Successful SalesBasic Management

Informus Inc.

www.informus.ca

sales@informus.ca

Successful sales management is easy

if you know where you are going and how to get there.

To know where you are going

you have to know where you have been.

The first step: In sales managementAnalyze your existing clientele.

(This can be done by yourself or by a consulting company like Informus Inc.)

(1) Who are your most profitable clients?(a)Determine what makes them so profitable.

(2) What clients have you lost money on?(a) Determine why you are losing money selling to these customers.

(3) Classify every single client by what they do e.g. their line-of-business(a) Standard Industrial Classification Number.

(4) Classify every single client by as many size factors as you can identify e.g.:(a) Annual Sales Volume

(b) Number of Employees(c) Number of locations (head office, branches, subsidiaries, etc.

Sales Management is a process of constant evolution.

You want to attract and grow customers who will generate the most profit.

You want to avoid and divest yourself of customers who are unprofitable.

Sales Management is a matter of managing priorities.First Priority:

Keep and get repeat business from your existing profitabl clients.

Count on losing 20% of your customers annually.

Scond Priority: Replace what you lose and grow your business,

Find prospective clients who match the profile of your profitable clients.

Consultants like Informus Inc can help you identify numerous data source suppliers that allow you to identify prospective clients by: (i) Standard Industrial Classification Number (ii) Numerous size

factors (iii) Geographic Area, etc.

PROTECTING YOUR EXISTING CUSTOMER BASE IS CRITICAL

(1) Most companies do 80% of their business with 20% of their clients.

(2) If you reduce your loss of customers by 5% you can increase your profitability by at least 25%

(3) 70% of customers will do business with you againif you quickly resolve their complaints.

(4)The probability of selling to an existing customer is 65% if falls to only 10% for a new prospect.

(5) Spending by repeat customers is 100% higher on average than new customers

The Secret of Successful Sales ManagementHave 2 sales forces.

(a)One team that services your most important asset, your existing clientele.

(b)A second team that does nothing but sell new prospects.

(1) Start all new sales representatives in new business sales to confirm they can sell. You do not want undeveloped sales representatives put in a position where they can hurt your established revenue flow.

(2) Sales representatives responsible for selling both new business and maintaining an existing book of business always have a constant time conflict and an excuse for poor performance (If new sales objectives are not met it is because they have to service existing clientele. If repeat customer sales decline it is because they are chasing new business)

(3) Some sales reps love the pursuit and closing of a new sale but have no interest or ability in keeping that customer happy for years to come. Other sales reps hate the rejection in new contract sales and love to establish a rapport with an existing client. Only about 10% of sales reps can do both service and new sales well.

TERRITORY MANAGEMENT

(1) Sales representatives are competitive. If possible you want every sales representative to believe that their sales territory is equal to that of every other sales representative. This requires time and effort on the sales manager to achieve such a balance. Fairness and equality must be perceived in order to achieve maximum motivation.

(2) Geographic territories work best. There are fewer problems in determining who is responsible for a new client, an existing client or a prospective client.

(3) A sales manager should budget at least two hours of his undivided attention to each sales representative every week. This limits the ideal number of sales representatives reporting to a sales manager to no more than 10.

TIME MANAGEMENT EXPECTATIONS

Analyze what your most successful sales representatives are doing and use their time management profile to set the activity measure for all other sales representatives.

Then, closely measure the time management of all sales representatives in order to adjust their activities to match or exceed the most successful reps.

The day-in-day measurements include:(a)How many face-to-face meetings with clients or prospects(b)How many phone calls and e-mails(c)How frequently are these contacts being made(d)What products are presented or not presented(e)What are their close ratios(f) What time do they start and finish each day

SALES CONTROL SYSTEMS

There are numerous computer systems that can be put in place to measuresales rep activity. Informus Inc. can help choose the one that will best meet your needs and your budget.

One that could be integrated with your accounting system would be ideal: lost clients can then be immediately transferred into the appropriate prospect sales territory; frequencies and types of product sales can be continuously reviewed by both the sales representatives and the sales managers.

CONSTANT COMMUNICATION

Sales Results and time management comparisons need to be constantly shared with your entire sales force. Each rep needs to know how they are doing compared to every other.

Pride, fear of failure, peer recognition and the need for security will motivate them far more than any monetary reward system.

A salaried sales force will outperform a commission sales forceif the salary has a logic an fairness to it.

Too often, sales managers of commission sales forces feel that their sales representative are supposed to manage themselves. Rather than maximizing a good sales representative’s efforts, they let them “run their own business” and perform in their comfort zone. You need every sales representative performing at maximum effort if you want to achieve remarkable results. A poorly performing commission sales rep is just as much a block to achieving results as a poorly performing salaried sales reps.

LISTENING TO SALES REPRESENTATIVES

Good sales manager are aware of what hundreds of customers are saying about the corporation’s products and services because they listen closely to the daily complaints and problems sales representatives face each day.

It is the sales managers responsibility to cause changes to be made in the corporation by bringing the need for changes to the attention of executives in operations, credit, accounting, systems and marketing. They are often too isolated from the customer.

Sales representatives who see productive changes being made in a corporation become motivated. This results in increased sales.

For More Information Tel. 416-245-7087sales@informus.ca

INFORMUS INCIan D. MacDonaldSenior Consultant

www.informus.ca