Managing Your Sales Team for Results

Overview

This Short Course is designed to cover all the key aspects of leading and managing a sales force, by providing you with the necessary knowledge and skills to develop your sales team to maximum potential. It deals with best practice sales force management, leadership, motivation and planning on both a strategic and operational level.

Topics Covered

The Sales Force and Best Practices
- Leadership, strategy and systems

The Various Roles of the Sales Manager
- Sales managers 'wear several hats'
- Good sales managers are not only skilled salespeople, they are leaders, strategists motivators and negotiators

Characteristics of Effective Sales Managers
- Good Sales Managers not only have business skills, but also people skills, communication skills and the ability to conceptualise and innovate

Sales Manager’s Decision Areas
- Selection of sales people
- Organisation of the sales force
- Sales planning
- Forecasting and budgeting
- Training and development

The Importance of Planning
- Strategic and operational planning

The Sales Planning Process
- Different types of plans
- Creating the sales plan
- Sales forecasting methods
- Measuring and monitoring progress

Building the Sales Team
- Identifying, recruiting and interviewing winners
- Writing the job description
- Understanding sales team dynamics
- Developing the team to achieve optimum results
- Preventing non performance through evaluation and measurement
- Instilling a customer service culture

The Sales Manager as an Administrator
- Time and territory management
- Conducting successful sales meetings
- Reports, records and managing from a distance
- Handling change in the marketplace

The Sales Manager as Teacher, Trainer, Coach and Mentor
- Never stop training
- Carrying out a training needs analysis
- Creating the sales training plan

Training Budgets
- How and when to coach, counsel or mentor
- Measuring the effect of training

The Sales Manager as a Motivator
- Understanding different types of motivation
- Motivating yourself and the team
- Remuneration and incentive plans

Who should attend

• Those who are responsible for managing a sales force
• Newly appointed sales managers
• Sales representatives aspiring to a sales management position
• Business owners or Managers who have salespeople reporting to them but do not have a formal sales background and wish to gain greater understanding of the sales management function

Outcomes

• You will have gained the knowledge to enable you to successfully lead, manage and motivate your sales force to achieve clearly defined and measurable results
• You will have a clear idea of the various roles and responsibilities of The Sales Manager and have acquired tools and techniques to use in each of these roles
• You will be able to assess the current skill levels of your own sales force, and introduce training and planning techniques to ensure continuous improvement in both the sales process and the performance and capabilities of the sales force