B2B sales management is considered to be one of the most important elements of any sales process and an essential driver of team success. Therefore, the role of a sales manager in organizing an efficient and effective workload is definitely undeniable. However, managing the work of sales representatives is quite different from managing other employees.
Sales managers, especially if they are new to this position, may encounter many challenges: recruiting the right people, training and coaching, setting right goals, monitoring activity of each sales rep, etc. Hence, if you want to know how to ensure a high volume of sales reps’ activity in B2B phone sales and, at the same time, make sure that the work is performed well, try using next strategies:
• Recruiting. When it comes to the recruitment of staff, a good sales manager constantly analyzes open positions inside the company and looks for potential new members of the team in advance. Thus, when it comes to replacing a sales rep or growing the team, they have already several suitable candidates.
• Coaching. This is undeniably the essential part of any sales manager role. For maximizing the performance of their team, a sales manager should:
- figure out where the weak points of sales reps are by listening and analyzing their call records;
- teach and develop new skills and approaches to sales;
- role-play common scenarios for reps to be ready for any situation;
- improve their scripts;
- work on their mistakes;
- discuss the ways of revenue improvement.
Constant training and improvement of sales reps skills will not only help them to learn how to succeed and efficiently organize work but also boost their productivity.
• Meeting. As sales are tightly connected with other aspects of business, a sales manager should arrange and take part in meetings with other departments like Marketing, Customer support, etc. to make sure that they are all on the same page and perform well-coordinated work.
• Prioritizing. Being extremely busy, it’s easy to lose control over the time and not to be able to cope with the most crucial or time-sensitive tasks. Therefore, to ensure that you follow through, start your day by organizing your to-do list and marking the most urgent tasks. The less time sales managers spend on low-value tasks, the more time they can put toward coaching a sales team. Besides, you must also set the priorities of the tasks for your team in order to effectively organize their workflow.
• Strategizing. Good sales managers constantly improve their knowledge about all the changes in the marketplace. Hence, they are aware of the latest trends in sales strategies and can identify as well as implement best practices for their team. Furthermore, they need to be involved in the process of choosing effective tools for their sales representatives that will simplify the entire sale process and maximize agents’ revenue productivity on each lead.
• Monitoring. Monitoring performance of sales reps at each stage of the sales process is of major importance. Check in daily basis individual rep’s performance as well as performance of the team in general. Thanks to this you will help each sales representative to understand difficult cases they face and to learn how to reach top results.
• Motivating. It is crucial for sales managers to create motivational environment as an enthusiastic sales rep is undoubtedly more efficient, productive and effective. Therefore, creating healthy competition using bonuses system to reward successfully accomplished plans can all boost sales productivity.
To sum up, being a sales manager, especially for B2B selling, is not an easy task that can be quite frustrating and stressful. However, with the right strategies and effective time management, you can not only boost performance of your sales team and make the sales process more efficient but, as a result, maximize (financial) success and long-term growth of your company.