However, sales management can be quite challenging, especially if you are new to this position. As sales representatives encounter a lot of issues on daily basis, solving these problems with a smart and effective solution is what successful managers do. Therefore, let’s find out what the common sales management problems are and how to overcome them to improve sales productivity, become a stronger leader and get better results from a team.
- Recruiting the right people. Without doubt, hiring the right sales representatives is considered to be a top challenge for inside sales managers. As an unqualified person can seriously hinder company progress towards its business goals, knowing how to interview salespeople and what questions to ask sale candidates will allow you to collect enough data and make a right decision. Check out our article “Top 10 interview questions in sales hiring” and get to know in greater detail how to conduct a successful interview and hire perfect candidates.
- Training and coaching. Providing a proper training and coaching is one of the biggest responsibilities of sales managers and among the most difficult to successfully execute. Keep training and improving skills of sales reps in order to efficiently organize the work of your team and boost its productivity. Make sure that you listen to their calls, work on their mistakes, and discuss the ways the company can improve its revenue. Besides, don’t forget about motivation. Use bonus system to reward successfully accomplished plans.
- Setting the goals. Without a clear vision of goals, little can be achieved. Therefore, for reaching a successful sales process, plans and goals should be analyzed with the team for each sales representative to understand how they need to work to produce better results. Moreover, all tasks should be divided into everyday activities which are regularly controlled.
- Monitoring activity. Low activity of sales managers and representatives is one of the main reasons why high revenue is not achieved. If agents don’t make enough calls or don’t conduct enough presentations, they will never attain their goals. Thus, monitoring their performance at each stage is of major importance. However, for a overwhelmed sales manager, it can be quite challenging to find the time needed to properly analyze each rep's activity. The best solution for this is the implementation of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. It will streamline and automate the sales process and maximize rep's revenue productivity on each lead. With the help of this software, sale manager can not only understand whether reps are heading to the set goals but also assist each of them in finding out their weak points and improving sales skills.
Companies, aiming to boost the performance of their sales team, should make the improvements in management their top priority. Without a clear understanding and effective control of sales process, there will be always problems with sales management that can badly effect the entire business. Thus, as sales managers have the potential to raise the performance of their reps and make the sales process more efficient, organizing their effective work will bring maximum success and long-term growth.
