How Not To Manage Sales. 3 Basic Mistakes

How can even the best plan to increase sales get a headache?

The problems usually do not arise from the fact that someone has not worked hard but from the fact that management in the company has failed. When everything looks perfect on paper but is not working properly, check if you are not making one of these basic mistakes!

Managing only with results

When we go to a dietitian to help us lose weight, we expect him to do more than just “tell” us to lose 5 kilos. We need a person who will supervise and correct the entire process during it, right?

The same applies to sales management. The boss cannot just give orders and count on a miracle. It is especially dangerous when someone who sets the goals to be achieved does not know how the team’s work is going and does not participate in its activities because then their expectations are usually unrealistic. And the blame for not meeting them falls on the marketers, or worse, and both sides pretend not to see the failures.

The complete lack of an action plan

Imagine a team has a house to build. Taking into account the pace of their work so far, they will build the apartment in one and a half years, but the manager requires the completion of the work in 12 months. However, the team has no instructions on how to do it, so they just work their way and hope for a miracle. Maybe someone will finish this construction for them?

This is how a team with no plan works. At some point, it turns out that in order to achieve the assumed goals, he would have to, for example, work 20 hours a day, which is obviously unrealistic. The solution is not the “we have to try harder” approach but a thorough overhaul of the whole idea to make it feasible.

Failure to measure and control indicators

Sometimes the only measure in a company is the effect: whether it managed to sell a certain amount of a product or make contact with established customers. Meanwhile, we already know that this determinant does not allow for good sales management.

Better to measure KPI – Key Performance Indicator. What exactly?

• Quality of implemented processes.
• Whether the process is implemented at all.
• Profitability of the sales department.

Data that is measured intelligently allows for an in-depth and factual analysis of success. They do not lie, so they make it possible to see where the problem is interfering with achieving goals. Keep in mind that the only thing that can be managed directly is what employees do today.

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Also Read : Is a Dissatisfied Customer The End Of The World?