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.
Transforming Your Sales Force for the 21st Century The book, written for sales managers and executives in the distribution industry, provides a blue print for executives to transform their sales forces into highly directable, effective, focused performers. more info
How to Create a Win/Win Sales Compensation Plan Make use of this program to guide you through the process of creating a winning sales compensation plan, reduce your risks, and ensure that you make the best decisions. Let Dave show you how to create a win/win formula. more info
We're faced with many of our customers being very slow about paying their bills. What would you suggest?
FREE 30-page "Handling Objections" workbook. Just join Dave's information packed "Thinking About Sales" ezine, also FREE!
This is one of those times where the saying, "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" is very appropriate.
Have face-to-face conversations with your slow-pay customers, and require your salespeople to do the same. At those meetings, lay out the issue - the company, your customer, is not paying their bills according to your terms. Stress how important it is to you to have the bills paid on time.
Then try to gain a commitment from the customer to a specific time frame and payment schedule to bring them up to terms.
You may have to develop some creative solutions, and you may have to visit or call a number of times.
I believe that in slow economic times this is an important role for salespeople to play. Keeping close communication with the accounts payable department of your customers is an appropriate task for a salesperson. Not only will you improve the company's cash flow, but you'll have a better reading on the financial status of your customers.
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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}
There are also many other action-packed articles for sales professionals that offer how-to solutions to every day sales problems that you can read online at www.davekahle.com/article.htm.
