Recently, I’ve worked with several sales managers in financial institutions experiencing problems with their sales results. Sales Managers come in all sizes and shapes, but I want to share two examples that I must categorize as examples from which we can learn:
One experience was with a sales manager with 10 people on her team. The overall production of the team is down from last year and behind budget. For most financial institutions, this has been a period of sales success. The best way to describe the problem might be to share these Q &As:
Q: What’s lead to the drop in sales?
A: They just aren’t closing as much as they were.
Q: Are the usual top sales people also down?
A: I guess…
Q: What is the referral volume for that period and the previous period?
A: I think it’s down a lot…
Q: Are the referrals down in a relatively similar percentage as sales?
A: I think so…
Q: What is the quality of the referrals?
A: The ones I see are pretty weak…
Q: What have you done to improve the sales?
A: I talk to the team every month about how we have to get sales back up.
The second experience I want to share was a sales manager with eight people on her team. Their production was also down from last year and way behind budget. This sales manager would be on the other end of the spectrum in terms of most of the answers. She had exact answers to all the quantitative questions about the team and their results and the referrals. She had sliced and diced the statistics to the point we had a half dozen metrics on each sales person and three metrics on each referral source by territory. Her data was very useful in pinpointing what seemed to be the problem: The referral quality had deteriorated.
Simple problem – simple answer? Not exactly. The stats didn’t explain the cause of the deterioration of the referral quality. So I posed some further questions:
Q: Has something changed in the relationships between your sales people and the referrers?
Q: Has the quality of the referrals really declined or has something changed in the behaviors of the team?
Her answer to the above questions were “I don’t know.”
Lessons to learn from these examples:
- Sales Management isn’t just being a cheerleader and/or a title. Your job is to bring in the sales through the efforts of your team. You have to MANAGE!
- You do need to be able to use statistics to assess what is working and what isn’t working. Some metrics can be early warning signs of potential problems. Most metrics can help you determine what is going on with your team.
- This is the main point: Statistics are great indicators but you are dealing with people. You have to see them in action to really know what is going on! You have to go out and watch them in action. You have to go out and see how they interact with referral sources. You have to go out and see them in discovery meetings. You have to go out and see them in presentation meetings. You have to do the coaching calls if you really want to understand your sales people and why they are successful – or not.
Call me today to understand how we can work with you and your team to a successful sales management process: (800) 677-7432. Or email me at elpohl@pohlconsulting.com.
