Articles - Log In - Sign Up

Tip #27  

Super Sales Strategy

 A Sales Partnership!

You can have the best product or service in the world but fall flat on your face unless your sales department converts those ideas into bank deposits. 

The best automobile, the best auto service, the finest quality fabric, the most effective bug extermination, etc., all need salespeople who can embrace your marketing concepts and convey those values to potential prospects.  Unfortunately, acceptance of mediocrity, lack of professional training and tolerance of minimal productivity have turned most sales teams into unmotivated, uninspired, marginal salaried positions.  Most sales plans offer commission structures that rarely reward the most productive sales efforts, and in fact often penalize the best performance with caps and thresholds designed to ‘manage and control’ compensation levels. 

 Right now is the best time to ‘reboot’ and rethink your entire sales compensation program to reflect a true partnership with your best sales people.   Today is the day to take a clean sheet of paper and rewrite your business plan to give the lifeblood of your business the credit and reward it deserves. 

 #1        Treat salespeople as true partners and watch your sales soar.  Meet at least quarterly with your salesteam.  Show them the profit and loss statement.  Discuss new business, existing business, new lead potential, income levels by client, sales by salesperson.  Establish a reasonable and fair commission structure and stick with it.  Make it easy.  Don’t play games.  Don’t ‘pack’ your sales with non-commissionable charges and unfair chargebacks.  Don’t cut commission levels for superior performance, instead increase commissions and bonuses for performance beyond projection.  Embrace the Golden Rule.  Put yourself in your sales person’s shoes.  If you exceeded expectations and sold far more than projections, how would you expect to be treated?

 #2        Pay salespeople promptly with direct attribution to collections.  Don’t make a salesperson wait 60 or 90 days for collections, pay them within 30 days of collections.

 #3        Openly celebrate and reward your top performers.  Stop trying to treat everyone equal.  They are not.  Spend your greatest resources and shower your greatest goodwill on the people who bring home the greatest amount of bacon.  They are the ones feeding your company and making you grow rich.  Treat mediocrity for what it is.  Mediocre.  Spend 80% of your effort helping the best of the best get even better.

 #4        Don’t pay on sales, pay on collections.  This can be a tough one for many companies, but it is the only way you’ll make your best salespeople even better.  Review collections and receivables on a weekly basis.  Ask for advice and input from salespeople on collection efforts.  Remind your sales partners that this is how business works.  When the bills get paid, the boss gets paid.  We are only willing to ‘carry’ the folks who have no control of sales and collections, but those folks will never have the opportunity to make the kind of money that a salesperson can make.

 #5        Offer your entire organization an opportunity to ‘join the salesforce’.  At least twice a year, have an ‘all employee’ meeting and discuss the rewards of a sales position with the company.  Many companies have developed some of their best salespeople from the rank and file positions.  Often these people are given an opportunity to ‘test the water’ by continuing to perform salaried duties while exploring the sales side of the business on a strictly commissioned basis.  Many times people in the back-end of the business have an even stronger belief in the companies products and services, and given the proper coaching, can make a convincing salesperson with basic sales coaching and direction. 

 #6        Defend and support your sales team when needed.  Don’t tolerate abusive sales prima donnas, but always remember the best salespeople are the ones who need the greatest support system in terms of product/service fulfillment and communication with company departments.  Don’t hesitate to remind those in non-sales positions how important these breadwinners are to the company’s growth and even survival.  

 #7        Help your best salespeople live their best life possible.  One of my dearest friends who has developed several multimillion-dollar businesses, includes his top salespeople in financial planning and estate seminars.  He pays for subscriptions for salespeople to magazines, books and CDs related to sales success.  Once a year he takes his top performers to an offsite retreat where they hear from renowned experts in various fields related to his companies products.  He even makes suggestions for extraordinary family vacations that the owner and his family have experienced.  In other words, he draws his ‘partners’ into the executive circle.  He makes it clear that they are the very reason for the companies success and existence. 

 You might not be able to create this type of partnership without a major cultural shift in your own thinking, but think of it this way.  Your best salespeople are probably going to grow ‘beyond you’, with or without you!  Would you rather have them sell for the competition, or even ‘be’ the competition?   Or would you rather have them as super successful sales partners in your organization helping you achieve the goals you’ve always dreamed of? 

 By the way, before you help develop these superstars, be sure to have a non-compete agreement in order.  Make this part of your stellar kick off.  If you’d like a copy of last month’s tip on Employee Agreements, just email us: info@growthcoachfla.com 

 By the way, we’d love to hear from you on this or any other article we share.  Please use the comment box below.