In companies who call me in to address poor sales performance, I consistently find many sales managers relying on CRM, email and telephone to manage their sales teams. Selling is a people skill so why manage salespeople remotely? It makes no sense. Despite the many technological developments available to managers, I can think of no more effective way to manage salespeople than being out there with them regularly in the field. In this way you can see for yourself how they work, how they prospect, how they handle sales calls. If you rely on CRM data, how do you differentiate between a salesperson who has a high ratio between the number of calls to order unless you have observed them in the field? It could be because they are not prospecting efficiently, or because they are not targeting prospects with budget responsibility, or because they are not undertaking effective discovery and so building a base for generating need. Or in fact that they simply are not good at closing the sale. The CRM will not tell you the answers. You can only get these by direct observation!
New Year Resolution. Get away from your desk and spend time in the field with your salespeople.
#salesmanagement #CRM #sales #work #data #email
