Sales staff can make or break a business: they are the front end representation of the brand. Are they representing the brand in a way that would make a brand manager proud?
Most often not.. For sure, in the presence of management and directors staff are on their best behavior. Whereas day to day, complacency place a major role in the lack of personal branding and carry through of the corporate identity.
I am sure you may be familiar with the saying:
I work for money if you want loyalty get a dog…
How do we encourage sales staff to become true brand ambassadors?
Here are a few ways of getting the most out of sales staff:
- Be an example by getting your hands dirty too.
- Uncover their day to day issues within the work place and find solutions.
- Be sensitive to their personal and family needs as people generally only work to support themselves and their families.
- Lead with encouragement and not a dictatorial style, it’s the best way to get people to do what you need done.
Sales Staff are either key players in the revenue generation of the business or a dead weight that the top performers drag along day-by-day.
There is nothing more satisfying for a sales manager or business owner to see a team of sales staff actively prospecting, gaining momentum and generating revenue. Besides being a reflection of good leadership and management skills the flow of commission is inspiring too.
Getting your sales staff to work as a team is essential to their overall performance. Once they realize that they are a team that not only competes with external competitors but with each other, leveraging their own ambitions is at the forefront of the motivating factor that will drive them to succeed. This will also weed out the sales staff that are those dead weights. Sounds cruel, but carrying dead weight not only strains sales figures but motivation and reputation too.
Wanting to get the most out of your sales staff?
There are only 2 activities in any business that deal with generating revenue…
SALES AND MARKETING…
Sounds obvious but examine your daily activities and determine how much time you actually dedicate to each.
There is no doubt that preparing your books for year end is vital but without focusing on sales and marketing there won’t be too much to show in your financials.
It makes me wonder how and why so many businesses shut the sales team away in the room far down the passage on the other side of the building to get on with selling when they need consistent mentoring and management.
For the most part sales teams know what their targets are and usually have a good knowledge of the products and services on offer however, most fall way short on efficient day to day sales activity.
Whose to blame.. No one really.
Mentoring a sales team takes a great deal of time, energy and effort and often an internal person assigned to do so has more than enough on their plate. Finding new exciting, motivating or inspirational sales techniques is seldom top of their agenda.
Sadly this makes the mentoring process of sales teams seem rather fruitless.
Imaging knowing that all the hassle of keeping your sales team in top form is no longer your problem and that the quality of the content generates scalable results… Far more accessible than you may believe!
Here are a number of points that will help focus your sales team and their efforts:
- define their daily activity.
- help each staff member realize that they are in charge of their own income.
- have tracking and accountability measures in place.
- equip staff with the necessary tools.
- team up members that complement productivity and result.
Marketing your business is on going.
Every time you ‘stop’ marketing you need to restart.
Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of guerilla marketing teaches that your marketing needs to be like a circle with a beginning and no end, not like a line that has a start and ends in the courts of bankruptcy.
This means that you need to consider pre and post-sale marketing. Once a sale is made the deal should not be considered closed or won. There is definitely a form of success; this success needs to be seen as the beginning of a profitable long-term relationship.
Developing relationships with clients sets the platform for further transactions. If your offer is not unique or if your competitors are very active and regularly poach your clients, you need to build better bonds with your prospects and clients to prevent them form being lured away.
Relationship building is time consuming but well worth the effort.
Systemizing your relationship building may include systems like CRM and Constant Contact Management. These help you automate relationship building that results in securing long-term and profitable clients that are loyal to your brand, company and bank account.
Keep your marketing momentum, automate your marketing and build your business.
So often I hear the question, ‘when should I be marketing my business?’
Well truthfully its never too late or too early to be marketing your business. Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of guerrilla marketing describes the activity of your marketing as a circle that has a beginning and no end. He says that if you see your marketing as a line that has a start and has an end, that end may be in the courts of bankruptcy.
So the answer to the question is that your marketing should start as soon as possible and continue for the duration of your business, which would be a very long time if you keep marketing strategically.
There is a catch though.
Very often, many businesses are not yet ‘ready’ to market. This is not necessarily in the case of new businesses or start-ups. These new businesses are usually better prepared to market than businesses that have been around for a while.
I believe that this is why‚
Younger businesses are normally on fire! They present a certain type of gusto that, although not as directed, motivated them to push forward hard with the energy of a steam train. On the other hand businesses that have been trading for a while have become complacent and even jaded by not only their marketing efforts but by their inner reality. This means that there is often internal conflict that prevents them from actively and enthusiastically perusing marketing activities.
The younger businesses run out blindly booking expos and printing pamphlets and start marketing without a strategic plan. The older businesses have done the same. This usually has a positive or negative result. Either propelling the business to a semi stable position where they may settle and become a complacent entity or the marketing efforts fail and they cease to exist.
Even if you don’t have a marketing plan or the budget to have one drawn up for you keep this in mind:
Your marketing is the building blocks of your business. It sets the tone for the future of your dreams. Your marketing efforts need to reach the right audience at the right time and with the right frequency.
Market Magnet Consulting implements the 8 pillars of marketing that will help your business build the marketing momentum you need to succeed.
Space is limited in order to give your business the focus needed to grow strategically.
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