the latest bells & whistles for their sales teams. The lastest presentation technology, the latest CRM upgrade, the latest on-line collaboration tool, the latest _________, the latest ________, the latest _________ (you can probably fill in the blanks). They put out an RFP maybe and salespeople come in and share all the great things their _____ can do. All great and probably all very true. It seems the problem comes at the implementation and adoption phase of the project. As new tool is only great when it is used. Too often the latest _______ is rolled out and before it is being maximized, the buyers are off to the next latest ________.

As a sales leader, do a quick inventory of the tools available to you. Do this with your team. Figure out how you can create more efficiencies, drive more leads, shorten sales cycles, eliminate unnecessary work using the tools you already have.

Here is one that applies to a lot of us. Outlook is a tool most of us have. Set up “rules” in Outlook to categorize e-mails that come in. You can color code e-mails based on who they are from, if you are the sole recipient or if you are part of a distribution and so on. You would be amazed at how much less your e-mail controls you once you have these “rules” in place to help you prioritize how you read and respond to e-mails.

Your CRM is a big one, also. Most salespeople don’t use a large percentage of the capabilities of their CRM. What is one way you can use your CRM to help you run more efficiently? Can you mine leads, create a better communication plan with an existing customer, what else?

There are many more ways to maximize the tools available to you. I’d love to hear your ideas, also. Sell more efficiently during a tough economy by maximizing the capabilities of existing tools for you and your team.

Thank you,
The Meeting to Win Team

Posted in down economy, efficient, leads, maximize tools, sales managers, selling tools, tips, tough economy | No Comments »

Win in a Down Economy – #5 – PLEASE Run Interference!

Saturday, December 6th, 2008

Sales Managers, have you and your teams ever noticed how when times are tough and that begins showing up in the company’s results, some senior leaders resort to “communicating” more? All of a sudden, the noise level goes up dramatically. It takes many forms such as new reports to do, new conference calls to join, new discounts and offers to pass along, new activity goals, etc, etc, etc. What does this do to salespeople? It DISTRACTS them, often PARALYZES them and sends them running in circles which really isn’t a recommended approach for winning in any arena (business, sports, etc).
The best sales leaders I have had were really GREAT at something — RUNNING INTERFERENCE. They blocked a huge percentage of the noise and pushed back on senior leaders when there was too much noise.
Here are some ways you can run interference for your team:
1. With your team, pick one or two things that you can do that can make the biggest difference in your results. Focus on those things, report on those things, make minor adjustments as needed and don’t give into the temptation to abandon a good plan before it gets momentum.
2. Don’t just pass along everything that your leadership sends your way. If you must pass it along, do it in a controlled way. Decide with your team how they would like to receive all this information. Can you save it up and send all the information on a Friday afternoon, can you put it in newsletter form, does your team have a team blog or webpage where you could post these items. Figure out a way with your team to NOT distract them during the selling week with non-urgent matters.
3. Protect your team’s selling time. When times are tough, every department wants a piece of the sales team. Let anyone who wants access to your team know that you will decide what makes it through the filter and then when they can access them. I had a Sales VP who didn’t allow ANY internal conference calls, e-mails or any other communication except on Mondays. If you wanted access to her sales team, you went through her and if she decided it would help grow sales, you got limited access on Mondays. You cannot imagine how much the noise level dropped and everyone got back to selling.
4. Reports! If senior leaders want another slice of data, a quick report, etc, figure out how you can gather the information without asking your team to stop what they are doing to run a new report. Go into your CRM and get the info yourself, gather the info during your regularly scheduled one-on-ones – anything other than ask them to stop selling and start reporting.
5. Push back on senior leaders who are causing the noise. Follow your chain of command, but push hard to protect your team’s selling time and stop the distractions. Show senior leaders what you will do in return – more face-to-face sales calls, more sales activity, etc.

These are just 5 ideas for dealing with the additional noise our own company’s produce. Please share your experiences in regards to dealing with the noise.

(Information gathered and shared by Meeting to Win, LLC. Visit us at www.meetingtowin.com for engaging, relevant, productive team conference calls every week.)

Posted in communication, meetings, noise, sales activity, sales management, sales managers | No Comments »

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