One of the biggest threats a sales manager faces is the prospect of missing their sales targets — it’s demotivating for the team morale and not ideal for the company’s profitability. Should it happen occasionally, try not to be too hard on yourself as 67% of all salespeople miss their quota according to a report from The TAS Group.
However, if you find this happening regularly, it’s time to consider how you can start setting smarter goals. Instead of worrying about the sales result — something you can’t directly control — it’s more productive to focus on the changes you can make to warrant better results. That means how you manage your sales team will be a large qualifier in you reaching your sales targets. Following are some essential steps you can take to ensure this.
Don’t underestimate the importance of admin
In the fast-paced world of sales, it’s important to consider making time for less active tasks like admin, which will ultimately support and benefit the team. Important errands such as vetting prospects, answering e-mails and forecasting sales are all essential to the smooth running of the team and maintaining client relations. By staying on track with your admin work and training your team to do so, this will lead to an overall more efficient sales process.
Setting specific time for admin and sales tasks respectively can save you on lost efficiency spent multi-tasking which is proven to impair your cognitive control. Fortunately, there are many free tools that can help streamline administrative tasks so salespeople can stay focused on reaching their goals.
Give your team the right efficient, time-saving tools
Consider whether your team have the right tools needed to get ahead in their role. Utilising tools that automate certain tasks can free up your salespeople’s time which they can spend hitting their sales targets. There are a variety of digital tools that a salesperson can utilise to do this — consider CRM which will engage with prospects, monitor sales and organise contact information for you and automated mailing lists. It’s been proven that companies whose decision making is data-driven are more productive and up to 6% more profitable than those that don’t rely on data. Your team’s equipment is not restricted to digital tools as active salespeople need gear to help them with their job such as cars and smartphones.
Train your team
Your company is only as good as your employees are so it’s crucial to regularly train your team to the highest standard and offer sales best practise tips. In addition, training keeps your team engaged, which does wonders for their productivity. How much will your company spend on sales technologies and sales training for the next year?
Depending on the size of the team and the individual, you should experiment with which types of training work for each member in order to optimise engagement, education and result. You can do this internally or externally through open courses, in-person workshops, outside consultants and conferences.
Track each member’s performance to find and eliminate any weaknesses by offering them training and support in that element.
Track performance
Do you know how well your sales are doing? Does your revenue increase monthly? Who is your best-performing sales team member? You should make sure you know the answer to these questions at any given time. Monitoring your sales teams’ work including their contact numbers and follow-ups to see if they’re aligned with their goals is a great way of motivating them to keep achieving. In a similar way, monitoring your revenue regularly will warn you if you are behind schedule before the deadline.
To find where you may be failing on your quotas, take measurements of which sales practices aren’t working and innovate them to increase efficiency. But this can only be done after assessing how your team, and their sales strategies, are working.
Following essential metrics such as the number of new opportunities, the value of these opportunities, deal size, sales cycle length and win rates can be beneficial for increasing sales.
Hire right with BMS Performance
At BMS Performance, we provide a recruitment service which focuses entirely on the specific needs of our clients and can help you achieve your ultimate goal of hitting your sales targets. With 15 specialist divisions concentrated on the talent in your field, we offer guidance on the current skills and experience available on the market. Contact us to see how we can help you today.
