Do you run your sales team, or do they run you?

This week, I had a very interesting conversation with a friend of mine, Mr T, who runs a local business.

He was complaining about his sales team – they are not going out to get the business. At best, they were taking phone calls and closing the deal. Sometimes they took calls, and lost the deal, sometimes they took calls, and then went into a seemingly endless sales cycle, with promises of a sale next month. Somehow, next month never materialised.

As a result – his business has stagnated. It has remained at a £2m turnover business, in real terms, this is going backwards.

Where are the sales coming from? Well, it was mostly from his most experienced consultants, three people who not only delivered consultancy, but also spent time winning new work, just to keep themselves employed.

As a manager, he felt responsible, and that it was his fault they were not performing. He felt that he should be supplying them with leads, and giving them a list of his contacts to follow up.

How do you overcome this? Ask yourself these questions:

1. Do I have the right sales people in place – what are their strengths? Just because they came over well in an interview – does it mean they are suited to the role? People work best when they are using their strengths. To sell requires certain strengths – and these vary depending on whether the role is to look for new business, or managing an existing account.
2. Does the sales person have the right skills and approach? Do they own and use a sales process, or do they just follow the direction the prospect takes them?
3. Do they know what it means to actively prospect and look for new leads? What percentage of their time is spent looking for leads, i.e. making calls, asking for referrals, networking, giving talks to industry, building a referral network and so on.
4. Are the right processes in place to support them? Sales is a behaviours game, it takes many contacts and conversations before a suspect is converted into a sale. Most salespeople do not have that behaviour.
5. Are they managed and motivated in the best way?

A good salesperson is difficult to find. There are a lot of highly average sales people out there. It is not unusual to find that 80% of a company sales is achieved by less than 20% of the sales team.