Are you Leading or Merely Managing?

There are critical sales management habits that need to be addressed in this “new normal.”  True leaders of their businesses practice these habits every single day.  It is not vital right now to merely manage your business and your staff, rather you need to aspire to lead.  True leadership will enable you to map out your business’s course in this pandemic in order to thrive.

Observation

Every minute your sales manager spends in his or her office, except for doing effective weekly one-to-one meetings, costs you dearly in potential lost productivity of your sales force. Without a knowledgeable sales coach physically and consistently present on your sales floor, the 2nd law of Thermodynamics kicks in, namely Entropy. This means in essence that without energy being put into a system, things will gravitate towards a less ordered state. We have already identified this state and perhaps could call it the “Pelican Syndrome”.

Your sales manager should be regularly observing your salespeople (veterans included) which shows they care about them reaching their goals and are holding them accountable to do so. As the oft quoted army principle directs People RESPECT what you INSPECT not what you expect.

Besides just being on the floor, a high percentage of the time, the sales manager should be making written notes of the good, the bad, and the ugly, in regards to how customers are being greeted and treated. The manager then must give timely feedback to the sales staff to help them stay on track with the agreed upon, hopefully customer-driven, sales process.

Coaching

From a high-level perspective, coaching salespeople involves just two things: “numbers” and “behaviors.” To only have one of these is like having half of a pair of scissors. You need both, especially to cut through the habits of some of your salespeople.

Your sales manager should be consistently analyzing the “numbers” as in sales volume, closing rate, average sale, revenue per Up, and add ons (protection, warranties, mattress protectors, etc.). This needs to be done for each individual salesperson in the context of their goals that should have been mutually derived and agreed upon. Doing this only as a summary for the whole team does not allow your sales manager to see the variance in performance for each of these metrics and where coaching is needed.

The numbers now combined with “behaviors”, as well as written notes captured daily on the sales floor, begin to show patterns, problems and opportunities that can be discussed in one-to-one meetings. These meetings should be held at least weekly to ensure that each salesperson is on track to reach monthly sales goals.

To be an effective coach in building eagle-type skills, observation needs to be combined with daily coaching huddles (social distance-friendly of course) that are tailored to each salesperson. That said, a simple framework includes checking on the three key elements of any effective sales process which are greeting, qualifying and closing. Consistently ask simple questions like “who were you talking to?“, “what room, space or project were they working on?” and if the process did not result in a sale, “what is their contact information?”.  Doing this consistently begins to instill a sales culture with more accountability for short and longer-term results and achievement of their sales goals.

Practice

Besides his obvious natural gifts, there is at least one key reason Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympic athlete in history, having acquired 28 medals, most of them gold. According to the U.S. men’s swimming coach Bob Bowman, to prepare for the 2004 Olympic games Michael trained 365 days a year for six years.

Wow! That’s true commitment! Funny how the threat of the Covid boost fading tends to generate increased commitment to doing ordinary things in a more extraordinary way. Now would be a great time to help your sales manager leverage it with your sales team.

We believe that to get gold, silver or at least bronze medal results (the eagle team…yay!), past the Covid sales bump, the daily habit of practicing sales skills is a key factor in skilling up more of your lower level performing salespeople (the pelican team…boo!).

Rarely, if ever, do we encounter clients in our initial engagements that have already instilled a sales culture of practice. Of actually having the discipline to get in the pool every single day and doing laps, namely role plays, and giving feedback to each other. Doing it every day, every day, every day! Of course on Saturdays we rock and roll, Sundays are an alleged day of rest, but Monday through Friday practicing selling skills at least 10 minutes a day would soon begin to generate more productive and profitable sales, not just for the short run, but especially with more lifetime clients.

Again, remember, we are all in the same storm but not in the same boat.

Continuing to move your business forward, post this Covid boost, comes down to tailoring and customizing improved approaches within the framework of systems and processes. Your employees need to be able to rely on the foundation of good policy and procedures but given room for their personality and critical thinking.

Over several decades now PCG has helped many boats to navigate more safely and smoothly through many stormy seas, now including Hurricane Covid, to much safer harbors. We engage our clients with analysis and tools combined with implementation to help instill high leverage habits that serve well for the short and long run. These habits when consistently implemented bring significantly increased productivity and profitability.

As you review your current strategies, systems and processes, to set sail towards a brighter future, we would love to be a sounding board for your “Plan B”.

Invite us to set sail with you! Reach out to us for immediate assistance with your business via phone at 404-432-2137 or via email.