RETHINKING SALES MANAGEMENT FOR THE 21st CENTURY

RETHINKING SALES MANAGEMENT FOR THE 21st CENTURY

The 8-Step Process of  In-Sync Sales Management

Develop the over riding purpose and vision

• Set the vision and direction – Create a vision to help direct the sales campaign change effort

Making the Connection

1.  Pull Together the Intelligence and Sales Coalition Team.
   Make sure there is a powerful group guiding the sales campaign —one with information, insight and influence skills, bias for action, credibility, communications ability, technical competence, problem solving /opportunity finding and networking skills.
2. Create a Sense of Collaboration and Importance of Team.
   Help team see the need for cross functional knowledge and the importance of campaign.

Decide What to do– Creating The Coalition Building Plan

3 . Develop the Sales Campaign Vision, Strategy and Goals
Clarify how the future will be different from the past, and how you can make that future a reality. Explore and develop an in-sync plan that focuses on client needs and imperatives, your position with the client and competition, present key and new relations needed to win, opportunities for differentiation and solutions that are measurable and results based. Get commitment to the idea of working together to share information and resources and work closely together to execute plan.

MAKE IT HAPPEN

4. Communicate for Understanding and Empathy and Buy-in.
Include cross-functional areas and senior C’s as possible resources for executing the client service and sales vision and the strategy.

5. Empower People to be Involved and Act.
Remove as many barriers as possible so that those who can contribute have the authority to actively pursue the vision, strategy and goals a reality.

6.Produce Solutions that Differentiate offerings and can be measured with tangible metrics.
Create results that are visible and produce unambiguous successes such as ROI, cost reductions and new revenue for the client organization.

7. Mobilization– Don’t Let Up and keep the team rolling
Press harder and faster after the first successes. Be relentless with instituting change after change until the vision, strategy and goals become a reality.

MAKE IT STICK THROUGH KEEPING PROMISES AND EXCEEDING CLIENT EXPECTATIONS

8. Create a Sales Culture based on new roles, goals and methods for winning client’s loyalty.
Hold on to the new ways of communicating and collaborating within and external to the sales organization. Make sure the new behaviors are reinforced, rewarded and continuously improved  until they become a part of the very culture of the company.

Change is a matter of central concern to sales managers. In their book, Project Manager’s Portable Handbook, David I. Cleland and Lewis R. Ireland state, “Projects are the principal means by which the organization deals with change.” While projects may be the mechanism for change, the actual how-to steps of implementing change are often a frustrating, unsolved mystery.