Sales: As a sales manager what can you do to make your sales people more productive?

One of the best incentives for production would be some sort of leaderboard or competition. This would play right into the hands of the competitive nature of most sales professionals but it also openly tracks and measures effectiveness. One key aspect of doing these competitions is to make them a short length of time, when you have quarterly competitions it can become a drag and most people tend to forget about it (however it's vital to test and measure what works and what doesn't). Incentives should also be different for each individual - one person may like cash incentives and others may prefer progressive training instead. This is where a lot of managers fail, offering one "generic" prize for the whole team. A very popular (controversial too) idea right now is to offer more freedom to your team as a reward/incentive. Thing's like: Remote work location No set hours, come and go as you please Unlimited holiday's All of the above a massive incentives especially when the company may be short on cash for incentive expenditure. These same examples have been widley popularised by the Silicon Valley startups however more and more companies are beginning to adopt or at least create variations of their own. Personally I don't feel that cash has as much of an incentive these days as it once used too, ultimately it's down to the sales managers knowledge and experience with the team to determine what will work effectively and what won't.

Help them prioritise, salespeople are (usually) strong individuals. They might not admit they need help, but you have to keep tabs on your team to make sure their priorities are in check. Also, help them create task checklists according to what is most important for you. It'll help you remove any "grey areas" - where you order a task, it's not done for weeks and no-one can tell you what happened. Organise weekly Sales meetings and include reps in other meetings,make sure salespeople know about changes in your product/service, about what your marketing messaging is, etc. etc. The more they know, the more answers they will have for potential customers. Set up a content library,to provide additional educational resources to help your team members improve.   http://righthello.com/manage-sales-development-team/). Optimise the sales cycle, if your team is stalling and closing deals isn't going smoothly - consider that unnecessary tasks might be cluttering their workflow Optimisation process Map every action you do over the course of the whole cycle (especially little stuff like CRM data entry). Whiteboards are your best friend here. Get rid of pointless activities. Let go of as many as you can, leave the critical ones. If you want to manage 1000 leads per year, saving 10 minutes per lead gives you an extra work week. Free vacation doesn’t grow on trees. Pick repeatable actions and automate them. Set up a lead qualification process. First calls should be all about getting a „No”, ”Yes” or „Not now” as quick as you can. Think of it like this – don’t focus on getting a „Yes”, but on getting the „No’s” out of the way fast. (http://righthello.com/my-framework-for-handling-rejection/) Right now a classic BANT approach with a little twist works for me: Budget – do they have enough money to buy? Authority – can he/she make a decision on their own? Need – do they have a need that you can satisfy? Timescale – are they waiting for the right time to make their purchase? Twist – are they like my successful clients? These questions should be answered before the first meeting is over. A few tiny tips for better performance: Once you set a process up, make it run smoothly: Turn on mobile e-mail notifications – just to be able to respond in a matter of minutes, regardless of when they write you. It matters because they're still thinking about the email, your offer, the deal - but not for long. Show your Skype ID in your e-mail footer Use Calendly to easily set-up meetings and save time Implement an easier, faster and cheaper payment system Speed up the deal-signing process http://righthello.com/6-steps-to-increase-sales-by-71/

Best results for developing an effective sales culture, sales team, salespeople and sales management are built on a strong foundation of fundamentals. A foundation that is constantly reinforced.    The best lessons typically fade caused by drift. Many recognize the virtue of a great coaching advice but the nature of customer and company priorities causes focus to shift on specific priorities of the day, week or month. The challenge is how to stay focused on the task at hand and preserve respect for best professional disciplines.   The best sales books, which served to both, introduce best sales education and maintain education in practice for those candidates with the best sales aptitude traits are:   1.    Dale Carnegie’s, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I’ve kept this book on my desk throughout my 45-year career, re-reading one chapter as the first thing I do every morning. Mindful that no matter the success I may have enjoyed it serves to remind me of the value of simple jesters of respect that help build and nurture relationships.   Maintaining a “let’s always take the high” sales ethic requires weekly sales meeting built on topics that remind and reinforce essential qualities of behavior. This book provides substantive material which unless reinforced will otherwise evaporate. 2.    Steven Covey’s, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I also keep this book on my desk. Not necessarily an easy read but an absolutely brilliant book. I assigned one chapter (referred to as Part in his book) each week and required the salespeople to sell the audience the virtue addressed in the assigned part. They were encouraged to be animated and prepare a presentation rich with visual aids. The format was a contest with a nice prize for the winner. The sales team voted on the best presentation.   Covey recommends that the best way to learn the virtue of a paradigm shift and employ the principles in the book is to teach that principle. Team were encouraged to personalize each part —What this part means to me. The result turned on lights and expanded awareness.   3.    Earl Nightingale’s, Lead the Field. I prefer this book in an audio format as Mr.Nightingale has a warm deep charismatic voice. My favorite chapter is “The Magic Word” which holds a powerful message. 4.    Wonderlik. Wonderlik Education Solutions is a company that provides aptitude test and guidance. The benefit of Wonderlik is both screening candidates and management guidance on how best to develop a particular candidate. No two salespeople are the same. Development training requires an awareness of how best to support each salesperson on a team. I’ve kept the Wonderlik file on my personal first aptitude test in my desk and review that file several times a year to remind me of those traits I need to remind myself I need to support.   5.    Michael Hannon’s, 7 Simple Habits of Extraordinary Salespeople.In the spirit of practicing what I preach 7 Simple Habits of Extraordinary Salespeople is a embraces the science of process selling that stand the test of time and are employed by every extraordinary salesperson (no matter the industry) I’ve had the honor of knowing. Habits I’ve employed to train and manage extraordinary salespeople. Habits every great sales educator I know employs.

Purchasing processes start online nowadays, salespeople are invited at the end of the process. If you teach them share to share their knowledge and personality online, they move back to the beginning of the buying process: when people search at Google. So teach them how to blog: