Becoming an effective sales manager: Joe's success story (continued)

Today I am continuing the success story of sales manager Joe and some of the challenges that he was faced with.

Joe was an extremely likable person. He had an ability to engage people in what he was doing, making everyone root for his success. The five sales people that he inherited and made up his team liked Joe. But at the same time they were able to take advantage of him. Here is how the story unfolded.

Having a good base salary, we quickly discovered that they were not overly motivated to put an effort into gaining  greater sales performance. When Joe and I began to read over the past weekly sales reports, it was rather evident that 85% of their time they were calling on existing clients, instead of reaching out to new prospective clients. We referred to that method as farming versus hunting.

When I saw the situation at hand, I realized that Joe, as a team leader, needed a helping hand in developing a game plan to generate new business as well as holding sales people accountable for their activity and behavior.  

We started small. First of all we had to identify areas and, more importantly, particular companies that had a potential to become new clients for Joe’s business.

When I first came to the company, each of sales people was making 1-2 new prospect calls a week. When Joe and I put together a new game plan and started to implement it, sales people were responsible for contacting 5-6 new prospects a week. Within the first month the sales team was able to extend their new prospect contacts to over a hundred people. Within 60-90 days new business was coming through the door and almost doubled.  

However, this new strategy of acquiring new clients was not the only pulse point that moved the company forward. Joe and I had also developed a new compensation plan for his sales team. We were both well aware of the fact that change in employees’ compensation can create problems within the sales team. However, we managed to do it in such a fashion that created a win-win situation for everyone involved.

Within a short period of time we had developed a sales team that was holding themselves accountable. They began benefiting from the result-oriented system, creating a productive and positive environment.