As we approach and prepare for the third and fourth quarters, it's not too late to test the health of your sales organization. There is never a "best" time to begin to measure and evaluate your Sales Health. If you haven't already established a benchmark assessment, now may be an appropriate time to do so. Too many corporate leaders wait until sales targets are not achieved. By then it may be too late.
A healthy efficient, effective and motivated sales team is an organizations most valuable asset, which requires high levels of maintenance and a great deal of attention.
When confronted with top line sales problems, it is critical to understand where the problems exist. Sustainable performance improvement often requires alignment of the three Performance Realization Categories. Fixing one area while others are performing poorly won’t help. Pouring resources into lead generation, for example, is of little value if the sales organization can’t effectively and efficiently move the leads to a sale. Having a great CRM system, as example, is of no use if the sales team is not completely utilizing the system effectively. This means managing every lead, entering the activity and making sure the management team uses the data to manage activity metrics. Sales achievement occurs when the organization is efficient and effective across the full spectrum of the sales process, management and skills.
To assess your organizations health, first begin by breaking down your sales assessment into three primary categories. We call these Performance Realization Categories™. Institutional Realization, Functional Realization and Sales Execution Realization. You can begin by answering these simple yes and no questions.
The First Component is Corporate Realization™:
Corporate Realization = Ensuring the sales organization, as a business unit, is positioned correctly with corporate senior management to influence market position, innovation and growth plan goals.
Do you have a strategic plan in place that clearly communicates the goals and tactics by which the company will achieve its objectives across all business units?
Do you have the right senior management team in place?
Do you truly understand your customers needs?
Are all business units positioned to support the sales effort?
Have you positioned your sales division for success?
Product design. Is you product development / manufacturing positioned to respond to industry needs?
Is your product offering competitive?
Are all aspects of marketing communications aligned with problems and needs (versus products and features)?
The Second Component is Functional Realization™:
Functional Realization = Maximize effectiveness of the sales organization to create and sustain customers. Ensure it is a well managed and effective business unit.
Is your organization achieving both top and bottom line sales projections?
Strategic Planning - Do you have a realistic dynamic plan to grow revenue?
Is a formal sales process in place and followed? Are structured methods in place for territory, account, and opportunity management?
Do you manage and monitor your sales teams metric based activity?
Is your CRM effective and fully utilized to track opportunities from target status to close and to retention status?
Are sales managers effective mentors to the sales force and do management practices reinforce desired sales force behavior?
Do your sales managers have a plan in place to address your sales environment’s increasing competitiveness and general difficulties?
Do you have a motivated energetic sales force? Do you drive performance through recognition and rewards?
Does your team use available sales technologies to help maximize efficiencies?
The Third Component is Sales Execution Realization™:
Sales Execution Realization = Lead, coach and constantly improve essential skills required of the sales force.
Coaching - Partnering with team members to ensure goals, expectations and timelines are clearly understood and agreed upon?
Is your sales force effective at finding new business? Incorporating prospecting / hunter lead generation skills or process to drive new customer contacts?
Is your sales team clearly differentiating and positioning your products value and feature set?
Acquiring new customers. Does your team convert opportunities to sales by planning, uncovering and satisfying needs and negotiation?
Do you have a Strategic Account management processes to find, engage and secure and retain key customers.
Do you have an ongoing training program to sharpen sales skills and tactics?
Now that you have given yourself a grade, how does your sales organization stack up?