Sales force management

Sales force management is all about organization, planning, and recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of the individual members of your sales force. Just as there are different learning styles and personality types, there are three types of salespeople that most sales professionals identify with.

This article will provide information about these four types in order to help you discover which types of sales professionals currently make up your sales force. As you read on, you will probably gain insight into which type of salesperson and sales manager you are as well.
Team players are typically top performers, and work well with others. These types of sales people are also prone to conservatism, and may be more reluctant than others to try new sales approaches and techniques if they feel like these approaches won't be successful or if their fellow sales team members won't like them. When properly motivated, however, these types of people are invaluable assets to any sales team.

Effective sales force management requires any business owner/sales manager to identify and recognize the individual strengths and weaknesses of their sales people, and the best way to do that is to pay attention to how they relate to each other, to potential clients, to you, and to the duties of their jobs. Mapping software has been available to sales teams for a long time. Sales operations people have used it to draw territory boundaries. Sales reps have used it to to plan their sales travel before they leave the home or office. Mapping software can now be more central to a sales team's weekly activities.     Integrate it into the weekly sales team call. Many sales teams use software like CRM and SFA systems to help organize and streamline their efforts, and mapping software can be another valuable tool. Most of a field sales force's activity happens while they are moving around, and the time they spend driving around is not productive time.

Time spent in front of customers is productive.     Have outside sales and inside sales work together to adjust daily schedules in real time. It's difficult for inside sales reps to help a field rep in real-time while they are moving around. Sales Ops and IT teams constantly lament low CRM usage and adoption. Everyone knows that your sales force has to hit sales goals or sales quota in order to increase the revenue coming in the front door. I'm guessing you have a lot of intelligent sales people. Promise them a huge bonus when they hit their sales quota, but then fail to pay them.
What I'm referring to isn't a Christmas Bonus, it's when your sales force is promised the moon if they hit their sales quota for specific period of time. However, after the sales quota or sales goal is hit the company fails to payout. Soon, your sales team stops asking and management thinks they got away with it. Well, I've got news for you, your sales people haven't forgotten; they just lost all trust in the company and its management team. Mushroom Management is best described as keeping your sales force in the dark, feeding them crap, and hoping they grow.  The sales force doesn't trust any of their fellow employees anymore.