Managing Your Sales Team

4. Team Objectives

4.1 Work with your sales team to set sales targets.

• Negotiation is essential to secure sales people's involvement.
• Be aware that sales people are often keen to focus on customers who bring them short-term benefits.
• Agree monthly targets based on your sales forecasts.
• Set targets for individual accounts, individual team members and different sales teams.
• Avoid setting targets too high. Failure to achieve unrealistic targets can demotivate your team.
• Avoid raising targets because of previous good performance. It is better to agree increases based on the company's overall performance.

4.2 Agree key performance indicators.

• Define what number of sales should come from which number of visits, calls or contacts - your sales 'conversion rate'.
• Set out the sales and contribution required from each sales person.
• Assess levels of customer retention and repeat business.
• Beware of setting the wrong indicators. For example, measuring the number of telephone calls made might be appropriate for simple telesales but not for managing key accounts.

4.3 Monitor individual performance in weekly one-to-one meetings.

• Base monitoring on the key performance indicators.
• Concentrate on assessing the profitability of sales activities, rather than volume.
• Understand the challenges of different accounts or territories that may be more difficult to sell to. It may be necessary to adjust your targets.
• Use individual performance monitoring to identify weak links.
• Use tracking software to help improve your understanding of sales people's performance, and your ability to develop them.