WHAT WOULD YOU DO...

The Quarter finished three days ago. As the VP & National Sales Manager of your company, you have just sent out an email congratulating your team of five District Sales Managers and the sales reps, for achieving its forecast and booking budget. It feels great to make it again, fifth quarter in a row.

The President and GM of the company has just left your office... his parting words were, "miss plan next quarter and you're fired!".

Your emotions are all crisscrossed... the revenue was on plan, and you had actually done a little better than your booking forecast. You have been with the company for a year and a half, you have never seen this anger from the President. He missed his profit target, is that your problem if you made your key targets. What would you do?

Believe it or not, this often happens in business. Usually it is a result of poorly communicated management targets, from the top down. But is that situation one that absolves the sales manager from the responsibility of making his company successful? Of course not! In effect, it is a little late when the boss threatens to fire you, to start doing things that should have been done, in the first place.

It is a critical function of the Sales Manager, at each level of a company... VP, District and territory sales rep to make his/her boss look good by helping the boss achieve the corporate goals. Not knowing the corporate goals, in effect, your boss' goals, is not a reasonable answer to the question " what should you do" ... no matter what, no matter where, no matter when, no matter who you are working for ... if you are a Sales Manager.

The situation above is demonstrative of sales management of the financial results of a sales team. Usually, even when things are going well, it is 'too little/too late', to wait for financial results to tell you things are broke.

So, starting today, what should you do? The first answer is to start managing the sales process, instead of the financial results. What does this mean? According to Peter Michie, at Performax Technologies, managing process consists initially, of identifying the activities of a sales manager or sales representative that lead directly to success. Once these activities are identified, managing the process means to ensure that the activities are communicated to and understood by the team members. Further, it means that the activities will be measured, monitored, and evaluated routinely by the efficient sales manager.

S/he should establish process standards relative to the sales management or selling model that is chosen after the field assessment. When the standards are not met, the sales manager should take action to rectify the situation... prior to them negatively impacting financial results.

If financial results come in below expectations, and the parameters are being actively measured, it will be clear what " caused" a shortfall... eg: not enough leads were qualified in month one of the quarter; two sales people were not trained on a new product that sold well in all the other territories. Action to rectify the short fall, if not already underway, can be taken without analyzing financial (read " non-process" results.

So what can you do to avoid the shortfall, or at least be ahead of the curve on resolving it?

1) Clearly understand the expectation of the boss, and the targets of the company
2) Understand the expectations of the finance department relative to financial parameters that might be in your control
3)Closely 'observe' the most successful sales managers, understand what they are focusing on and what they measure
4) Closely 'observe' the top 20% of the sales reps to understand what they focus on and do to be successful
5) Establish standards for a series of processes that contribute to the success of the managers and sales people, and that will allow you to measure regularly who is doing the things that will contribute to their success
6) Communicate clearly what will be measured and why
7) Manage the process; train where necessary; analyze process performance; adjust/correct the processes and individuals who are missing standards
8) Inform individuals of process failures immediately, in writing; expect performance improvement in appropriate time
9) Identify additional or alternative processes as necessary, to assure the proper processes that contribute to success, keep up with the changing needs of the business
10) Ensure the underlying data is accessable, but utilize it only when necessary due to problems with results... either process or financial

The processes that are being reported routinely can be looked at as a DASHBOARD in a car... it doesn't make the car work, it just ensures the driver understands the operating conditions.

These management obligations, if not in place now, should be. It is part of the Sales Manager's and Sales Representative's kit.