Your Sales Management World Has Changed, Get On Board Now or Risk Getting Thrown Off.

Patrick Stakenas, President and CEO ForceLogix. www.forceLogix.com

The world of Sales management as we know it has changed. The current economic situation has sales people and sales management doing extraordinary things in these challenging times that are often unnatural. It is time to take control of your selling environment before someone else is asked to.

Companies are looking at their strengths and taking profitability over growth which often means the need less sales people to get the same or better result. They are re-evaluating their priorities and forcing sales management to be accountable and handle more with less; they are putting in structure that when embraced have the highest likelihood to prosper in this difficult economic climate.

Over time, sales people and sales management will become accustomed to this and eventually learn to appreciate and value a more structure selling environment.
What can your company do to ensure it will still be relevant?
Embrace Structure in the Sales Function

This will show your employees that you are in tune with the changing times and are willing to put structure around sales that you already have in your factories, warehouses and other functions of you business. It is essential to get your message out to the company in a clear, concise manner that you get it. .
• Put in a Sales Accountability System
• Hold Sales Management to clear expectations on not only the numbers but on building a quality team.
• Force the issue through using a systematic approach to tracking both lagging and leading indicators.

Reduce Wasted Effort
With the proper system in place your sales managers will not be hunting for data or spending needless hours analyzing team performance. Analysts statistics show that having an Accountability System in place reduces Sales Management administration downtime by over 30%. Sales Management should also focus on where they can add value on those that are coachable. If you have build a strong team, your Sales Managers should not have to be on every big call with the A players.

Consider the Alternative
We in Sales all have a responsibility to shape our future, drive revenue and profit and Sales Management specifically has the extra task of managing morale and coaching while holding sales people accountable.

Status quo never works, the hammer never works for long and the alternative to putting in structure is to do nothing. This will most likely be a bad choice as without a structured process you will not be able to explain who is strong and who is weak and what you are doing about it to better the team.

The trends of the selling marketplace have shifted towards a more structured, accountable, coaching, more responsible-to-the-company environment. If your company genuinely lives and breathes these values it will be in a position to thrive today and in the future.