LEADERSHIP SERIES: Research suggests that Sales Leadership is the difference maker between good performance and superior performance. And how sales leaders embrace five essential roles is critical to the success of their teams. We hope you find this series of short informal discussions around sales leadership useful and thought-provoking.
The Ins and Outs of Territory Growth Planning
Often, when a group of sales managers get together,
one of the common concerns they express to each other is how few of
their salespeople come close to truly meeting their potential…
and many are challenged by meeting the goals and expectations that
have been set for them. Certainly, this is a big problem in all
walks of business, and especially in the selling profession. But
what many of these managers fail to see is their own role in the
difficulty. That is, they never fully express what it is they
expect their salespeople to do, beyond possibly giving them their
financial objective, and most certainly don’t take the time to get
the producers’ input on those goals. When you stop and think about
it, that doesn’t really make a lot of sense; you have to
have plans for your salespeople if you want
them to achieve those plans. That’s where
territory growth planning comes in. Sometime in the near future,
sit down with each and every one of the salespeople on your staff,
and make a set of goals that you mutually agree upon. These should
be more than simple sales figures. Make sure you note the number of
target accounts you both believe can be opened, the number of
prospecting calls you want them to have completed, etc. Although a
lot of sales managers never even go that far, it’s not nearly far
enough. You can’t just verbalize the sales goals, or have them
written on a piece of paper. To make them into reality, you have to
follow up. For that reason, we recommend having a meeting every
once in a while, every three or six months for example,
specifically geared towards territory growth planning. In this
meeting, you let each of your salespeople formally present their
plans for meeting their goals. In other words, you asked them to
explain exactly how they are going to meet the goals that the two
of you have set together. And then comes the easy part: every few
months, you get together to review progress on their plan. This
isn’t new advice, per se; as the old adage goes: “inspect what you
expect.” But what makes it different, and what’s so hard for a lot
of sales managers to accept and understand is that, over time, your
salespeople will actually start to look forward to these meetings.
Why is that? Because they aren’t concerned with you asking them to
do something anymore – they already know what’s expected. Instead,
they’re looking to you for help, feedback, and encouragement to
keep making progress. Sales reviews are only stressful, for you or
your salespeople, when they don’t know what to expect, or don’t
have the tools to meet the quotas that have been set for them. Bear
that in mind and make territory growth planning meetings a regular
part of your sales management routine. It might be a little
different than what you’re used to at first, but you’ll be
surprised at what sort of difference they can make. © Sales
Effectiveness, Inc. – All rights reserved
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