Conducting sales meetings and sales reviews
Most sales teams have regular meetings to review performance, and maybe also to look at potential sales in “funnel “. They will produce a report that will form the basis of the meeting.
We have already covered this on the website, and considered the importance of accurate and timely reports, that will highlight which products are performing well or badly. The team should discuss why this is the case. The report will also show which personnel are performing well and who is not doing so well. It should flag up any problem that should be dealt with.
The report enables the manager to monitor and improve performance, identify emerging trends, and take appropriate action.
Reread the module about writing a sales report here.
It is important to set and review sales targets very regularly. Sales peoples will be motivated to reach their targets after these meetings, especially if you make the meeting motivational in nature.
The sales manager should be on top of every part of the process, monitoring the individual team members against the average. This will help to anticipate problems, keep the team on track and deliver the results needed.
Reviewing every aspect of the team’s activity will enable the manager to flag up the lowest performers, and at least alert them to the fact that they are performing poorly. It creates an opportunity to offer mentoring and coaching to them, and point them in the right direction. And if things do not improve there is the opportunity to terminate their contract before too much damage is done.
The highest performers will usually be pleased to be acknowledged and encouraged to continue and improve on their performance. The team leader and manager needs to find ways to motivate and reward them publicly.
It is important not to allow some team members to underperform, it will undermine morale for the rest of the team. The manager must take action if someone is underperforming, or it sends the message that this is acceptable.
Individual performance management meetings may be held more regularly than for other staff, which is probably annually. Sales teams will benefit from quarterly meetings.
Sales forecasting
This is a very important activity, and again we have already discussed this on the website, albeit in another context, that of producing reports. I recommend you revisit this now.