7. Establishing Efficient Work groups

What procedures are involved in establishing efficient work groups? To be efficient, work groups should be no larger than 10 sales professionals and are best managed with six or less. A manager or senior level person should appoint a Team Lead for the work group. It is the manager’s responsibility to set the initial goals of the work group and convey those goals to the Team Lead.

Management Set Goals Example:

The goals of the work group are:

• Grow total new accounts within the work group by 10% over the next twelve months.
• Increase revenue by 20% over the next 12 months.
• Have a meeting twice a month to discuss new product launches and to share ideas. Each person should bring to the meeting his/her top 10 list. The list shall contain the10 most probable accounts to close over the next 30 days. The meeting is geared toward helping each participant close these ten accounts.
• Discuss any issues of concern individuals may have, keeping negativity brief.
• Create a once a week success email: each participant of the work group needs to share a success story each week on a pre-designated day agreed upon by the group.

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4. Maintaining High-Performance

High-performance is a true commitment to excellence. A person demonstrating high performance standards works to accomplish all of his or her individual tasks at the highest level. And in most cases, strives to exceed the quota set by the work group or Team Lead. There are two performance standards we all face: those you set for yourself and those set for you. If you always work to set your standards higher than those set for you, you will achieve high performance. For instance, an internal sales work group decides to hold a meeting monthly to share ideas and learn about new product launches. The Team Lead takes the initiative to increase the standard by creating a weekly email, keeping team members abreast of changes on a weekly basis. By achieving this personal standard the Team Lead exceeds the standards set by management. Thus, he or she can be looked at as performing this task at high performance. To simplify, high-performance is: setting your goals higher than the goals set for you and working to achieve them consistently!

5. Implementing Work groups

Who should implement work groups? Work groups should be implemented by any organization committed to the growth of their intellectual property and aspiring to exceed revenue and profit goals. Sales professionals who desire to get more out of their careers should also push to initiate work groups internally.
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So many times when I discuss the issue of Caring About People with individuals or groups, many people think ‘what a basic fundamental’ and ‘how hard can it be.’ If you are feeling the same way, you couldn’t be more right. It is absolutely a simple process; however, very few people know how to accomplish it with sincerity, integrity and grace in their daily life. Caring About People is not just a business issue it is a life issue. You have to make a serious decision to modify your daily behavior.

The Three Components

Understand that all people are made up of three main components, mind, body, and soul. Whenever a person is lacking in anyone of these areas they inevitably will lack in every area of their life. You have to become a highly sophisticated question asker in your life. People who think they know how to ask questions can always get better and people who think they are good listeners can always improve. The art of questioning is completely reliant on the art of listening.

Observation

The first lesson of Caring About People is based simply on observation.

• Get a notebook to jot down observatory notes. You can utilize a personal computer to keep notes however, you need to be in a position to jot down notes throughout the day when you observe human behavior I am about to describe. (more…)

I sit across from a certain member of the management team in my company. Every day she receives a number of cold calls.

Here’s a summary of one from this morning (and you don’t even need to hear the salesperson to know exactly what’s going on.)
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I’ve come across an interesting new book about Sales Benchmarking. Of course benchmarking has been around for sometime in other disciplines, but is rarely applied in sales. The concept is simple, look at your competitors or peers’ sales operations and use hard data to compare yourself to them.
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Sell better with proper process and method

The sales team isn’t achieving what you want it to. It’s time to get organized and put plans in place to ensure you hit your targets. But where do you start? In the first of a three post series I will take you through the basics of upgrading your sales function. The first step is implementing a sales methodology.

A sales methodology is a set of clearly defined processes and tools designed to help the individual or team emulate the best practice of others. A good sales methodology is built on research and observations of the actions of top salespeople. It should answer three important questions:
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Sales philosophies and actions are at the core of good business itself

When I was at school I liked the idea of being a “businessman”, with high powered meetings, travelling around meeting influential people and striking deals. Aside from setting up your own business or running someone else’s, sales is the profession closest to that school boy’s dream. Ultimately, good sales and good business require many of the same perspectives and actions.

Consider the GetAbstract summary of the book “The Definitive Drucker”. Drucker has often been called “the Father of Modern Management”, but his teachings on how to be successful in business were remarkably similar to how to be successful in sales. Consider the following 7 points that summarise his advice to business leaders:

• Be customer centric – Customers belong at the centre of all business decisions. “The purpose of a business is to create and serve a customer.” Sales people find customers, discover and develop their issues/problems (create the customer) and then design and deliver a solution (serve the customer)
• Be selective - Decide who is your customer, and who is not your customer – Sales people decide on a target market and then carefully qualify each prospect, hand-picking the opportunities to spend time on. (more…)

Tough sales management from sales film Glengarry Glen Ross (bad language warning…)