Why Managing Sales Activity Is Easy!

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Why Managing Sales Activity Is Easy!
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Sales activity management is easy when your sales
culture simply demands it. The question is
asked by Sales Managers in the context of it
being a constant battle to ensure that their
sales people are doing enough of the right
activities to put them in a position to deliver
the sales results required. The discussion is
usually around the number of prospecting phone
calls, the number of first and second
appointments per week and so on.you know the
story. So, we should be ignoring activity
management simply because it can be a constant,
nagging and frustrating experience for both
parties? Well certainly not We simply recommend
a different approach.
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• Start by collecting activity and outcome results
  for your sales team as soon as possible. You will
  quite quickly identify benchmark standards which
  predict success in your business and selling
  environment, by sales role. Without this data,
  specific to each role in your business, you will
  be guessing forever.
• If you are new to your role or the business you
  are working in, go with your educated guesses in
  the interim and within 3-6 months you will
  realistically be able to collect the data you
  require.
• Expect to see significant variations in the
  statistics by salespeople in similar roles. This
  is caused by variations in prospecting planning,
  execution skill levels and plain old salesperson
  number fudging.

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• Do not try to fix motivation issues it is just
  too hard. Ultimately it is not your
  responsibility to motivate people to front up on
  time and do what you pay them to do, with enough
  frequency and proficiency.
• Where training, coaching and other organizational
  support does not positively impact activity
  levels, manage the individual out.

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You may be asking how this helps when coming back
to your weekly face to face meetings with your
sales staff. Well, its pretty simple making
the activity numbers are a pre-requisite for
obtaining a weekly cadence meeting with the Sales
Manager for value adding coaching and discussion.
This meeting will not touch on activity volumes
in any way because the culture drives their
delivery. Ultimately, if you simply establish
expectations and sales organisation
accountability you will get to really manage,
coach and lead and not play baby sitter and
excuse receiver. The time in weekly meetings is
now freed up to analyse and discuss
opportunities, review the quality of pipeline,
work with individuals on skill and process
improvement development opportunities. The secret
is for you now to get started on this path.
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Contact Us
Level Five Phone No. 1800 30 80 10 E-mail
help_at_levelfive.com.au Web http//www.levelfive.c
om.au/