Sales Strategy and Management

Sales Strategy and Management:

No matter what … everything comes back to sales. Leadership development is great. Culture shaping is critical … but without sales, these and other organization development activities are academic. However, what is interesting to this culture geek is sales strategy and management are simply sub-areas of the overall aim of an organization.

To successfully manage the sales process in a big picture sense requires planning, predicting and/or delivering in the following major areas. Leaving out any of the four areas below will mean lost revenue to the company.

• Discover Customer Demand – The organization must have an idea of the market. It is important to study, digest and make assumptions about the target niche. Who will buy? How much? How often? Where and what are the unmet needs, wants and expectations? How can we exceed these requirements to stand out from the crowd? Without this step, sales efforts will be unfocused and ineffective.
• Build Sales Capacity – After predicting the demand, an enterprise must decide how much of the market it wants to “handle.” What is the short, medium and long-term sales vision of the company? How does this fit with the overall aim of the organization? (If it doesn’t fit, one or the other or both must be adjusted.) Where will we find sales representatives with our values? How will we develop them for increasing success? Without this step, customers will not know about your company or will look elsewhere when the sales staff does not engage in a timely way.
• Create Company Capability – Now that demand and sales capacity are known, plan for and configure the company to meet the need. Some might argue for this step to be second but the needs-based company will make this the third step. Customers are why business exists. Define who the customers are, how you intend to build relationships with them and then deliver on promises. Without this step, meeting customer demand will likely remain elusive or of mediocre quality.
• Measure – This is the follow-up or accountability piece. Be sure what is measured is relevant and keep the metrics to the absolute minimum. Most of us have probably seen places where measurement became the master instead of the slave. Have a process in place to periodically review ALL the metrics and reconsider each one. Cut regularly. Without this step, an organization will not know where to increase efficiencies for better sales results.

Now let’s drill down a bit more into the nuts-and-bolts of sales capacity and management. Management by its very nature means to find the most efficient way to deliver on an existing mindset. This is working inside the box. There is nothing wrong with working inside the box as long as it is intentional and is in a broader leadership context (reviewing the box constantly). With this in mind, to excel at managing sales operations requires successful mapping and alignment of sales territories as well as balancing workload effectively.

Mapping and Alignment of Sales Territories

Many companies choose to create sales territories. If your organization uses this model, balanced territories help with sales quota planning. Remember the need to know customer demand above? This is a key part in defining and segmenting sales territories. Of course, sales territories will not stay static so the balancing effort should be ongoing to make sure the company is putting its best sales foot forward.

After understanding the ideal customer profile, it’s time for building prospecting lists for the sales representatives. This can be an exciting step for the sales-minded as it makes the sales concept become more real! There is nothing like translating strategy into a tactic.

Balancing Workload

However, with the prospect data comes a dilemma. What are the proper sales quotas and how should the organization best spread the workload reasonably among the sale staff? Most everyone likes to be challenged but no worked too slavishly. Balance workload is the key so all feel as though they are part of the solution but also part of a team. Let’s step back to check the progression.

Company Aim –> Strategy –> Customer Demand –> Build Sales Capacity –>

Map the Sales Territory & Translate to Sales Quotas

One service option for succeeding in sales management is to use a smart technology firm like Geographic Enterprises as they can help with sales territory mapping. Most of all in thinking about sales management, please remember to manage the process but not the people. Lead them … but that’s a topic for another time.