HR’s CRITICAL ROLE IN IMPROVING 2008 SALES

Most of the current focus of your sales management team is understandably on bringing in as much sales as possible for the remainder of the calendar year. Q4 results can often mean the difference between celebration and frustration. Nearly all of the management activities which will take place during the next three months are tactical in nature. How to finally close this important account, getting the last bit of sales out of an existing customer or increasing the number of client sales visits are paramount in the minds of your sales management team.

Yet the last three months of this year are critical to the success your company will have for 2008. The strategic/structural improvements you do or do not make know will have a tremendous effect on the company’s sales success for 2008. Obviously, you need to start making these changes now because structural improvements take longer to implement than tactical ones. If you wait until January to begin thinking about what changes need to be made, than your Q1 results will be over before you have made any meaningful changes.

So you are faced with the proverbial problem of how to overhaul the engine when the car is going full throttle in the race! Yet this is precisely what you must do. There are a number of positive, constructive improvements you can begin to make that will have a tremendous impact on next year’s sales performance. Knowing which to implement can be the uncertain and confusing part. It is certain that you can not do everything, given the restraints of time, energy and money.

The most effective way of knowing which direction to pursue is to identify the behaviors of those people who are already successfully doing them and then promote their actions. This is true for just about anything. If you what to learn how to improve your golf game, then you are likely to buy videos of golf pro’s and then try to duplicate their behavior.

The same thing applies to making structural changes to your sales force, only better. It is better because you have an opportunity of assessing what the top, say 20%, sales reps are doing to be successful in your world, in your environment, with your products and against your competition. Instead of comparing yourself to some generic criteria which may or may not apply, you can get a more accurate understanding of what is effective in the environment that pertains to you.

There are four major behavioral areas that you want to assess your top sales reps in, then base any changes on:

1. SALES PREPARATION. Thinking about and planning a sales approach requires some degree of strategy and analysis. Sales professionals have a finite amount of time and energy to expend; therefore, they must structure and organize their efforts effectively. Channeling energy into generating leads and finding prospects is a critical factor for achieving success for many sales professionals. Prospecting may also require some ingenuity and risk taking in order to find new ways to go after markets and potential customers.
2. CONTACTING. Once prepared with product, market and customer knowledge, it is then necessary to make contact and begin the process of producing results. All competitive sales efforts rely on building excitement about the value of the product or service and its potential for meeting the needs of the customer. This implies having good business instincts, providing sufficient information and presenting a solution in a convincing manner. How much emotion, persuasion and information are used may vary depending on the sales situation, but the success of the sale is greatly influenced by the quality of the sales person’s behaviors at the point of customer contact.
3. IMPLEMENTATION. Implementing a sales solution may require a quick transaction or a more lengthy engagement. In most cases, sales achievements and customer solutions occur as a result of both individual and shared efforts. Whether short term or long term, relationships develop between salespeople and customers as well as between salespeople and other members of the sales team. This team may be internal or external to the salesperson’s organization. This type of effort requires great empathy to understand the needs, preferences and priorities of both customers and those groups whose help is needed to land the sale.
4. DRIVERS. Salespeople who set high standards and are willing to push themselves to meet these expectations often find that sheer hard work will take them a long way toward achieving success. But the rewards for this hard effort must be there or this important behavior will not be sustained. These rewards come in many forms, from pride in being a sales professional, to delight in making lots of money, to great satisfaction from closing a particularly difficult account. What each sales rep considers as a commensurate reward is shaped by the pattern of his or her underlying motivations. The strongest motivations are likely to be especially significant and meaningful to each sales rep, and may well act as a strong driving force to sustain the required work effort needed to be a long term success.

With the proper tools, assessing these four critical behavioral groups can be done easily, electronically and inexpensively. You then can compare the results of your top sales performers with those of others sales rep groupings; i.e. bottom 20%, geographic areas, divisions, females, minorities, etc. Now armed with this powerful data, you can identify and implement long lasting programs that will truly be effective in improving sales for 2008 and beyond.

These results and subsequent individual assessments can also effectively be used in new hire, potential transfers and promotional decisions.

Please contact Joseph Kran at (800)376-8176 so we can discuss in greater detail how this assessment process and our sales development capabilities can help you implement the needed structural solutions to achieve your 2008 sales goals!

Staff Review by: Joseph (Joe) Kran, Lawrence (Larry) Maglin, Walter Sonyi, Jr. and Rick Spann