Sales Manager responsibilities and sales plan

H

Huda

0
I need advice on time management in sales. It's more related to natural planning model. It's clear how to plan weight loss, product delivery or any other measurable project. Sale is difficult to measure. Passing proposal not always moves you to the close. Any action could totally change the whole game plan. My workload as a sales manager is huge as I try to be everywhere :)

Please advice:

1. What responsibilities should I do myself and what should be delegated to my team?
2. How to plan a deal (sales process)?
 
Huda,

your questions touch a world. I'd say in principle you have to manage while the sales men has to sell. One of the definition of manager is infact a person that achieve results through the others.

So if this is the situation could be interesting see its prospective. Did you read Making it all work of David Allen?

Then, to get a deal, you need to go through a process.
For example:

  1. Suspects
  2. Prospects
  3. Call to set an appointment
  4. Approach
  5. Sales Process
  6. Proposal
  7. Close
  8. Implementation /After sales

So you could establish your success rate and understand you close an average of 1 Sales each 20 Approaches you have. In this case you could consequently plan.
In my experience you could plan on a weekly basis to have the best control of the process.

In this case you could plan to approach every weeks four new customers, that could become 1 close every month.

My few cents
 
It's a balance of both

I think that you have to do a little bit of both - you need to sell often enough that you are engaged and knowledgeable of the sales process, changes in trends, employee performance, etc., but you have to spend the majority of your time managing. If your employees cannot sell enough to get you the numbers you need, then you need to seriously consider what your performance management process looks like as their manager - ie are they getting their jobs done.

Being a great manager is at least two part: one the one hand, you have to know, understand, and believe that you are not just another set of hands. On the other hand, you have to know that part of being an effective, trustworthy leader means being close to your team, which may mean that some days you choose to be a set of hands if that is what your team needs. Either way, your team has to be able to accomplish their goals with or without your help. If they can't do this, then it is their performance that needs further evaluation.

There are some articles here that might help you along your way.

Hope this helps!
Scott
 
KISS Method

Sales manager should have two primary responsibilities:
1. Provide extraordinary service to customers
2. Train sales staff

Place those activities at the forefront every day. When deciding on what projects to prioritize those that help you achieve the two above should be at the top of the list.

I'm assuming you are new to this position, if so, why not ask your sales staff to write a position agreement for you.

>> How to plan a deal (sales process)?
Depends on your specific situation. Why not ask some of your customers what works and doesn't work for them?
 
Chip, I agree it's useless to plan beyond 1 step in sales. On the other hand as a sales manager I have no instrument to control how close we are to the end of the deal then. I think it makes sense to have some kind of a document that would give a manager understanding how the deal is moving. And have this document for all the sales (I have 20).
 
questions for answers?

Huda;88509 said:
On the other hand as a sales manager I have no instrument to control how close we are to the end of the deal then. I think it makes sense to have some kind of a document that would give a manager understanding how the deal is moving. And have this document for all the sales (I have 20).
Click to expand...

Looking at your last post - your second question -, I think, up to now, we were not able to help you enough.

For me, this mean may be we didn't understand well the nature of your problem. Or we we were rushing, as it would be possible, in the today world.

Let's try therefore to ask few questions to try to improve our helps to you.

  • Would you like to foresee how close to the deal is each of the 20 sales?
  • Would you like to differentiate the quantities and the qualities of the actions of the 20 sales?
  • Can you see which are the middle actions required to be safe to close your kind of deal?
  • Is there any kind of "quality action" not yet heritage of all the sales?
  • Does it require, eventually, one your re-action to close the deal?
  • How often would you like to measure? Daily? Weekly? Monthly?
  • Actually, how can you predict how close you are to the end of the deal?
  • What have you seen your boss do in these situations?
  • What obstacles might you meet?
  • What else support do you need?

About the first one question, did you ever read the One Minute Manager?
 
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