There are a lot of people out there who might be especially nervous about hitting your sales quota after the shifts that COVID-19 has brought into the climate. Some of you might have been nervous about hitting your quota. Before the pandemic hit, and are even more nervous about it now. However, everyone has been through experiences in the past. Something that happened on a personal level, or an unexpected change that happened on a professional level. These things can be tackled, and can be overcome, and so can the current climate.
Action 1: Joint listening
Oftentimes, a sales manager doesn’t have specific insight into what is happening in the sales calls that their team makes. When a salesperson comes back and reports on what was discussed in the call. They’re only reporting their perspective, and what they remember. This means that the sales manager is missing out on really valuable information about how to coach and educate their team.
Busting Quota
Action 1 for busting quota is to do joint listening calls, or field rides, where the sales manager and salesperson are together during the sales pitch. The purpose of having the manager in the room is to be another set of eyes and ears. It’s not to sell for you but to watch what you’re doing and give quality feedback on how to improve. If you look at sports, for example, when a first baseman is having trouble. The manager doesn’t tell them to read books and go practice on their own. The manager watches them! After watching, the manager is able to give valuable feedback. The same is true in the sales world.
Action 2: One on One Coaching
One-on-one coaching, done on a regular basis, is critical for busting sales quotas. Coaching should be done at frequent intervals, be it every week or every two weeks, and it should be done one on one. Salespeople need to know where they’re at and what their expectations are to see if they’re measuring up. Figure out what they can do to improve if they’re not measuring up.
Coaching is also not just about how many sales were made, or how many potential clients were contacted. It’s exploring what can be done and how sales managers and salesperson and collaborate on creating solutions to problems. Do this regularly because the problems that come up on week 1 of the month look very different from what comes up on week 2. It’s important for salespeople to know that they’re not in this by themselves.
Action 3: Skill-boosting Meetings
Train your salespeople through joint listening and field rides, and one on one coaching, but skill-boosting meetings are the third step in busting sales quotas. Many sales managers are hesitant to host these kinds of meetings because they don’t have the time. They struggle to create curriculum and content for regular training meetings. This can definitely be a challenging thing to create, but there are many different options for getting a curriculum.
Get together with colleagues or mentors and create a plan, you can generate the plan on your own, or you can buy one of the many premade plans already available to you. Alice Kemper offers a curriculum with 104 different meetings, so you can have weekly skill-boosting meetings for two years using her content. However you do it, make sure that you are having these meetings to encourage and educate your salespeople.
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