The Sales Leaders Guide to Recession Proofing Your Sales Force

As the leader of your organization, the next 6 months will prove to be more pressure-filled then you may have experienced in years. With decreasing prospects and the cost of doing business increasing, a squeeze on profits is inevitable.

Companies will look to cut costs and the first place to start is the sales force. The sales force is your company's most expensive promotional resource. You will have to make some critical decisions: Do you cut costs or improve the performance of your existing sales team?

Cut back, down size and cut costs:

I don't need to give you advice on cutting back. It's easy to cut back on sales people, promotion and training. While radical surgery may be financially prudent in the short term it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: first sales decline, then performance suffers and finally moral drops, completing the downward cycle.

How can you improve the productivity and performance of your sales force?

I believe that too many sales organizations operate well below their potential. Quick fixes abound during these times, but the secret to surviving difficult economic times is simple…

Unlock the potential in your sales organization and watch that potential turn into sustainable performance!

1. Invest in your front line sales managers

Who else is at the heart of change, productivity, accountability and performance in your organization? The front line sales manager is the key to unlocking the potential in your sales organization and turns that potential into performance. Your success depends on these managers.

Coaching is the single most impactful activity that front lines sales managers perform. Studies show that effectual coaching can impact sales performance by as much as 19 of training is forgotten in the first 30 days unless reinforced. Are you one of the many companies investing in T&D and little or no ROI?

Unless there is a plan that measures and reinforces changes in behaviours you are wasting your money! You must ensure that there is a plan to reinforce learning's and you hold individuals accountable for demonstrating newly learned behaviours.

Maximize your investment in training and development with a program that measures and reinforces the learning's and they will become business practice.

4. Strategically invest your resources

As you look how to manage your resources more effectively, the key is to strategically target your promotional dollars to maximise the ROI. Each sales person needs to be much more strategic on where they allocate their limited resources. This involves building customer specific plans based on factors such as existing business and potential business and holding sales people accountable to executing their plans.

Strategically investing your promotional dollars on the right customers and holding sales people accountable will be one of the keys to unlocking your star results!

Feel free to comment on the article above or post a question to other sales executives

Steven Rosen, B.Comm. MBA, Sales Performance Expert

Steven Rosen is the founder and Chief Performance Officer of STAR Results. Steven is a performance coach, trainer and advisor. His expertise is sales leadership development.

STAR Results is a sales leadership consulting, training and coaching organization dedicated to leadership development. Our mission is to inspire sales leaders, managers and sales people to achieve their full potential.

Visit us at www.starresults.com