Sales management training encompasses a wide subject; from recruiting to sales training, to developing and managing a current sales force, to understanding and executing a company’s goals for its sales targets.
Once a framework for sales is set in place and objectives are established, there is one piece of the puzzle that, if attended to properly, can grease all wheels in a sales organization. That piece of the puzzle is prospecting.
- Learning about the power of prospecting should be part of any comprehensive sales management training.
- Prospecting is the process of finding and developing new, qualified and currently interested prospects for what your company sells.
- If you can generate a sufficient supply of new prospects and have them followed up by the right mix of sales staff, you can create a powerful sales operation.
Prospecting Empirically
A company should institute a means of prospecting on an empirical basis. This means prospecting from the “top down” or companywide. This work occurs in addition to any prospecting done directly by sales staff.
- A company should take responsibility for its overall prospecting list.
- As such, it will engage its potential markets on an deliberate basis and not an accidental one (i.e. not just by networking, word of mouth and prior relationships alone).
- A company prospecting list should be centralized and developed both by company outreach as well as outreach from individual sales staff.
- Add company initiated “touches” during the sales cycle (i.e. contacts by phone, mail, permission email, etc.) that will help build buyer relationships with the company.
- Salespeople (like sales managers sometimes) may be given too many responsibilities. Be sure to break each element of prospecting, sales and service into manageable parts.
During sales management training, teach how to put the right personality on the right job. Certain people are more suited to the “touch and go” of prospecting versus the up close and personal elements of relationship building and ongoing service. Learn and teach the basic subtleties involved.
Building a Sales Machine
When elements of selling are separated into components, each employee is able to focus on the job at hand.
- Each person involved gets better at his or her individual role because of experience gained through swinging at the same pitches over and over again.
- This “bucket brigade” synergy across the sales operation will outperform any alternative plan that may otherwise demand each person to run back and forth between the river and the fire.
- Sales management training should include some discussion on how to build this type of sales machine.
- It may not be necessary to entirely shred a company’s current sales structure in order to move in the direction outlined here.
Such a system can be established incrementally – but it all starts with prospecting. Build your prospecting team first and through the dispersion leads and tracking of sales results you can identify how the other elements should fall into place.
