Making The Best Use Of Your Sales Staff

Making the Best Use of Your Sales Staff A Guide for Businesses Walsh Enterprises Business Advisors Huntington Beach, Ca Al Walsh CEO Business consultant

Making the Best Use of Your Sales Staff
Businesses are fragile things that can easily be disrupted by outside forces.
You need to ensure that every resource is being brought to bear to protect and nurture your business.
Your inside and outside sales forces are a key resource, and you need to ensure that you are utilizing them to the fullest extent.

Your sales force is the front-line of your business. They’re out every day mingling with your customers and your competitors’ sales reps (Don’t be naïve and think they don’t!). Even your inside sales people are interacting regularly. They should be sensitive to what’s going on, and keeping you apprised of:
Changing customer needs
Customers that moved without warning
Customers becoming possible credit risks
Changes in competitor tactics
Economic changes that are impacting sales
You sales force should be contributing to more than mere sales – including the dreaded collections effort. All salespeople hate collections because it runs against their innate need to please the customer. However, a well-timed physical visit to a past-due account can do wonders. Credit needs to keep sales informed of trouble-accounts, and sales needs to contribute. It’s a dual-effort that can work well when properly implemented.
The easiest way to motivate sales is to pay their commissions based upon COLLECTED sales.
Educate your sales force. They need to understand that an uncollected sale is very expensive charity. Not only do you lose the profit, but also the cost of the goods, and any value-adding activities you performed on them, and handling & transportation costs; plus interest if you’re borrowing. It doesn’t take many of those to put a company into serious financial trouble.

Is your sales force giving you the most “cluck for the buck?
Are they prospecting for new business, and looking for new opportunities? – or are they mere order-takers?
Many sales reps get lethargic if left unsupervised too long – especially when they hit their “comfort level”.
Do your sales reps put in a full day, or do they start late and creep away early?
Do they explore new opportunities with existing customers, or just fill the monthly “quota”?
A good sales force should be like starving hawks – active, edgy, aware, and hungry.
Have your sales reps become couch potatoes?
Like most businesses, you probably spend a lot on marketing. Then you go to great trouble getting your products or services to market. You’ve got overhead constantly haunting the bottom-line. Don’t let your sales reps fall asleep. They’re your front-line soldiers. They’re your eyes and ears. Use them!

Making The Best Use Of Your Sales Staff

by Alan Walsh on Apr 23, 2009

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