Every month I receive a variety of questions from salespeople and their managers. These come from a variety of sources - my live seminars, the monthly phone seminars, questions that are sent into my newsletter, and issues that arise in the course of my consulting work. Out of all of these, I select those that I think have the most universal application, and respond to them here.
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Being a branch manager and having 6 reps and no sales manager, how do you delegate
Begin with clear expectations. What you expect the salesperson to do ought not to be a secret, nor a matter for negotiations. |
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However, those situations are rare. If you relieve most salespeople of the clerical details, they'll typically spend more time with their customers. And that enlargement of their " sales time" will bring greater productivity and increased sales. This is particularly true of experienced and successful salespeople who pay the price of their success with more and more " management responsibility" of their territory's details. The more successful they become, the more details they inherit.
So, the first question to ask is, " Would your salespeople be more productive if they were relieved of the clerical details?" If you think the answer is " yes" then why not arrange the structure to accommodate that? In other words, hire a sales administrator who can work with the salespeople to relieve them of the details.
Keep track of the resulting increase in sales productivity to make sure that the position will pay for itself. With six salespeople, you ought to be able to support at least a half-time person.
With that change, hopefully you'll deal with a lot of the " requests." The next thing to do is become trained in our Kahle Way® Sales Management System, which teaches you how to substitute " strategic accountability" conversations with your salespeople for the daily " tactical" discussions which often mark the type of communication between a salesperson and a manager. This will reduce the frequency of " requests" from your salespeople, and yet keep you in the loop.
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If you have any comments or questions, email them to me. I do, of course, reserve the right to edit
Here are a few articles by Dave
that you might be interested in reading:
- What's the Best Way to Find a Good Salesperson... Good question! It seems that everyone has a favorite response. Some people only use recruiters, and others swear by networking. But classified ads continue to be the most common choice. Almost everyone who hires salespeople will, at some time, search for prospects via the "help wanted" section.... {Read More}
- Is it Time to Revise Your Sales Compensation Plan?... If you're paying your sales reps straight commission, you're using an obsolete formula. If you're paying your sales reps a straight salary, you're also using an obsolete formula. Read this article to find out a much more effective way to compensate your sales staff.... {Read More}
- How to Deal with the Salesperson Who Has Leveled Off... Every manager has, or will, confront this troublesome issue. Itīs arisen in every workshop for sales managers or branch managers Iīve done. One or more of your salespeople has leveled off. Their performance hasnīt improved much in the last few years. Where before you were able to count on significant increases each year, now you can not. You know that these experienced salespeople can do better, but they seem unable or unwilling to break out of a certain level of performance. You are scratching your head, frustrated, and loosing sleep at night wondering how to improve the situation. What do you do?... {Read More}