Sales Tips

Sales Management: Definition, Strategy, Tools and Best Practices

Your sales management efforts are directly proportional to your sales team’s productivity. So, if you want to oil your revenue generation machinery, sales management is where you should start.

Sales is the sum of building teams, training them, setting sales goals, and tracking growth. There’s a lot to keep up with, isn’t it?

Well, this is exactly why you need a sales management strategy for your business. So, let’s begin with a quick understanding of what sales management is all about.

What is Sales Management?

Sales management is the process of recruiting and training sales reps, setting sales goals, implementing and controlling sales operations, and then tracking sales performance.

Long story short, sales management involves all those activities which are aimed at gaining sales success. The main goal is to generate revenue, steadily.

But let’s say you’re simply managing to cross the break-even point. Or, even if you’re stagnating in your sales revenue generation process, you need to start working on your sales management strategy.

Sales Management Strategy

The sales management process is not a linear, one-off process. But, there are 3 main elements of the sales management process that are constant. These are:

1. Sales Team Onboarding and Training

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Your sales team is the main point of contact between you and your prospects. Hiring the right talent for the right roles in your sales team will be a great start.

Recruiting more members for your sales team also means you’re expanding your sales capabilities. This makes the onboarding and training process part faster and easier.

The next step, ideally, is to groom and train your sales reps. As a sales manager, you need to provide your reps with not only the right sales process. Since rejections are a big part of sales, you also need to coach and motivate sales reps.

Sales-management-training

This is also the point where you focus on soft skill areas such as team dynamics and emotional intelligence. Help your agents handle sales objections, build rapport with prospects, and other such concerns.

2. Sales Operations 

Sales managers are responsible for supervising the sales operations, as well. The sales operations process can be broken down into 3 major areas:

Setting Sales Goals

Goal-setting is an integral part of sales operations. Sales managers oversee this process, helping sales reps set realistic, measurable, and attainable goals. After all, sales goals are the foundation for revenue generation.

Once you’ve set your sales goals, you can plan your sales strategies and operations that align with them.

Sales Activity Management

All the day-to-day activities that sales reps perform also come under the supervision of sales managers. From cold-calling and emailing prospects to closing deals, sales managers keep an eye on all these daily sales operations.

Sales management in that sense involves closely watching the daily sales operations, as well. By observing the daily sales activities, sales managers can offer ways to make improvements and course-correct along the way.

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Pipeline Management

Your leads are going to bring business to your company. This is why monitoring their movement through the pipeline demands special focus.

Pipeline management involves prioritizing leads and allocating relevant resources and time to them. For more effective sales management, it is ideal to keep track of key pipeline metrics such as pipeline velocity rate.

The manager’s role here is to identify the challenges and help reps move through the different stages of the sales pipeline easily.

3. Sales Reporting and Analytics

Finally, sales managers need to get a grasp on their sales growth. Constructive feedback to agents can help boost their productivity. Point out their drawbacks as areas of improvement rather than as weaknesses.

You can tap into call analytics and email analytics to find out how agents are doing. You may also want to get real-time insights on your agents’ performance with tools such as call monitoring.

Learn what’s working for you and what isn’t. Measure relevant sales metrics and KPIs to get the bigger picture. These insights will help you build a well-informed sales strategy.

Sales Management Best Practices

What makes a good sales management strategy? Does simply laying out a plan suffice?

You’ll see some positive changes for sure. But the return on your efforts will come to fruition only with the right sales practices to match up. Here are some concrete sales management practices you can start working on:

1. Establish Goals for your Sales Team 

The best way to go about sales goals-setting is by making them realistic, achievable, measurable, and time-bound. Here’s an example of how you can frame your sales goals:

“Increase year over year sales revenue by 20%”

Sales goals may not only be related to business revenue. Goal-setting may also be associated with daily operations, coaching, team-building activities, and so on. Encourage your sales reps to build the habit of attaching goals to important tasks for more efficiency.

2. Carry out Sales Coaching Sessions

Sales managers need to play their part as coaches every now and then. You can hold team training sessions geared at polishing reps’ skills and getting them acquainted with the trends in the sales industry.

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At the same time, you should sit down to coach each agent in one-on-one sessions. This provides a safe space where agents can share their inhibitions and you can share performance feedback.

 3. Track Sales Agents in Real-Time

Sales reps’ performance directly affects your business’ performance. You may already be tapping into sales data and analytics for tracking growth.

But, you can go a step further and monitor them in real-time with live call monitoring. This usually comes as a part of call center software. You can join agents during calls with prospects and simply listen to the conversations, with listening.

There is an option that allows you to talk to agents without the customer knowing, called whispering. With barging, sales managers may join the call and take over the conversation with the customer.

4. Conduct SWOT Analysis Exercises

Get your sales agents to list out their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Sales agents are mostly busy prospecting and closing deals and they hardly get the time to reflect on their performance.

The SWOT analysis exercise can be a great way to help agents uncover their problem areas and work on them. Self-aware agents will know what’s working for them and what isn’t and make better progress.

5. Build a Sales Enablement Strategy

If your agents are using the same tools, relying on the same, obsolete resources, how do you think they will achieve sales success? Equip your sales team with all the right resources, guidance, and tools they need to ace sales.

The main aim of a sales enablement strategy is to make the sales process more effective. The right tools, resources, and training enable agents to engage well with prospects and get more conversions.

6. Set up a Framework for Rewards and Incentives

Sales commission is one of the main sources of motivation for your sales team. Closing sales deals is not easy. Agents confronted with sales objections and difficult prospects may want to give up along the way.

A rewards and incentives framework around conversions can be helpful here. Set clear criteria on how agents can qualify for rewards. Get creative with your rewards- offer gift vouchers, subscription boxes or you can go with simple cash rewards.

This will contribute to more efficient sales teams and better overall performance.

7. Connect Agents with Senior Leadership and Other Departments

Sales agents cannot operate in isolation from the rest of the stakeholders and verticals. Sales managers act as the link between sales agents and other departments. This includes the senior leadership as well as the support, marketing, and other departments.

Feedback, growth-oriented goals, and other important information from the higher-ups to the sales agents is crucial for sales growth. Likewise, sales agents may want to exchange important information such as customer testimonials and/or customer feedback for marketing, support, or other verticals.

Advanced Sales Management Tools & Resources 

The key to a high-performing sales team is access to the right set of sales management tools and resources. These tools will help you make your sales processes efficient and effective:

1. Cloud-based Business Phone 

It’s time to let go of obsolete tools such as your legacy business phone. If your sales team is advancing in terms of their skills and capabilities, use a business phone that matches up to it.

A cloud-based business phone operates over the internet and can be accessed with mobile devices, laptops, desktops, and desk phones. This means you can use cloud phone systems anywhere without being bound by wires, as in a traditional landline phone.

A cloud business phone such as JustCall comes with a range of features that supports your sales management efforts. Some of the top features include the auto dialer, call monitoring, call analytics dashboard, post call tags and so on.

2. Sales Email Management Software

If cold emailing is a part of your prospecting process, a good sales email management software definitely comes in handy. You have to send cold emails, follow-up with some prospects and respond to others.

A sales email management software not only helps manage sales emails but also allows you to personalize emails for prospects. It uses automation to build follow-up sequences, minimizing manual tasks.

You can try sales email software such as HelpWise, Mailshake, and Mailchimp to get your sales emails in order.

3. CRM Software

Your sales team needs CRM software to manage important sales data. Your entire sales team can access and update details for every prospect in one place, that is the CRM.

In this way, your entire sales team will be on the same page, whether they are operating remotely or in-office premises.

The best part is that top CRM software like HubSpot and ActiveCampaign come with automation to simplify workflows. You can also use CRM integration with business phone and other software to minimize manual tasks and focus more on selling.

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4. Appointment Scheduler Software

Demo bookings can be a big positive for your sales team. But, arriving at a mutually acceptable meeting slot can take forever.

A good appointment scheduling software comes to the rescue, here. Your sales reps can create a public appointment calendar listing out available time slots. Prospects can pick from these slots and the agents are notified of these bookings.

Minimal manual tasks and simple scheduling makes appointment scheduling software an important sales management tool. You can check out Easy Calendar to start booking and scheduling all your appointments conveniently.

5. Sales Intelligence Tools

Arm your sales teams with sales intelligence tools to support their prospecting efforts. A sales intelligent software will let your agents discover important data around prospects.

Sales intelligent software arms sales agents with the information needed in order to speed up lead generation. Agents can also tap into sales intelligence for building powerful sales pitches.

Some of the top sales intelligence includes LinkedIn Sales Navigator, ZoomInfo, and Clearbit.

Get Started with Managing your Sales Teams 

Sales management is the first step to enhancing your sales performance. Now that you know which tools to use, and what practices to follow, you can create a customized sales management plan for your business.

Get started on your sales management efforts with JustCall, a complete call center software.

Want to know, how more than 6,000 sales teams are using JustCall? Let our experts give you a quick walk-through!

Gaurav is the founder and CEO of JustCall. He is passionate about making life easier for the sales and support community through SaaS software. A big believer in the Lean Startup methodology, he loves helping SMBs find frugal ways to grow their business. He frequently writes about the intersection of SaaS, Sales enablement and Customer Experience.

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