Sales management It is a systematic process involving: 1.

Formulation of sales strategy through development of account management policy, sales force compensation policies, sales revenue forecasts, and sales plan. 2. Implementation of sales strategy through selecting, training, motivating, and supporting the sales force, setting sales revenue targets. 3. Sales force management through development and implementation of sales performance, monitoring, and evaluation methods, and analysis of associated behavioral patterns and costs. How to write strategic marketing plans, business plans and sales plans People use various terms referring to the business planning process - business plans, business strategy, marketing strategy, strategic business planning, sales planning - they all cover the same basic principles. When faced with business planning or strategy development task it's important to clarify exactly what is required: clarify what needs to be done rather than assume the aim from the description given to it - terms are confused and mean different things to different people. You will see from the definitions below how flexible these business-planning terms are. Sales plan definitions A plan - a statement of intent - a calculated intention to organize effort and resource to achieve an outcome - in this context a plan is in written form, comprising explanation, justification and relevant numerical and financial statistical data. In a business context, a plan's numerical data - costs and revenues - are normally scheduled over at least one trading year, broken down weekly, monthly quarterly and cumulatively. Strategy - originally a military term, in a business planning context strategy/strategic means/pertains to why and how the plan will work, in relation to all factors of influence upon the business entity and activity, particularly including competitors (thus the use of a military combative term), customers and demographics, technology and communications. Sales - the transactions between the business and its customers whereby services and/or products are provided in return for payment. Sales (sales department/sales team) also describe the activities and resources that enable this process, and sales describe the revenues that the business derives from the sales activities. Sales plan - a plan describing, quantifying and phased over time, how the sales will be made and to whom. Some organizations interpret this to be the same as a business plan or a marketing plan.

When writing a sales remember... The most important driver for almost any business plan (whether it's called a business plan, a sales plan, an operational plan, an organizational plan, marketing plan, marketing strategy, strategic business plan, or other department business plan) is return on investment, or for public services and non-profit organizations, is effective use of investment and resources. It's crucial also to consider and incorporate corporate social responsibility, ethics, the greater good, etc, but for the vast majority of organizations, whether companies, public services, not-for-profit trusts and charities, all organizations need to be financially effective in what they do, otherwise they will cease to function. Organizations need of course to be ethical and humane, and to have a sound philosophical foundation, but ultimately, to sustain any organized activity, the figures and finances have to add up. It is essential to manage ethical and socially responsible aspects as part of the total mix of organizational aims, which necessarily must include the effective use of investment and resources, in whatever way the principle is applied for the particular organization. The essential planning elements are identifying causes and effects, according to your relevant business drivers. In many good businesses, a substantial business planning responsibility extends now to front line customer-facing staff, and the trend is increasing. In this context, the business plan could be called also be called a marketing plan, or a sales plan - it is all the same: "What you are going to sell to whom, when and how you are going to sell it, how much contribution (gross profit) the sales will produce, what the marketing and/or selling cost will be, and what will be the return on investment." Carry out your market research, including understanding your competitor activity Your market research should focus on the information you need, to help you to formulate strategy and make business decisions. Market research should be pragmatic and purposeful - a means to an end, and not a means in itself. Market information potentially covers a vast range of data, from global macro-trends and statistics, to very specific and detailed local or technical information, so it is important to decide what is actually relevant and necessary to know. Market information about market and industry trends, values, main corporations, market structure, etc, is important to know for large corporations operating on a national or international basis. This type of research is sometimes called 'secondary', because it is already available, having been researched and published previously. This sort of information is available from the internet, libraries, research companies, trade and national press and publications, professional associations and institutes. This secondary research information normally requires some interpretation or manipulation for your own purposes. Far more useful would be to carry out your own 'primary' research (i.e. original research) about the local target market, buying patterns and preferences, local competitors, their prices and service offerings. A lot of useful primary market research can be performed using customer feedback, surveys,

questionnaires and focus groups (obtaining indicators and views through discussion among a few representative people in a controlled discussion situation). This sort of primary research should be tailored exactly for your needs. Primary research requires less manipulation than secondary research, but all types of research need a certain amount of analysis. Be careful when extrapolating or projecting figures to avoid magnifying initial mistakes or wrong assumptions. If the starting point is inaccurate the resulting analysis will not be reliable. For businesses of any size; small, local, global and everything in between, the main elements you need to understand and quantify are: Customer (and potential customer) numbers, profile and mix. Customer perceptions, needs, preferences, buying patterns, and trends, by subsector if necessary. Products and services, mix, values and trends Demographic issues and trends (especially if dependent on consumer markets). Future regulatory and legal effects Prices and values, and customer perceptions in these areas Distribution and routes to market Competitor activities, strengths, weaknesses, products, services, prices, sales methods, etc

Primary research is recommended for local and niche services. Keep the subjects simple and the range narrow. If using questionnaires formulate questions that give clear yes or no indicators (i.e. avoid three and five options in multi-choices, which produce many uncertain answers) always understand how you will analyse and measure the data produced. Try to convert data to numerical format and manipulate on a spreadsheet. Use focus groups for more detailed work. For large research projects consider using a market research organization because they will probably do it better than you will, even though this is likely to be more costly. If you use any sort of marketing agency ensure you issue a clear brief, and that your aims are clearly understood. Useful frameworks for research are PEST analysis and SWOT analysis. Establish your corporate philosophy and the aims of your business or operation First establish or confirm the aims of the business, and if you are concerned with a part of a business, establish and validate the aims of your part of the business. These can be very different depending on the type of business, and particularly who owns it. Refer to and consider issues of ethics and philosophy, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, etc - these are the foundations on which values and missions are built. Look at the reasons why ethics and corporate responsibility are so important. And see also the fundamental organizational planning stages. When you have established or confirmed your philosophical and ethical position, state the objectives of the business unit you are planning to develop - your short, medium and

long term aims - (typically 'short, medium and long' equate to 1 year, 2-3 years and 3 years plus). In other words, what is the business aiming to do over the next one, three and five years? Bear in mind that you must reliably ensure the success and viability of the business in the short term or the long term is merely an academic issue. Grand visions need solid foundations. All objectives and aims must be prioritized and as far as possible quantified. If you cannot measure it, you cannot manage it. Define your 'mission statement' All businesses need a mission statement'. It announces clearly and succinctly to your staff, shareholders and customers what you are in business to do. Your mission statement may build upon a general service charter' relevant to your industry. You can involve staff in defining and refining the business's mission statement, which helps develop a sense of ownership and responsibility. Producing and announcing the mission statement is also an excellent process for focusing attention on the business's priorities, and particularly the emphasis on customer service. Whole businesses need a mission statement - departments and smaller business units within a bigger business need them too. Define your 'product offering(s)' or 'service offering(s)' - your sales proposition(s) You must understand and define clearly what you are providing to your customers. This description should normally go beyond your products or services, and critically must include the way you do business, and what business benefits your customers derive from your products and services, and from doing business with you. Develop offerings or propositions for each main area of your business activity - sometimes referred to as 'revenue streams', or 'business streams' - and/or for the sector(s) that you serve. Under normal circumstances competitive advantage is increased the more you can offer things that your competitors cannot. Good research will tell you where the opportunities are to increase your competitive advantage in areas that are of prime interest to your target markets. Develop your service offering to emphasize your strengths, which should normally relate to your business objectives, in turn being influenced by corporate aims and market research. The important process in developing a proposition is translating your view of these services into an offer that means something to your customer. The definition of your service offer must make sense to your customer in terms that are advantageous and beneficial to the customer, not what is technically good, or scientifically sound to you. Think about what your service, and the manner by which you deliver it, means to your customer. The important thing is to understand your services and proposition in terms that your customer will recognize as being relevant and beneficial to them. Most businesses have a very poor understanding of what their customers value most in the relationship, so ensure you discover this in the research stage, and reflect it in your stated product or service proposition(s). Customers invariably value these benefits higher than all others:

Making money Saving money Saving time

If your proposition(s) cannot be seen as leading to any of the above then customers will not be very interested in you. A service-offer or proposition should be an encapsulation of what you do best, that you do better than your competitors (or that they don't do at all); something that fits with your business objectives, stated in terms that will make your customers think Yes, that means something to me and I think it could be good for my business (and therefore good for me also as a buyer or sponsor).' This is the first 'brick in the wall' in the process of business planning, sales planning, marketing planning, and thereafter, direct marketing, and particularly sales lead generation. Write your business plan - include sales, costs of sales, gross margins, and if necessary your business overheads Business plans come in all shapes and sizes. Pragmatism is essential. Ensure your plan shows that your business needs it to show. Essentially your plan is a spreadsheet of numbers with supporting narrative, explaining how the numbers are to be achieved. A plan should show all the activities and resources in terms of revenues and costs, which together hopefully produce a profit at the end of the trading year. The level of detail and complexity depends on the size and part of the business that the plan concerns. Your business plan, which deals with all aspects of the resource and management of the business (or your part of the business), will include many decisions and factors fed in from the marketing process. It will state sales and profitability targets by activity. In a marketing plan there may also be references to image and reputation, and to public relations. All of these issues require thought and planning if they are to result in improvement, and particularly increasing numbers of customers and revenue growth. You would normally describe and provide financial justification for the means of achieving these things, together with customer satisfaction improvement. Above all a plan needs to be based on actions - cost-effective and profitable cause and effect; inputs required to achieve required outputs, analysed, identified and quantified separately wherever necessary to be able to manage and measure the relevant activities and resources. Quantify the business you seek from each of your market sectors, segments, products and customer groupings, and allocate investment, resources and activities accordingly These principles apply to a small local business, a department within a business, or a vast whole business. Before attending to the detail of how to achieve your marketing aims you need to quantify clearly what they are. What growth targets does the business have? What customer losses are you projecting? How many new customers do you need, by size and type, by product and service? What sales volumes, revenues and contributions values do

you need for each business or revenue stream from each sector? What is your product mix, in terms of customer type, size, sector, volumes, values, contribution, and distribution channel or route to market? What are your projected selling costs and net contributions per service, product, sector? What trends and percentage increase in revenues and contributions, and volumes compared to last year are you projecting? How is your market share per business stream and sector changing, and how does this compare with your overall business aims? What are your fast-growth high-margin opportunities, and what are your mature and low-margin services; how are you treating these different opportunities and anything else in between? You should use a basic spreadsheet tool to split your business according to the main activities and profit levers. See the simple sales/business planning tool example below. Ansoff product-market growth matrix - strategic tool A useful planning tool in respect of markets and products is the matrix developed by Igor Ansoff (H Igor Ansoff, 1918-2002), who is regarded by some as the 'Father of Strategic Management'. Fully titled the Ansoff Product-Market Growth Matrix, the tool was first published in Harvard Business Review, 1957, in Ansoff's paper Strategies for Diversification. The Ansoff product-market matrix helps to understand and assess marketing or business development strategy. Any business, or part of a business can choose which strategy to employ, or which mix of strategic options to use. This is a fundamentally simple and effective way of looking at strategic development options. existing products existing markets new markets market penetration market development new products product development diversification

Here are the Ansoff strategies in summary: Market penetration - Developing your sales of existing products to your existing market(s). This is fine if there is plenty of market shares to be had at the expense of your competitors, or if the market is growing fast and large enough for the growth you need. If you already have large market share you need to consider whether investing for further growth in this area would produce diminishing returns from your development activity. It could be that you will increase the profit from this activity more by reducing costs than by actively seeking more market share. Strong market share suggests there are likely to be better returns from extending the range of products/services that you can offer to the market, as in the next option. Product development - Developing or finding new products to take to your existing market(s). This is an attractive strategy if you have strong market share in a particular

market. Such a strategy can be a suitable reason for acquiring another company or product/service capability provided it is relevant to your market and your distribution route. Developing new products does not mean that you have to do this yourself (which is normally very expensive and frequently results in simply re-inventing someone else's wheel) - often there are potential manufacturing partners out there who are looking for their own distribution partner with the sort of market presence that you already have. However if you already have good market share across a wide range of products for your market, this option may be one that produces diminishing returns on your growth investment and activities, and instead you may do better to seek to develop new markets, as in the next strategic option. Market development - Developing new markets for your existing products. New markets can also mean new sub-sectors within your market - it helps to stay reasonably close to the markets you know and which know you. Moving into completely different markets, even if the product/service fit looks good, holds risks because this will be unknown territory for you, and almost certainly will involve working through new distribution channels, routes or partners. If you have good market share and good product/service range then moving into associated markets or a segment is likely to be an attractive strategy. Diversification - taking new products into new markets. This is high risk - not only do you not know the products, but neither do you know the new market(s), and again this strategic option is likely to entail working through new distribution channels and routes to market. This sort of activity should generally be regarded as additional and supplementary to the core business activity, and should be rolled out carefully through rigorous testing and piloting. Consider also your existing products and services themselves in terms of their market development opportunity and profit potential. Some will offer very high margins because they are relatively new, or specialized in some way, perhaps because of special distribution arrangements. Other products and services may be more mature, with little or no competitive advantage, in which case they will produce lower margins. The Boston Matrix is a useful way to understand and assess your different existing product and service opportunities: Boston matrix The Boston matrix model is a tool for assessing existing and development products in terms of their market potential, and thereby implying strategic action for products and services in each category. low market share growing market mature market problem child dog high market share (rising) star cash cow

Cash cow - The rather crude metaphor is based on the idea of 'milking' the returns from previous investments which established good distribution and market share for the product. Products in this quadrant need maintenance and protection activity, together with good cost management, not growth effort, because there is little or no additional growth available. Dog - This is any product or service of yours, which has low market presence in a mature or stagnant market. There is no point in developing products or services in this quadrant. Many organizations discontinue products/services that they consider fall into this category, in which case consider potential impact on overhead cost recovery. Businesses that have been starved or denied development find themselves with a high or entire proportion of their products or services in this quadrant, which is obviously not very funny at all, except to the competitors. Problem child - These are products, which have a big and growing market potential, but existing low market share, normally because they are new products or the application has not been spotted and acted upon yet. New business development and project management principles are required here to ensure that these products' potential can be realized and disasters avoided. This is likely to be an area of business that is quite competitive, where the pioneers take the risks in the hope of securing good early distribution arrangements, image, reputation and market share. Gross profit margins are likely to be high, but overheads, in the form of costs of research, development, advertising, market education, and low economies of scale, are normally high, and can cause initial business development in this area to be loss-making until the product moves into the rising star category, which is by no means assured - many problem children products remain as such. Rising star - Or 'star' products, are those, which have good market share in a strong and growing market. As a product moves into this category it is commonly known as a 'rising star'. When a market is strong and still growing, competition is not yet fully established. Demand is strong; saturation or over-supply do not exists, and so pricing is relatively unhindered. This all means that these products produce very good returns and profitability. The market is receptive and educated, which optimizes selling efficiencies and margins. Production and manufacturing overheads are established and costs minimized due to high volumes and good economies of scale. These are great products and worthy of continuing investment provided good growth potential continue to exist. When it does not these products are likely to move down to cash cow status, and the company needs to have the next rising stars developing from its problem children. After considering your business in terms of the Ansoff matrix and Boston matrix (which are thinking aids as much as anything else, not a magic solution in themselves), on a more detailed level, and for many businesses just as significant as the Ansoff-typeoptions, what is the significance of your major accounts - do they offer better opportunity for growth and development than your ordinary business? Do you have a high quality; specialized offering that delivers better business benefit on a large scale as opposed to small scale? Are your selling costs and investment similar for large and small contracts? If so you might do better concentrating on developing large major accounts business,

rather than taking a sophisticated product or service solution to smaller companies which do not appreciate or require it, and cost you just as much to sell to as a large organization. Customer matrix This customer matrix model is used by many companies to understand and determine strategies according to customer types. good products develop and find more customers like these - allocate your best resources to these existing customers and to prospective customers matching this profile invest cautiously to develop and improve relationship, failing which, maintain customers via account management not so good products educate and convert these customers to good products if beneficial to them, failing which, maintain customers via account management assess feasibility of moving these customers left or up, failing which, withdraw from supplying sensitively

good customers

not so good customers

Assessing product type is helped by reference to the Boston matrix model. There is a lot of flexibility as to what constitutes 'good' and 'not so good customers' - use your own criteria. A good way to do this is to devise your own grading system using criteria that mean something to your own situation. Typical criteria are: size, location, relationship, credit-rating and payment terms, is the customer growing (or not), the security of the supply contract, the service and support overhead required, etc. This kind of customer profiling tool and exercise is often overlooked, but it is a critical aspect of marketing and sales development, and of optimizing sales effectiveness and business development performance and profitability. Each quadrant requires a different sales approach. The type of customer also implies the type of sales person who should be responsible for managing the relationship. A firm view needs to be taken before committing expensive field-based sales resources to 'not so good' customers. Focus prospect development (identifying and contacting new prospective customers) on the profile which appears in the top left quadrant. Identify prospective new customers who fit this profile, and allocate your business development resources (people and advertising) to this audience. Consider also what are your competitor weaknesses in terms of sectors, geographical territory and products or services, and how might these factors affect your options? Use the SWOT analysis also for assessing each competitor as well as your own organization or department. Many organizations issue a marketing budget from the top down (a budget issued by the Centre/HQ/Finance Director), so to speak, in which case, what is your marketing budget and how can you use it to produce the best return on investment, and to help the company best to meet its overall business aims? Use the models described here to assess your best likely returns on marketing investment.

The best way to begin to model and plan your marketing is to have a record of your historical (say last year's) sales results (including selling and advertising costs if appropriate and available) on a spreadsheet. The level of detail is up to you; modern spreadsheets can organize massive amounts of data and make very complex analysis quick easy. Data is vital and will enable you to do most of the analysis you need for marketing planning. In simple terms you can use last year's results as a basis for planning and modeling the next year's sales, and the marketing expenditure and activities required to achieve them. Simple business plan or sales plan tools examples These templates examples help the planning process. Split and analyse your business or sales according to your main products/services (or revenue streams) according to the profit drivers or 'levers' (variables that you can change which affect profit), eg., quantity or volume, average sales value or price, % gross margin or profit. Add different columns which reflect your own business profit drivers or levers, and to provide the most relevant measures. quantity product 1 product 2 product 3 product 4 totals Do the same for each important aspect of your business, for example, split by market sector (or segment): quantity sector 1 sector 2 sector 3 sector 4 totals total sales value average value % gross margin total sales or gross margin total sales value average value % gross margin total sales or gross margin

And, for example, split by distributor (or route to market): quantity distributor 1 distributor 2 distributor 3 distributor 4 totals These simple split analysis tools are an extremely effective way to plan your sales and business. Construct a working spreadsheet so that the bottom-right cell shows the total sales or gross margin, or profit, whatever you need to measure, and by changing the figures within the split (altering the mix, average prices, quantities, etc) you can carry out 'what if?' analysis to develop the best plans. If you are a competent working with spreadsheets it is normally possible to assemble all of this data onto a single spreadsheet and then show different analyses by sorting and graphing according to different fields. When you are happy with the overall totals for the year, convert this into a phased monthly plan, with as many lines and columns as you need and are appropriate for the business. Develop this spreadsheet by showing inputs as well as sales outputs - the quantifiable activity (for example, the numbers of enquiries necessary to produce the planned sales levels) required to produce the planned performance. Large businesses need extensive and multiple page spreadsheets. A business plan needs costs as well as sales, and will show profit as well as revenue and gross margin, but the principle is the same: plan the detailed numbers and values of what the business performance will be, and what inputs are required to achieve it. Write your marketing plan or business plan Your marketing plan is actually a statement, supported by relevant financial data, of how you are going to develop your business. Plans should be based on actions, not masses of historical data. The historical and market information should be sufficient just to explain and justify the opportunities, direction, strategy, and most importantly, the marketing actions, methods and measures - not to tell the story of the past 20 years of your particular industry. "What you are going to sell to whom, when and how you are going to sell it, how much contribution (gross profit) the sales produce, what the marketing cost will be, and what will be the return on investment." total sales value average value % gross margin total sales or gross margin

As stated above it is easiest and best to assemble all of this data onto a spreadsheet, which then allows data to be manipulated through the planning process, and then changed and re-projected when the trading year is under way. The spreadsheet then becomes the basis of your sales and marketing forecasting and results reporting tool. As well as sales and marketing data, in most types of businesses it is also useful to include measurable aims concerning customer service and satisfaction. The marketing plan will have costs that relate to a marketing budget in the overall business plan. The marketing plan will also have revenue and gross margin/profitability targets that relate to the turnover and profitability in the overall business plan. This data is essentially numerical, and so needs also some supporting narrative as to how the numbers will be achieved - the actions - but keep the narrative concise; if it extends to more than a half-dozen sheets make sure you put a succinct executive summary on the front. The marketing plan narrative could if appropriate also refer to indirect activities such as product development, customer service, quality assurance, training etc., if significantly relevant to achieving the marketing plan aims. Be pragmatic - marketing plans vary enormously depending on the type, size and maturity of business. Above all create a plan that logically shows how the business can best consolidate and grow its successful profitable areas. The marketing plan should be a working and truly useful tool - if it is, then it's probably a good one. Sample business plan, marketing plan or sales plan sample structure and example format/template Keep the written part of the business plan as concise and brief as possible - most situations and high-ranking executives do not need to see plans that are an inch thick. If you can make your case on a half dozen pages then do so. Particularly if your plan is more than 5-6 pages long, produce an executive summary (easiest to do when you have completed the plan) and insert it at the beginning of the document. If you need to include lots of reference material, examples, charts, evidence, etc, show these as appendices at the back of the document and make sure they are numbered and referenced during the main body of the plan. Each new section should start at the top of a new page. Number the pages. Important plans should be suitably bound. All business plans should be professionally and neatly presented, with no grammar and spelling errors, clearly laid out in an easy to read format (avoid lots of upper-case or fancy fonts or italics as these are all difficult to read). Your business plan contents and structure should be as follows: Business plans structure Title page: Title or heading of the plan and brief description if required, author, date, company/organization if applicable, details of circulation and confidentiality. Contents page: A list of contents (basically the sections listed here, starting with the Introduction page) showing page numbers, plus a list of appendices or addendums (added reference material at the back of the document) allowing the

reader to find what they need and navigate the document easily, and to refer others to particular items and page numbers when reviewing or querying. Introduction page: Introduction and purpose of the plan, terms of reference if applicable (usually for formal and large plans or projects). Executive summary page: Optional and usually beneficial, this should normally be no more than a page long (or it's not an executive summary) - the key points of the whole plan including conclusions, recommendations, actions, financial returns on investment, etc., clearly readable in a few minutes. Main body of plan: sections and headings as required, see template below. Acknowledgments and bibliography/reference sources: if relevant (only required normally for very large formal plans) Appendices: appendices or addendums - additional detailed reference material, examples, statistics, spreadsheets, etc., for reference and not central to the main presentation of your plan.

Business plans - main body sections examples template This sample template is typical for a sales/marketing/new business development business plan. (A business plan for a more complex project such as an international joint-venture, or the formation of a new company including manufacturing plant or other overhead activities would need to include relevant information and financials about the overheads and resources concerned, and the financials would need to show costs and profits more like a fully developed profit and loss account, with cash flow projections, balance sheet, etc.) Where appropriate refer to your position regarding corporate ethics and social responsibility. While these aspects are not mechanisms within the plan, they are crucial reference points. 1. Define your market - sector(s) and segment(s) definitions 2. Quantify your market (overview only) - size, segmentation, relevant statistics, values, numbers (locations, people/users, etc) - make this relevant to you business 3. Explain your market(s) - sector trends, eg., growth, legislation, seasonality, PEST factors where relevant, refer to Ansoff matrix, show the strategic business drivers within sector and segments, purchasing mechanisms, processes, restrictions - what are the factors that determine customers' priorities and needs - this is a logical place to refer to ethics and CSR (corporate social responsibility 4. Explain your existing business - your current business according to sector, products/services, quantities, values, distributor, etc. 5. Analyse your existing customer spread by customer type, values and products/services including major accounts (the 'Pareto Principle' or the '80:20 rule' often applies here, eg., 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers) 6. Explain your products and services - refer to Boston matrix and especially your strategic propositions (what these propositions will do for your customers) including your USP's and UPB's (see sales training section and acronyms)

7. Explain you routes to market, gatekeepers, influencers and strategic partners - the other organizations/individuals you will work with to develop your market, including 'what's in it for them', commissions, endorsements, accreditations, approvals, licenses, etc. 8. Case studies and track record - the credibility, evidence and proof that your propositions and strategic partnerships work 9. Competitor analysis, e.g., SWOT analysis of your own business compared to SWOT analysis of each competitor 10. Sales/marketing/business plan (1 year min) showing sales and margins by product/service stream, mix, values, segment, 'distributor', etc, whatever is relevant, phased monthly, in as much detail as you need. This should be on a spreadsheet, with as many different sheets as necessary to quantify relevant inputs and outputs. 11. List your strategic actions (marketing campaigns, sales activities, advertising, etc) that will deliver the above, with costs and returns. This should be supported with a spreadsheet, showing cost and return on investment for each activity. Other business planning and marketing issues Staffing and training implications Your people are unlikely to have all the skills they need to help you implement a marketing plan. You may not have all the people that you need so you have to consider justifying and obtaining extra. Customer service is acutely sensitive to staffing and training. Are all of your people aware of the aims of the business, its mission statement and your sales propositions? Do they know what their responsibilities are? How will you measure their performance? Many of these issues feed back into the business plan under human resources and training, where budgets need to be available to support the investment in these areas. Customer service charter You should formulate a customer service charter, extending both your mission statement and your service offer, to inform staff and customers what your standards are. These standards can cover quite detailed aspects of your service, such as how many times the telephone will be permitted to ring until the caller is gets an answer. Other issues might include:

How many days between receipt and response for written correspondence. Complaints procedure and timescales for each stage.

This charter sets customer expectations, so be sure you can meet them. Customers get disappointed particularly when their expectations are not met, and when so many standards can be set at arbitrary levels, thinks of each one as a promise that you should keep. Business-to-business customers would expect to agree these standards with their suppliers and have them recorded as part of their contracts, or as SLA's (service level agreements). Increasingly, large customers demand SLA has to be tailored to their own

specific needs and the process of developing these understandings and agreements is crucial to the maintenance and development of large contracts. Remember an important rule about customer service: It's not so much the failure to meet standards that causes major dissatisfaction among customers - everyone can make a mistake - the biggest cause of upset is the failure of suppliers to inform customers and keep them updated when problems arise. Not being told in advance, not receiving any apology, not getting any explanation why, and not hearing what's going to be done to put things right, are key areas of customer dissatisfaction, and therefore easy areas for suppliers to focus their efforts to achieve and communicate improvements. A special point of note for businesses that require a strong technical profile among their service staff: these people are often reactive by nature and so not good at taking initiative to identify and anticipate problem areas in customer service. It's therefore helpful to establish suitable mechanisms and responsibility to pick up problems and deal with them - a kind of trouble-shooting capability - which can be separately managed and monitored at a strategic level. Do not assume that technically-oriented staff will be capable of proactively developing customer service solutions and revisions to SLA's - they generally need help in doing so from staff with high creativity, empathy, communications and initiative capabilities. Establish systems to measure customer service and staff performance These standards and the SLA's established for large customers need to be visible, agreed with customers, measurable. You must keep measuring your performance against them, and preferably publishing the results, internally and externally. Customer complaints handling is a key element: Measuring customer complaints is crucial because individual complaints are crucial areas to resolve, and as a whole, complaints serve as a barometer for the quality and performance of the business. You need to have a scheme which encourages, not discourages, customers to complain, to open the channels as wide as possible. Most businesses are too defensive where complaints are concerned, preferring to minimise their importance, or to seek to justify and excuse them. Wrong. Complaints are the opportunities to turn ordinary service into unbeatable service. Moreover, time and again surveys suggest that anything up to nine out of ten people do not complain to the provider when they feel dissatisfied - they just keep their dissatisfaction to themselves and the provider never finds out there's a problem, even when the customer chooses to go elsewhere. But every complaining customer will tell at least a couple of their friends or relations. Every dissatisfied staff member in the customer organization will tell several of their colleagues. Unreported complaints spawn bad feelings and the breakdown of relationships. It is imperative that you capture all complaints in order to:

Put at ease and give explanation or reassurance to the person complaining. Reduce the chances of them complaining to someone else.

Monitor exactly how many dissatisfied customers you have and what the causes are, and that's even more important if you're failing to deliver your mission statement or service offer!

Take appropriate corrective action to prevent a re-occurrence.

If appropriate (ie for large customers) review SLA's and take the opportunity to agree new SLA's with the customer. Implications for IT, premises, and reporting systems Also relating to your business plan are the issues of: Information Technology - are your computers and communications systems capable of giving you the information and analysis you need? How do you use email - is it helping or hindering your business and the quality of service you give to your customers? What internet presence and processes do you need? How should your voice and data systems work together? What systems need to be available to mobile staff? What customer relationship management (CRM) systems should you have? How should you consider all these issues to see the needs and opportunities? IT and communications systems increasingly offer marketing and competitive advantage to businesses in all sectors make sure you know hat IT can do for you and for your customers. Premises - Review your premises and sites in light of your customer service, distribution, and customer relationship requirements. Pay particular attention anywhere in your organization that your customers visit - the impression and service you give here is critical. Reporting systems - If you can't measure it you can't manage it, and where finance and business performance is concerned this is certainly true. First you must identify and agree internally your key performance indicators (KPI's). Identify every aspect of your service or performance that is important - then you need to be able to measure it and report on it, and where people are involved in performing to certain standards then the standards and the reporting needs to be transparent to them also. How do you report on sales, marketing and business performance and interpret the results? Who needs to know? Who needs to capture the data? Communications and ongoing customer feedback are essential Having an open dialogue with your customers is vital. There is a double benefit to your business in ensuring this happens: You nip problems in the bud and stay aware of how you are performing. Your customers feel better about the service you provide because of the communications, or from the fact that the channel is open even if they do not use it - its human nature.

Effective Sales Management: Short And Long-Term Planning, Forecasting, And Expense Budgeting

It is not enough these days to hire a salesperson and say: "Get out there and sell." As an industry and in each particular hospitality business, we must work to do a better job communicating, developing, training, motivating, planning, organizing, directing and controlling. This applies to both people and process. Engage in these sales guiding principles when soliciting/booking business and servicing existing accounts: 1. Mapping out Your Sales Plan A. Acquire and use good selling knowledge. There are a series of fundamental questions that are essential for long-term success. These include details on finding out that your customers are:

Their points of origin or where are they coming from -- we can identify this by the reservation, the registration card, our PMS system or other sources. This information can be essential to measuring the effectiveness of a marketing campaign or to quantify changing demographics. How did they come to select your property? Were you their first choice? Were they referred by an area business, another hotel, or because their first choice was not available? Are the loyalty programs encouraging them to choose your location? Why do they stay at your property ? Are they there for a meeting, an overnight, a vacation, a reunion, in response to an advertisement? Your front desk staff can qualify this very important information and the sales team can then use this to update their future forecasts and proactive planning How long do they stay? Obviously multiple nights are desirable if the rate and revenue are properly set. How much do they spend? Total revenue is also a contributing factor to useful knowledge.

All of this data should help to focus your sales effort. Using the above information can also help you in understanding and addressing cash flow. Attentiveness to Selling Costs. In any business, spending more than you take in, of course, is dangerous. Cost effectiveness in selling for a hotel is very important. As total sales expenditures start to creep up, you must continue to expect a greater return from your sales effort. Budgeting for sales and monitoring the sales budget against results are essential. This means pricing properly, including the costs for loyalty programs and measuring the effectiveness of special advertising or marketing efforts. B. Plan A Good Market Mix. Which there are clear differences in markets, there are also overlapping ones, such as a corporate client today that may be a vacationer tomorrow or their company might have extended stay needs that your hotel can serve. It is extremely difficult to be all things to all people all the time, which means knowing your proper customer base. While one does not want to turn away potential revenue or

clients, understanding the mix of business reflects how much of what type of business you are doing. Look at your records and daily reports and assess the following: What percentage of my total room sales comes

From meetings at your hotel or nearby centers ? From youth groups or sports related activities ? From the transportation center (airport, bus, cruise lines, trains, etc) ? From seniors and why? From the brand reservation center and at what rates and plans? From the nearby community college, university, large high school? From the medical center or offices? From the chamber of commerce or convention/visitors' bureau activities? From transient business, walk in guests and other categories?

Your daily reports should have this or similar information documented. If you do not, you are missing a major piece of the sales and marketing process. Now assuming you do have the above information and after you review the past 3-6 months to accurately see trends, what decisions do you need to make in your selling activities? What mix of business would be most profitable? Which mix can you actually obtain? What changes need to be made in your selling activities? C. Innovate - try something new. Remember: most successful entrepreneurs would not be where they are today if they did not take a chance and try new things. Come up with fresh ideas to promote business and don't be afraid to put them into action. D Focus on People. You want and need sales professionals who are sincere, believable, down-to-earth, friendly, committed, well dressed and well mannered; in other words, individuals who will represent your property well. In an effective sales mind-set, the common ground is a commitment to anticipate guest wants and needs, and to engage every associate from the owner to the general manager to all guest contact staff to understand the shared accountability for contributing to the overall hotel sales effort. E Develop new sales techniques to book more rooms and new proposals to land more group business. Every veteran hotelier can recall in his or her career examples of hotel sales teams that were very creative and innovative. The brands, markets, cities, and specific approaches were different but the spirit of these creative people is what contributed to their success. Realize that only a percentage of the new ideas will fully work, but that percentage will contribute to the hotel's overall success. A dynamic sales culture is an atmosphere where all guest contact staff proactively seek to service guests' needs, which will produce satisfied customers and likely revenue improvement for the hotel. F Don't ignore technology -- embrace it! Almost all branded hotels have systems that heavily address online bookings and promotions, but they require the hotels to willingly support the programs. As most brands today genuinely are focusing on everyone's success (or in some cases, survival), there is a greater sense of partnership than at some

times in past relationships within the industry. If you are an independent, there are many services available to assist you, including through your state, provincial or national hospitality associations. 2. Preparing and Revising Your Sales Forecast Hillel J. Einhorn, whose quote was in the opening section, was not a hotelier but a scholar who researched how managers made decisions. Occupancy and rate continue to stagnate in many locations globally, yet we must address both the specific and random factors Einhorn mentioned. A. Know Your Competition and specifically your direct competitors. I continue to read and hear more than one brand CEO warn that there are "going to be more empty rooms at the hotel across the street from you and they are going to be scouting your customers." The current heavily debated discounting by some brands globally is another challenge to be addressed, but this is a personal battle fought at individual locations. A thorough knowledge of the other properties near you and that compete with you can help you size up your property and determine the areas in which you can compete the best, whether it is location, price, size, product, service or amenities. The idea, of course, is to sell your positives and to expand your market share. B. Research and qualify your multiple price policy. Selective discounting has its place in our industry. Hotels have been doing it for years, with special off-season, corporate, group, senior citizen and military rates, among others. Do you know which special rates are generating business for you? A periodic review of all your rates will help you establish the multiple-rate policy that's right for you. There are many 3rd party sites that may or may not help your profitability and/or cash flow. If you make the decision to work with a discounter such as Hotels.com, Expedia, Hot-Wire, Orbtiz, Booking Buddy, PriceLine, Travelocity or the new "hot" service, track your actual demand (rooms used, rooms denied because you were full, rooms declined for reasons of rate, location, etc.) so you can evaluate intelligently the business decision. Determine what your competition is doing by these organizations as well so you can make the correct decision for your hotel. Evaluate what your brand's programs are contributing to your top and bottom line, if you are part of a system. Set your prices accordingly and support the programs that help both you and the other members of your system. C. Sell Aggressively. Aggressive and assertive are not synonyms. One means hard hitting and the other confident -- in challenging economic times, those professionals in sales must have some of both attributes to book the business. One can be aggressive while still being friendly, credible and sincere. Being tenacious, following up and ensuring customer confidence all add up to success.

Pick the low hanging fruit A Google search of this often-heard term will offer literally dozens of examples of this phrase, including this explanation: "Choose

the easy deals or sales. [2]" On occasion, a quick boost in your sales and marketing efforts can be to bring someone in with a fresh perspective. This fresh set of eyes can be someone from another department in your hotel or company or a consultant on a short term assignment. This activity, if executed properly, can solicit suggestions, remove unintentional biases and then choose and implement a number of small action plans that may cost little but show noticeable revenue gains.

Make high-quality Business Contacts And Make Them Work For You. Getting good business contacts is the first step, and making sure they're bringing business into your property the second. Make sure your contacts are frequent users of either the area and/or your property and then ask them to provide you leads. Set Realistic Growth Plans. Yes, even in down economies, there must be some stretch goals. These should assess where you where you are today and honestly project where you expect and want to be next year, the year after, and so on. Group, corporate or any other market segment may have fallen off from previous years, but there remain ways to maximize potential with better planning, timely follow-up or selective selling based on the information identified in 1C above -planning your market mix.

FORECASTING STRATEGY Each month following the close of the previous month, REFORECAST for the next 90 days and for the month just completed 12 months in advance. If you just finished June, the factors that supported or weakened the June performance will never be fresher in your mind. When it is time to create an annual budget, you will be much more comfortable and flexible in your analysis and projections, and very likely more accurate as well. Hiring the Right Salespeople Full-Cycle Salespeople versus Half-Cycle Salespeople Finding Good Salespeople Hiring Salespeople Based on Your Business Needs Evaluating Candidates The Hiring Tool That Makes or Breaks a Candidate Investing in Your Sales Team Managing Cultural Performance Establishing Sales Job Descriptions Success Factors of Salespeople Who Hit Their Quota Sales Team Compensation Plans Developing a Compensation Plan Implementing New Sales Compensation Plans Developing an Incentive Program Training Salespeople 6 Reasons Why Most Companies Do Not Give More Sales Training Guidelines for Training Your Sales Team Making Your Sales Training More Successful

Role-Playing Tips to Increase Success Managing Your Sales Team How to Manage a Sales Team Managing Salespeople Who Work in Virtual Offices Managing the Salesperson Ride-Along Holding Sales Meetings Holding Team Meetings Holding One-on-One Meetings Developing Weekly/Monthly Manager Action Plans Weekly Sales Activities Report Topics for Your Monthly Sales Meetings Determining Sales Quotas Common Quota Calculation Mistakes Calculating Sales Quotas Understanding Lost Sales Analysis Calculating Lost Sales Analysis & Sales Effectiveness Resources for Market Research 19 Factors That Affect a Salespersons Performance Managing Sales Forecasts Controlling Sales Forecasting Moles Creating a Sales Forecast Tightening the Sales Forecast Differentiating Between a Forecast and a Pipeline Sales Closing Audit Managing Sales by Metrics Identifying Major Sales Metrics Evaluating Your Sales Teams Performance Sales Team Monthly Assessment Managing Strategic Alliances and Channel Partners Understanding Strategic ReplicationAlliance Partner Collective Strategic Partner ManagementRules to Guide Alliances and Collectives to Increase Sales Using Sales Scorecards to Manage More Effectively Understanding the Sales Scorecard Concept Preparing a Sales Scorecard Implementing the Sales Scorecard Integrated Pillar Management Integrating the Pillars 6-Week Implementation Plan Teaching Ethics and Morality 6 Guidelines on How to Communicate and Deploy Ethical Standards to Your Sales Team

Successful Implementation is No Accident

There are specific implementation steps we should consider during each of these times: walking up, standing on top, and walking down. Let us look at each of these three sets of implementation steps separately... Pre-planning Implementation Steps The first step perhaps the most important step is to demonstrate managerial commitment. Commitment to the planning process and to the resultant strategies within the plan. You will need to demonstrate commitment, not just by word, but by deed as well. By giving your own time to the planning process. In addition, by demonstrating your readiness to allocate the necessary resources to the resultant strategies. Next, you must select the "right" planning team members. They will come from the ranks of top management probably your key functional managers. This brings to your strategy sessions the expertise necessary to develop the plan. In addition, it makes possible the necessary immediate strategic decisions. Moreover, it involves the key executives in development of the plan. Thus encouraging their commitment to the implementation they will later direct. You must gather the "right" information before developing your strategies. Not just the obvious the financial reporting information. Also information about your customers and the benefits they seek in purchasing your products and services. Why they buy. Why they do not. In addition, information about your competition. Their strengths. Their weaknesses. And how their offering compares to yours. Successful strategies follow from your management team's full appreciation of your enterprise and its relationship to its marketplace. You need the "right" information to establish and up-date that team-wide awareness. Also before planning, you should solicit input from your employees. To get them involved in the planning process. To "flush up" issues they feel are important. This participation builds necessary commitment. Employees who have the opportunity to participate in developing their company's strategic plan feel "a part" of that plan. They're committed to the success of the plan and to the successful implementation of the strategies within that plan. While-planning Implementation Steps During your strategic planning sessions, you have additional opportunities to encourage successful implementation of your resultant strategies. First, you can encourage participation from all members of your planning team. You can work toward rich, lively discussions on all issues. Solicit input from the more hesitant, and, if necessary, temper the more domineering individuals. To do so, you must be sure the facilitator of your sessions has not only expertise in the planning process, but also, skill in handling the planning team's interpersonal dynamics.

You can also encourage implementation through focusing. Focus on the most important things. On what it takes to win. On your key success factors. On those few activities that will make you successful. Focusing on doing these "right things right" will not only concentrate resources, but will concentrate resources on those factors, which are most important. You can encourage implementation by developing objectives measurable by your current reporting system. You will be busy enough implementing your plan; you do not want to pioneer a new reporting system at the same time. For example, all companies report sales volume; but few report market share. For good reason. It is difficult to get agreement on the total market size used in calculating market share. Moreover, even if you could agree on total market size, data on market size is never available right now. This lack of timely information means you cannot use a market share objective to manage your business dayto-day. For these reasons, market share is most often viewed as an approximate, rather than an exact measurement. It makes for a poor objective. Nevertheless, suppose market share is important to your organization, as it is too many. If so, you can write your objective in terms of sales volume. Then you can estimate total market size, and put that estimate in your list of "planning assumptions." Finally, in an appendix to your plan, you can divide your sales objective by your estimated market size to arrive at your intended market share. That way, you will have an objective (sales volume), whose measurement is familiar to, and accepted by, those who must accomplish it. And just as important, it's a measurement that's available right now. So you can use it as a day-to-day tool in managing your business. Also while planning; you can encourage successful implementation of your strategies through developing a "balanced" list of objectives. By having one or more objectives dealing with human resource issues working conditions; career development; benefit programs. More of your employees care about human resources than about sales volume and profit. Having a human resource objective, when those employees whose help you'll need in implementing your strategies ask "What's in it for me?", you'll have an answer. You should also develop strategies built on your company's strengths. If you're strong in marketing, you'll best implement a strategy calling for promoting your way to success. If you are good at product development, you had best invent your way to growth. In addition, you should not select a strategy just because it's "popular" or because "it worked" for another firm. It has to work for you. It must be built on your own company's strengths. In addition, you will have to consider available resources. That means you need to estimate the resources required to implement each strategy. You must be careful about over-committing those resources particularly people. There's a fine line between challenge, which encourages implementation; and over-commitment, which discourages implementation. Be careful.

Finally, while developing your strategies, you should include a "built-in monitoring system." Have a key manager volunteer responsibility for implementing each strategy. That manager's name, along with a due date for completion, then becomes a part of the strategy statement. Including a name and a due date aids in monitoring the strategy's implementation and in assuring that a key manager "owns" each strategy. Post-planning Implementation Steps Following development of your strategies, you have additional opportunities to encourage implementation. First, you can communicate the plan to the folks who will help with its implementation. In fact, one of the two questions we ask of client-company planning teams at the conclusion of their strategy sessions is, "Now that we've developed the strategic plan, how do you feel you should communicate it to your employees, and to which of your employees do you think you should communicate it?" And there's no singular "right answer" to the question of communication. The point is, since you'll need your employees' help in implementing your strategies, you'd better tell them what you're trying to accomplish. Consider the following... We worked with a mid-sized manufacturing client in Los Angeles. We had just completed the organization's five-year strategic plan, and were about to begin work on its one-year operational plan. The company's executive planning team decided to ask their supervisory-level managers for input regarding objectives for that one-year plan. Asking for that input was very important for the company at that time. Because in August of that year, the firm was going to move to a new facility. Close down the factory for an entire month, pick up all the machinery, load it on trucks, drive it over to the new factory, plop it down, wire it up, and go back to work. A good chunk of the month's production would be lost in the process. This was no small issue. No small issue for production; no small issue for sales; no small issue for customer service. The company's executives were concerned about the objectives they could realistically set for that first year the year of the move. Following development of the five-year strategic plan and prior to development of the one-year operational plan, we made a presentation to the company's supervisory-level managers. We introduced the strategic plan, and asked for input regarding the one-year plan and its objectives. We got back the kinds of answers we went looking for. We got back information which included the opinions of supervisory-level managers regarding the objectives they were comfortable biting off that first year. But we got one more thing. One very important thing. Something we didn't go looking for. And that was motivation. The supervisorylevel managers said things like "We're working for a professional organization we're planning." It seemed that the planning process spread motivation throughout the company.

But it wasn't the planning process, per se, that encouraged motivation. The supervisorylevel managers weren't "turned on" to their company simply because their executives were planning. Rather they were turned on because their executives asked them "what do you think?" Their executives demonstrated they cared about their supervisors' opinion. Communication leads to motivation and, in turn, to successful implementation. You can also encourage implementation through linking your strategic plan to your operational plan. You can ask each manager responsible for a specific strategy to take that strategy back to his or her department. And there, ask those employees who will implement the strategy to develop tactics or "action steps." Askthem to assign responsibility for each tactic; to set due dates; to project required resources. But what about strategies which require the collective efforts of two or more departments to implement? Those are a bit more complex. Here, each department must still develop its own list of action steps. But each department must also consider the action steps of the other departments on which its own performance is dependent. For example, a strategy calling for development of a new product would involve efforts (action steps) by the R&D, marketing and production departments the activities of each clearly dependent on those of the other two. To implement such strategies, management must encourage interdepartment communication, understanding and cooperation. To successfully implement your strategy, monitoring is an absolute necessity. Your department managers must monitor their tactical plans. And your executive planning team must monitor the strategic plan. That way, if the strategy isn't happening, you can consider your options changing the strategy, changing its implementation, or changing its due date. Finally, you should watch for opportunities to "fine tune" your planning process. This will help with implementation of your strategies in later years. You might, for example, at the third quarterly review of our strategic plan, take a little extra time to discuss the planning process. To look back on your strategy development sessions. To ask, "what went well?" And "what didn't?" And "what changes might we suggest for next time around?" Changes to improve the plan. To improve its implementation. To "fine tune" your planning process so it better fits your company's specific needs

IMPLEMENTATION: The Selling Process and Performance Measures

The selling process map A customer relationship is the result of two or more independent processes combining and groups of people interacting. Two processes always present in any customer relationship are the selling process of the vendor and the customers buying process. Other processes can be involved if other parties are involved in the relationship for buying, selling, implementing, or supporting the products. Unlike manufacturing environments that are set up to control the entire fabrication process, Sales can only try to influence the actions of the prospect. Even in executing the fundamentals of its selling process, Sales must accommodate the needs of the prospects

buying process. This points to why many veterans insist that selling is an art and that talent is what sells. Insofar as art is a medium to convey knowledge, meaning, and emotion, salespeople indeed educate and create interpersonal rapport, trust, and confidence with prospects. They must certainly inspire emotional desire in the prospect to want to commit to a relationship. Yet, as a repeating business operating function, there is also mechanical process or science underlying selling. A sales manager once described selling as being like a bicycle. The gears, chain, sprockets, pedals, frame, and wheels are the process the bicycles capability and capacity. However, the steering, balancing and quality of energy powering it thats talent. The selling process map is a common framework for guiding and measuring selling workflow through the sales pipeline. Development of the map started with Trailer Vavricka, Inc. facilitating a two-day session for the salesforce to map its own bestmethods selling process. This identified and captured what seemed to produce the most consistent closing and best quality of customer results. The salesforce defined six macro-steps to their selling process. Each step contains an objective (what it is designed to accomplish), a desired result (how to determine the objective is accomplished), and two subsets of detail step actions that usually lead to achieving the desired result. One set of actions list what the selling team generally needs to accomplish, while the other set lays out what the prospects buying team typically needs to do at each point in the cycle. In the same session, the group also derived their prospect quality criteria, set its team operating rules for using the process consistently, and loaded their pipeline database with all current sales-in-process. This produced a unanimously agreed upon selling process in sufficient detail to serve as the common structure to meaningfully measure operating performance for each individual territory and every management level.
.1997 Trailer Vavricka, Inc. Solana Beach, CA 858-755-1994 All Rights Reserved 11

Sales operating performance measures Performance measures can show how effectively the combination of process and talent is operating as in Figure 6, which shows pipeline revenue input rate. The performance measures can also identify significant changes in performance as they start to occur and the pipelines bottlenecks. With such early warning signals, sales, marketing, and support managers will be able to take timely action to keep the revenue production in control and more predictable.
PIPELINE INPUT REVENUE RATE - PERCENT FULL Figure 6

Managers reasoned that implementing sales process performance measures would enhance four fundamental management capabilities. They would provide all three CARE departments with quantified operational feedback, fact-based understanding, and clear requirements for: 1. Maintaining the production of sales revenue on-target to current FY budget goals; 2. Increasing sales production capacity at least a sales cycle length ahead of when increased sales targets call for greater monthly output;

3. Continuously improving the processes within each CARE department, as well as the daily execution of them, to increase operating capability; 4. Synchronizing the CARE departments to operate as a single team, with the common goal of optimizing the overall operating performance of the sales revenue generation system. Sales process performance measures would also directly support the salesperson, whos role was defined as a Territory Business Manager, responsible for: 1. Producing 100% or more of the current FYs assigned quarterly revenue targets;

REVENUE INPUT RATE New Opportunities

20 25 30 35 40 45 50 21-Oct 12-Nov 27-Nov 9-Dec 23-Dec 7-Jan 21-Jan 3-Feb 18-Feb 2-Mar 17-Mar 30-Mar 14-Apr 27-Apr 11-May

Dave's Territory Direct Pipeline

***A L E R T*** INPUT RATE FALLING

.1997 Trailer Vavricka, Inc. Solana Beach, CA 858-755-1994 All Rights Reserved 11

PIPELINE INPUT REVENUE RATE - PERCENT FULL Figure 6

.1997 Trailer Vavricka, Inc. Solana Beach, CA 858-755-1994 All Rights Reserved 12

2. Developing a continuous business pipeline flow adequate to meet the monthly revenue targets across fiscal quarters and fiscal year boundaries - with 100% customer satisfaction; 3. Improving quarterly forecast accuracy to within +/- 15% of actual. Due to the dynamically changing status of each pipelines performance and capacity, everyones measures need to be recalculated each week, in order for the feedback graphs to effectively reveal changes in performance. The following measures were selected to monitor the performance of the sales process with respect to the given objective. Producing 100% or more of the quarterly revenue targets Input revenue flow per month is the amount of new revenue needed by each pipeline, and would be calculated according to how the territorys pipeline was actually operating. For example, a pipeline operating at a 20% close rate with a

$100K/month quota would need $500K of new input each month to keep its flow going; but only $250K if its close rate had improved to 40%. New sales project quality is another key leading performance indicator, along with input revenue flow. Better quality prospects typically close at significantly higher rates, taking less average cycle time. The opposite is true for poorer quality prospects. To develop a consistent way to measure the relative quality of each prospect opportunity, salespeople agreed on the top five most important determinants of a prospects quality. These criteria went beyond merely arbitrary demographics into the characteristics most germane to forming a long-term customer relationship. A rating scale of 5 to +5 was used for each criteria. This measure showed the average quality of the input stream as well as the overall pipeline contents. Close rate by process step is the calculated probability to close from each step of the sales process, for each pipeline. This is also used in calculating several other measures such as input rate, pipeline %full, and projected output. Pipeline %full shows whether the revenue of sales-in-process is enough to support the monthly revenue objective. This is a good indicator of how healthy the pipeline is according to its current close probability, cycle time, and its volume-inprocess capacity. Figure 7 is an example of a performance chart. Average project revenue size is calculated across all the sales projects currently in a pipeline. Revenue growth can be significantly increased by the pipelines population of prospects becoming larger in average size, requiring a lower total number of projects to be found and worked. In the companys case, it takes almost the same amount of effort and time to win a small contract as it does for a large one.
.1997 Trailer Vavricka, Inc. Solana Beach, CA 858-755-1994 All Rights Reserved 13

Output revenue percent to fiscal quarter target is simply the actual revenue recognized per fiscal quarter as a percentage of the territorys revenue quota for the same quarter. This is the traditionally used results measure.
SAMPLE PERFORMANCE CHART Figure 7

Developing a continuous adequate pipeline flow Pipeline forecast projection by month and YTD cumulative position shows the salesperson and manager how the current pipeline contents, will probably flow out in future months and accumulate in YTD revenue. This is based on the individual performance measures of each pipeline, giving each person a relevant picture of where they stand and are likely to be in future months. Everyone can see whether their projected sales revenue position is below or above their target. The projection spans fiscal period boundaries to keep visible the need to maintain continuity in each pipelines adequate flow at all times. Cycle time by process step is the total time in weeks that the average sales project takes to go through the pipelines sales process steps. Steps with large time sinks should be candidates for investigating what is causing delays to see if the process can be improved. Cycle time is also used in calculating several other measures such as projected revenue output, pipeline %full, and course correction. A sample chart is shown by Figure 8.
Pipeline %FULL -- Control Chart

Joe's Territory (compared to Western Region Avg. Territory)

30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 2-Feb 9-Feb 16-Feb 23-Feb 2-Mar 9-Mar 16-Mar 23-Mar 30-Mar 6-Apr 13-Apr 20-Apr 27-Apr 4-May 11-May 18-May 25-May 1-Jun 8-Jun 15-Jun

Direct Pipeline
Region upper control limit Region lower control limit Region mean Joe's Territory Region Avg. Territory

.1997 Trailer Vavricka, Inc. Solana Beach, CA 858-755-1994 All Rights Reserved 14

SELLING CYCLE TIME COMPARISON CHART Figure 8

%Fall-out by process step shows the portion of potential revenue of sales projects that were lost or otherwise scrapped out of the pipeline. Large portions of fall-out early in the sales cycle usually points to low or misgauged prospect quality, whereas late in the process, it suggests a need for selling process or execution improvement. Reducing fall-out has the effect of raising the close rate and reducing overall average cycle time. Moving fall-out forward in the sales cycle prevents wasting time and resources on future scrap, enabling them to be applied to better opportunities. This can raise the close rate and improve sales volume. A sample chart is shown by Figure 9.
REVENUE FALL-OUT BY PROCESS STEP Figure 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Step1 Step2 Step3 Step4 Step5 Step6 Weeks You Sales Force Average

Current Cycle Time by Sales Process Step

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40%

Step1 Step2 Step3 Step4 Step5 Step6 % of Total FALL-OUT You Sales Force Mean

FALL-OUT of Revenue By Sales Cycle Step

.1997 Trailer Vavricka, Inc. Solana Beach, CA 858-755-1994 All Rights Reserved 15

The fall-out in each step can also be analyzed by competitor, product, industry segment, and selling team. The patterns of fall-out can provide insight into what is causing it and how it might be reduced. Similar analysis can be done on closed opportunities to see where particular people or approaches are stronger, so those tactics can be deployed to all territories. Improving quarterly forecast accuracy Quarterly forecast accuracy is measured by the difference between forecast and actual revenue as a percentage of the forecast. The forecast is what was predicted as of the last day of the previous fiscal quarter. Each quarterly period is calculated each month on a rolling quarterly basis.

IMPLEMENTATION: Consistent Daily Use and Feedback

Management consistently encouraged all the salespeople to adopt and regularly execute the sales process procedures as a daily habit. The goal was to establish the process as a standard framework for managing sales opportunities as individual projects. Management felt this framework would accelerate getting every salesperson up to a high level of selling competency and provide managers with the information they needed to become effective coaches. Managers reinforced the process orientation by using the sales process as the context for every sales opportunity discussion, resource and quotation request, forecasting, planning and debriefing every sales call, and all interfacing of the field with marketing, inside sales, technical consulting services, and customer support groups. The sales force information system was upgraded to incorporate the mapped sales process steps, prospect quality criteria rating, pipeline per territory, and to regularly capture the needed data on all sales project movement through closing or fall-out. The system would serve as the companys sustaining mechanism for deploying the cultural continuation of its best process behaviors throughout the involved departments. Management felt the sales measurement and management system would provide the degree of control it needed and had never had before. The sales management system needed to have algorithms built into it to make the

performance measurements each weekend for each remote salesperson, up through the consolidated VP Sales level. The system would have to: Measure the chosen vital signs of in-process sales revenue production flow, and show statistically significant changes and forming trends in actual operating performance; Provide on demand the sales forecast projection based on the actual operating statistics as measured each week; Report the measures graphically so everyone could easily understand and monitor performance. Due to limited internal programming resources, implementing a complete sales management system with these capabilities was going to take much longer than management desired. To get started as quickly as possible, an interim system was put in
.1997 Trailer Vavricka, Inc. Solana Beach, CA 858-755-1994 All Rights Reserved 16

place to measure the pipelines for current territories and the aggregate national pipeline. Tools such as Excels database query, pivot table, and graphing were used to summarize the data and track changes in the operating measures. Although not as sophisticated as the new sales management system would be, the patchwork system was capable of providing reliable performance measures. Each remote salesperson had a computer, which would automatically send all sales project updates made each week to the central database. Salespeople made up a common set of system updating procedures so they all understood how to consistently use the sales process and do timely and accurate system updating as sales projects progressed. This made the data very complete and reliable.

IMPACT ON OPERATING PERFORMANCE

The sales operation was able to increase both its headcount and output rate over the first two quarters of Year 2. The YTD performance measurements of Figure 10 show an interesting picture of current sales operating conditions and reveal the challenge for attaining the next two quarters sales targets.
IMPACT ON PERFORMANCE - FROM YEAR 1 TO YEAR 2 Figure 10

The most striking improvement is the close rate jumping from 14% in Year 1 to 31% for the first two quarters of Year 2. This was partially due to improved selling effectiveness, resulting from everyone using the best methods selling process. Also, the executive management team relentlessly assisted the salespeople in actively meeting with prospects

Operating Performance Year 1

(end 4th Qtr.)

Year 2
(end 2nd Qtr.)

Input Prospect Quality (-5 to +5) -2 0 Pipeline %Full Next Cycle Length 33% 60% Sales Cycle Length 6.1 mos 5.0 mos Close Rate Field Sales Pipeline 14% 31% Average Project Revenue Size $73,000 $98,700 Output Revenue % of Goal

(at a 300% growth rate in Year 2) 101% 87% YTD Relative sales level 100% 240% Quarterly Forecast Accuracy +/- 58% +/- 11% Turnover in Sales Personnel 33% 9% New Salesperson Ramp-up Time 6 mos 4 mos % Customers Referenceable 99% 99%
.1997 Trailer Vavricka, Inc. Solana Beach, CA 858-755-1994 All Rights Reserved 17

by traveling to prospect sites and hosting prospects during their visits to the company. However, Q3s revenue target is 40% higher than Q2s. Besides that, counting on maintaining the 31% closing rate without improving selling capability in some fashion was risky. Accordingly, sales management began formal sales opportunity reviews and initiated planning for all above average size sales projects that moved into the solution demonstration phase of the selling process. Although new field sales people are quickly becoming competent to manage system sales as a result of the structured selling process and better training, they are having difficulty keeping their pipelines full. The companys initial effort to fill the pipelines was centered on beefing up the inside sales groups capacity. They were being counted on to find and follow-up more of marketings general leads in order to stock the new territory pipelines as new salespeople were hired. While this helped fill the national pipeline, all the newer territories were far behind their objectives going into Q3. Average prospect quality, cycle time, and project revenue size have also improved. Another important contribution to performance improvement is through the reduction in turnover. When turnover is low, the territory development effort can be continuous with most management time being dedicated to coaching instead of repeated hiring and training. Quarterly forecast accuracy has greatly improved so far for Year 2. However, the hockey stick nature of more than 70 % of the closed revenue coming in the last month of the quarter, is restraining managements confidence in overall revenue predictability. It is also costing the company in having to discount, provide special terms, and give away normally fee training and services to get orders closed before the end of the quarter. There has been a large amount of slippage in expected close dates and revenue (additional operating performance measures), but this appears to be more of a problem with estimating than with operations performance or customer behavior. Rules for the salesforce to consistently estimate project revenue as well as close date, and close probability are being instituted to decrease the estimating errors. What is now crystal clear to management is that new territory marketing cultivation has a 1-2 sales cycle lag time (5-10 months) before it can establish an adequate input flow of qualified prospects. In Q1 of Year 2, Marketing started a rudimentary on-going contact pattern for any prospects field salespeople or inside sales provided to them. They are now starting Q3 with resources to launch support for larger scale, multiple-contact-pointsperprospect cultivation of each territory. Unfortunately this will take about the next two

quarters to really kick in. Until then, the salespeople will have to employ guerrilla prospecting tactics in an all out effort to get enough prospects into their developing pipelines to make revenue targets for this year and be in position to start next year at full pace. Some specific instances where the performance measures were instrumental in initiating corrective or other actions to improve performance are given below.
.1997 Trailer Vavricka, Inc. Solana Beach, CA 858-755-1994 All Rights Reserved 18

1. At the end of the 4th quarter of Year 1, the Sales VP saw that the revenue projection based on the systems calculated performance data showed that the next two quarters were going to fall far short of objectives. This was in contrast to his own estimates that were based on a much rosier picture. He called an emergency meeting with the Marketing and Inside Sales managers to develop a plan for keeping the pipelines full with a steady stream of new prospects. They worked out an approach to target the top 50 potential customers in each territory for sustained cultivation - combining specifically designed direct mail, seminars, and teleselling programs. This increased the Pipeline %Full measure 20 points, making achievement of the sales goals at least a realistic possibility. 2. The Inside Sales group contacts raw sales prospects to determine which are worth passing on to the field. In an effort to increase the number of prospects getting into the pipelines, the Inside Sales manager put incentives in place in some groups. The incentives were based on the number of prospects each Inside salesperson passed on to the field. Two weeks later, the pipeline showed a marked increase in prospects, but prospect quality, as assessed by the salespeople, also showed a sharp decline. Quality was apparently suffering in favor of quantity. This was confirmed by a more detailed analysis, which showed the drop in quality was happening only in the areas that were under the incentive plan. The incentive plan was subverting the primary purpose of Inside Sales, which was to screen out poor quality prospects so they would not waste the field salespeople's time. To prevent this, the incentive plan was changed to include prospect quality criteria and subtract prospects rejected by the field as poor quality. Prospect quality quickly got back to normal with little decrease in prospect volume. Had the quality measures not been present, it undoubtedly would have taken several months for the quality problem to become evident. 3. At one point, the Southern Regions' close rate was 14% lower than the average. Investigation showed the largest cause of the problem was the quality of customers that could be used as references and for getting referrals into other companies in the region. Surveys of the key accounts for referrals revealed that most of them were only using about 20% of the product's capability, which was certainly not resulting in highly satisfied references and great referrals. A customer CARE team was formed to raise the customers' level of understanding of the system's scope and everything that it could do. As a result, the key customers began additional training and implementation efforts, quickly realizing significantly greater benefits and return on their investment. In return, they became very strong references and referral generators for the Southern Region, speaking to prospects one-on-one and through organized sales seminars. This increased the region's overall close rate by 17% in the ensuing five months. 4. A Western Region sales rep had the largest amount of pipeline fall-out, most of

which was happening on the last step of the sales process. He also had the lowest
.1997 Trailer Vavricka, Inc. Solana Beach, CA 858-755-1994 All Rights Reserved 19

closing rate of anyone in the region. The sales rep and the regional manager examined what was happening and concluded that the primary cause of the problem was poor execution in getting to upper management in the selling process. Querying the system, the regional manager then identified other salespeople across the company who had high close rates and the least fall-out in the last steps of the pipeline. Along with the other regional managers, they were then surveyed to determine what techniques for getting to and selling to upper management worked best for them. This included telephone scripts, questions asked of customers, benefit statements, article reprints, meeting agendas and formats to run meetings. In six months, the sales rep's close rate was above the regional average and his last step fall-out was reduced 70%. In this case, the performance measurement system not only identified a specific problem; it told management where to look for the solution. Without the performance information being available, identifying and correcting the problem would have taken much longer - probably at least another year, if ever. The sales training manager is organizing this into an education module for the regional managers to present to all salespeople to improve everyones performance.

IMPACT ON THE ORGANIZATION

The companys CARE departments, along with the executive committee, have become galvanized in their effort to contribute to the company achieving the needed operating performance improvements. Everyone is focused on finding ways to improve their individual performance in order to support the team effort. The performance measurements have been instrumental in helping management to understand and zero in on what areas in the CARE process would contribute most to improving the Companys revenue production performance. Having the common, factbased picture of what is happening in sales operations has enabled more rapid concurrence on deciding what needs to be done, priorities, and who needs to do it. Both inter-department and management-worker unity has noticeably improved as a result of having common objectives, clear responsibilities, and reliable, objective performance information. Departments are operating as a team and all members are playing with heart. The quality of the culture is itself improving even amidst the demands, strains, and pains of rapid growth. As investments in continued process improvement, management decided, among other items, to: Build up the Inside Sales infrastructure and hire a manager to analyze their process and continuously improve its capability to provide qualified prospects to all field pipelines. Utilize Inside Sales as a filter to prevent field salespeople from wasting their limited selling time and resources running after sub-quality prospects which
.1997 Trailer Vavricka, Inc. Solana Beach, CA 858-755-1994 All Rights Reserved 20

salespeople tend to do when thats all they have available. Hire vertical market industry experts to build specialized marketing plans, produce education programs for field personnel, develop customized solution demos, and

generate other initiatives. Implement sales opportunity reviews and planning sessions where a salesperson and manager will formally review sales projects that are near closing to develop comprehensive selling plans to win the business. Develop a customer reference system to enable quick identification of available references that match the prospect's profile and track reference usage, actual involvement, and effectiveness. Add more field system engineers to team with salespeople in custom demo modeling of prospects selling, marketing, and support processes. A considerable operating benefit of the measurement system will be better predictability of when and what business will be materializing. Armed with this information, department managers will be able to make better staffing and training decisions further ahead of when the business will actually materialize. This is how the company sees it will be able to better maintain the quality of the internal work environment and 100% customer satisfaction. Potential System Improvements The information system currently has several additional enhancements underway to add other key performance measurements and expand the reporting capabilities to include control charting of all the weekly performance measurements. New measures will include: Sales process step and step action execution tracking across sales projects. Close date and revenue slippage. Rolling 1-6 month forecast accuracy. Rate of flow within each pipeline. Project age tracking to identify where action/scrap/recycle decisions must be made. Correcting additional input revenue amounts needed each month to compensate for projected revenue shortfalls in each territory. Control charting the weekly performance measurements helps put each week into the context of all the previous weeks. Seeing the series of performance points graphed over time shows the natural band of variation around its normal average. In the same way for each territory and managers pipeline, control charts detect and give exception ALERT signals for taking timely corrective action. There will also be better ways to analyze closed and fall-out projects for finding the largest areas for potential improvement and identifying where better methods are emerging which can be used to improve performance.
.1997 Trailer Vavricka, Inc. Solana Beach, CA 858-755-1994 All Rights Reserved 21

Marketing will begin to directly help improve field close rates for each product line by looking across the territories for standout patterns in effectiveness against particular competitors in specific industry segments. Marketing will then collect the best methods, documenting where each fits best within the standard sales process. These changes will then be sent to all salespeople as they begin pursuing opportunities fitting those profiles. Product line performance data will also help better manage the decision process for introducing new products and deleting non-productive ones.

CONCLUSIONS
Although there are many improvements to be made to the sales performance measurement and management systems, some firm conclusions can be drawn from this study: 1. Selling is a production process that can be measured. It may not be possible to measure sales as precisely as a manufacturing process, but the process can be measured well enough to give management relevant, useful, and timely information for making operating and strategic decisions. 2. The performance measures that were developed made a significant contribution to improving performance throughout the sales process. Management had to make the decisions and take action, but there is no question that the performance measures were effective in identifying problems on a timely basis and also in helping to solve them. 3. Using a structured process framework and performance measures had no negative effects on performance or morale. Instead, the effects were all positive. Most of this can be attributed to the leadership of the companys top management, but this experience illustrates there is nothing inherently objectionable about measuring individual and group performance in sales and marketing.
This case study is reprinted in the book titled

Ten Benefits of Sales Lead Management When it comes to sales, everything starts with a lead. They come from everywhere, and missing out on one could make or break the salesperson or the company. Valuable time is spent obtaining those leads through marketing and other efforts; however, the leads are only as good as the company or salespersons ability to respond appropriately and move them through the sales process. However, many managers do not take into account the different ways that people work and organize their information. Salespeople develop their own systems and eventually the process of managing leads gets lost in the shuffle when managing relationships and other sales concerns. Fortunately, there are businesses out there who recognize this flaw and have developed programs for better sales lead management, an integral part of customer relationship management (CRM). Here we have outlined ten benefits of sales lead management programs that can help get your business back on track. 1.Act on every lead Getting systems in place to organize leads helps the sales force know who has been contacted and who has not. This ensures that leads do not fall through the cracks and potential leads are not annoyed by multiple contacts.

2.Bring the Focus Back to Selling Instead of sales representatives using precious time to make endless cold calls and trying to find accounts, the accounts can come to them. More focus is placed on selling the product and making the sale. With everyone online instead of on paper, information is readily accessible and time is left for reps to do what they do bestsell. 3.Find trends in sales Separate your leads by business type, location, referrals, occupation, etc. You are able to determine their needs and sell them the right products. When a lead sees that their customers needs are being met and cared for, they are more likely to continue in the selling process. 4.Match leads with the right salesperson Different salespeople have different approaches to how they do business. Some are good with certain types of business and others provide better service working directly with individuals. With a lead management product in place, you are able to route leads to the salesperson who best fits and knows their needs. 5.Analyze sales and forecast for the future Many lead management programs keep a history of the entire sales process, from initial contact to closing the sale, including sales history. You are able to work with your reps on how to improve, while making sure customers are taken care of at the same time. 6.Encourage collaboration and teamwork With lead management services, reps are able to see how they are doing, as well as everyone else. Reps can find and learn about recent deals similar to theirs and work with others on what they can do to improve. 7.Get your sales force face-to-face with leads With the focus back on selling and not on cold calls, reps will have time to meet personally with leads and customers, developing long lasting relationships that cannot be obtained through e-mail and phone calls. And because all of the information is online and not on a single computer, they can work from anywhere and update information as it happens. 8.Customize the program to fit your needs It is undeniable that different businesses have different needs, so lead management products allow you to customize the look and feel of the service how you see fit.

9.Monitor interactions at every step Eliminate the need for lengthy meetings. Every interaction a rep has with a lead can be recorded, so managers can monitor how everyone is doing whenever and wherever you need. 10.Lead information is uniform and comprehensive

The 5 Biggest Sales Management Blunders

AHiring a sales staff for your small business comes with the responsibility to provide effective
sales management. Learn the biggest sales management blunders and how you can avoid them.

1. Mixing Recognition with Coaching: One common sales management blunder is to congratulate your sales force for a job well done and quickly move to areas of improvement. This tactic can often be interpreted by sales staff as a lack of appreciation. A best practice is to separate the recognition from the coaching. Save the performance improvement areas for coaching sessions. Set up separate recognition of your sales rep success even if it's a small celebration. It's the little gestures of respect and celebrations of achievement that gain the hearts and minds of the sales force. 2.No Sales Plan: Another common sales management blunder is not developing a sales plan to help manage the sales team. A successful sales team requires regular planning tracking, and review to achieve the targeted results. Every sales rep requires their own action plan to direct day-to-day activities and set up accountabilities. All sales plans have at least 3 requirements: Sales Rep Development: Where most plans fail is they are developed by the sales manager not the sales rep. To ensure a high level of plan acceptance, have the rep develop the plan and guide them toward the right objectives. Regular Reporting: Sales plans should be established on a weekly basis to provide flexibility in the planning cycle. Reviewing can take place on a monthly basis. Sales management excellence involves reviewing the results against the plan to determine missed opportunities and areas for improvement. Sales Metrics: A successful sales plan focuses on results and activities. Establish the proper sales metrics to drive your business results. Metrics can include: number of client phone calls, number of contacts, appointments set, appointments conducted and sales closed. Do not overwhelm your sales staff with excessive tracking numbers. Focus on the few measures that matter the most to your business. 3. No Sales Support: A common sales management blunder is to hire a sales person without providing them with the level of support required to succeed. Even if your new rep is wellversed in your industry and a top performer, they will still require help to familiarize themselves with your company, products, and markets.

voiding Sales Management BlundersNot all sales reps require the same level of support.
For many small business owners, a hands-off approach to sales management is not the best strategy. Successful sales management requires a commitment to sales force training. Regardless of the size of your firm, an investment in sales training and support can pay big dividends on profitability. Spending the time one-on-one and in the field with your sales team will not only provide support but convey a sense of the importance of sales people in your organization. 4. Focus on Control Sales Management: Many new and unsuccessful sales managers will focus on the traditional sales management by intimidation or control approach. The top sales performers know they have a valuable skill set and will quickly walk to a competitor if treated poorly. Sales management is a partnership between the sales rep and the sales manager. Effective sales management requires sharing in the responsibility to find the problems and bottlenecks in your sales process. Seek the solution together with your reps. Be a champion for helping them achieve their agreed results. 5. Lack of Sales Accountability: There will be times when sales reps fail regardless of the support and training they receive. It is easy to pass off the lack of results to external forces such as competitors, the economy, or poor marketing. Remember the sales rep was hired to bring in sales. When support, training, and market potential are available, a lack of results often means it's the rep's performance. Who is responsible for the lack of performance? Your sales management program. If your small business lacks a clear policy of sales accountability, it remains your responsibility to implement the process. Creating a culture of sales accountability will not happen overnight. Expect to lose sales staff. Sales reps who have under performed and will not accept personal responsibility for their own results, will leave. This is a good thing. A sales accountability culture only accepts top performers; exactly what your business needs to survive in a competitive market. Other big sales management blunders do exist. It is vital to have an honest feedback system in place. Alan J. Zell, "The Ambassador of Selling" feels "most sales managers do not have a system of feedback that will allow the staff to have a way to comment back to the sales manager without the fear of being chastised or being known as a complainer." Growing a small business is hard work. The sales management function is often overlooked by small business owners. Spending the necessary time wearing your sales manager hat will help foster a rewarding culture and build a successful sales team to boost your business to new levels.

o you always know how to approach them.