Element 2: Establish Performance Targets
Making It Work A sales team is very much like any type of team. Looking at it from the simplest point of view a team can be loosely defined as a number of individuals grouped together to work towards the achievement of a specific goal. This means that as a team leader, you will be working with other individuals in order to achieve a specific set of goals - and for a sales team this most often means meeting a sales target. The specific set of goals your sales team will be working towards are your objectives, or outcomes. This is the first stage of the process of building an effective sales team process. In order to determine what your team is attempting to solve you need to define and describe the sales situation in detail. In order for your objectives to be effective they must be:
Clear Clarity of expression is an important aspect of defining the outcomes of a group or team. In order for all members to be fully aware of what they are working towards, they need to understand the outcomes. Therefore you should ensure that the outcomes that you write are clear enough to allow for all members of the team to fully understand what is required. Try to avoid the use of overly complex terms and jargon. Attempt to write in plain English. You may also find it useful to include measurable terms in your outcomes. This assists you in being specific, rather than vague. Consider the following: “By the end of this year we must have more customers”. What does ‘more’ or ‘customers’ mean? Who are they? This is vague, and needs to be tightened up in order to be clearer. “By the end of this year, we will increase the number of customers placing orders of $50,000 or more by 25%”. This objective is much better, as it states specifically who is required to be able to meet the objective (all team members) and defines the customers and ‘more’ from the previous outcome.
Concise In many respects clarity of expression and being concise are intimately related. If you are concise, it goes that you are also being clear. Try to keep each outcome or objective to one or two sentences. If your objective is longer than this, re-read it to ensure that all the information in a specific outcome is required. You will often find when writing an objective that you repeat a single specific objective two or three times in different words. Being concise also assists the readability of anything that you write. Creating a list of long outcomes, which is two pages long, is less likely to be read than creating a short concise list of outcomes. Therefore, creating a shorter, more concise list is likely to lead to more effective meetings, as everyone will be more likely to read the outcomes.
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Trainer Manual BSBSLS501A Develop a Sales Plan © Precision Group (Australia) Pty Ltd
Element 2: Establish Performance Targets
Specific It is important that your objectives are specific. It is not useful to write objectives that are vague, as this does not allow your group or team members to fully understand what is required of them. Use action verbs to describe exactly what is required to be done. Also avoid terms such as ‘most departments’ (which departments exactly?), ‘several managers have comments’ (who are they? what are their responsibilities?), ‘problems have recently’ (when?), ‘delays are causing some concern’ (how much concern?), ‘management are not entirely happy’ (what does this mean? how happy are they? are they angry?). The key to writing objectives is to be specific regarding what is required. If you aren’t specific there may be room for interpretation by members with regards to what is required, and this may result in recommendations which are not acceptable.
Measurable As well as being specific, it is also important to include some form of measure against which the objective can be compared. The problem has already been identified, but in order to ensure that it is being addressed effectively, the team will need to be able to measure the results of their recommendations. For example: Non-measurable objective: improve productivity in the sales department. Measurable objective: improve the number of sales per day that each team member makes to be at least 3”. Note that in the non-measurable objective, the team would not have known by how much productivity had to improve, and so the recommendations may have not been geared towards improving productivity by the level that was required.
Achievable While it is important to state what you would like to achieve in your objectives, it is a good idea not to make them too difficult to attain. If an objective seems impossible to achieve from the outset the members of your team may be less likely to achieve it. Be realistic with your expectations. It is important to set clear targets for your sales people to ensure that they are aware of what they are, and how reaching them will benefit them personally. The process of setting sales targets is crucial to how successful your organisation actually is, and the targets set need to be closely aligned with your overall business strategy and planning for the future. When setting sales targets, you need to ensure that you are looking at these targets in relation to different types of sales. For example, be specific when setting targets for sales staff - break your requirements down into different areas, for example:
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Trainer Manual BSBSLS501A Develop a Sales Plan © Precision Group (Australia) Pty Ltd
Element 3: Develop a Sales Plan for a Product
The sales budget controls the finances that are allocated from the organisation to achieving the sales targets of the organisation. Using it, you are attempting to compare actual sales performance against budgeted sales performance and using this budget, the organisation will often allocate its financial resources to the selling and distribution processes. A good sales budget should serve as a guide to the company with regard to its sales targets and must be flexible and able to take into account a very volatile market and/or economy. The budget should be flexible enough to allow for the sales force to adapt their strategies without affecting the budget too much.
Promotion Strategies We now have a product that meets the needs of the end user, however, without the end user actually knowing about the product, very little is likely to be achieved. This is where promotion comes into play. The key tactics that can be adopted when dealing with promotion include:
Advertising Advertising is a paid form of communication. It is non-personal in the sense that it is not specifically targeted at individuals and it utilises the mass media (television, radio, billboards and print) to communicate benefits and messages with regard to the product or organisation. Advertising has the benefit of having a low cost per audience member, but this is balanced by the fact that the message may be delivered to people who have no intention of actually buying the product (essentially causing wasted dollars).
Public Relations Public relations involves developing positive relationships with the public. This relationship is quite broadly defined, but often comes about through receiving favourable publicity in the media. Getting good stories about your organisation into the local press is excellent public relations. Another very important aspect of the role of public relations is in handling negative publicity - how do you deal with bad attention being given to the brand or a crisis occurring such as a death or injury involving your product, or a product recall. These aspects of promotion require careful use of public relations techniques.
Sales Promotion Advertising is often thought of as having an effect in the long term on sales. However, if what you require is a short-term boost in sales, you use sales promotion techniques. These techniques primarily involve altering the price of a product in order to get customers to buy the product now. Competitions, 2-For-1 offers, and coupons are all examples of sales promotions strategies.
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Trainer Manual BSBSLS501A Develop a Sales Plan Š Precision Group (Australia) Pty Ltd
Element 4: Identify Support Requirements
Recruit, Select and Induct Sales Team Members We now begin examining the process of choosing the right staff to handle your sales objectives. Without the right staff, it is unlikely that you will be able to achieve the objectives that you set yourself. So, lets look at how you can begin to find the right people, choose them and induct them into your organisation.
Recruit and Manage Sales Staff The first step in recruiting the right staff to run your sales team is to decide on the types of skills and experience that you want your new sales staff to have. You should also consider the amount of training that you are willing to give the new staff. Consider whether there is equipment or software that you need your sales staff to be able to use, as well as any particular industry knowledge that they may require. Different markets also may have different needs and this should also be a major consideration. Should you look at previous sales records, previous markets or is there a particular type of sales experience needed? Once you know the types of requirements that you need to consider, you are able to begin the process of putting together a person specification for the sales person position. Now, you have an idea of the type of person or people that you need to undertake this specific job. You can now move on and begin to examine the methods of recruiting that you might consider to find the right people. There are a number of recruitment methods that you may consider, the most popular of which are:
Print Advertising This method of recruitment is perhaps the most common. It involves the placing of small advertisements in either newspapers or magazines (in particular trade publications are common). This method is relatively inexpensive and allows you to reach a broad audience, from which you are able to draw your new staff. Newspapers often result in high numbers of unsuitable applicants however, as you are drawing from the general public. Trade magazines, on the other hand, can target a specific audience and are often ideal for finding professional and suitable applicants.
Internet Sites A relatively new and increasingly common method of publishing job advertisements is through the use of websites. You can place advertisements on your own website or general job websites. This method is relatively inexpensive and again allows you to reach a broad audience. It also allows you to provide more information - such as links to job descriptions and your own company website within the advertisement. This enables applicants to get a better idea of what may be required of them.
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Trainer Manual BSBSLS501A Develop a Sales Plan Š Precision Group (Australia) Pty Ltd