What tools do you use to increase sales effectiveness? Implementation of a system of regular events. Kaizen: the main thing is the process

  1. option - you hear the buzz of calls and voices, and the sales department resembles a bee swarm;
  2. option - there is no one in the sales department, tk. all managers in meetings.

If you have had a different experience, then it's time for you to change something in the work of your salespeople and the atmosphere of the sales department.

How to influence the effectiveness of the sales force

1. Implement Dashboard

This is an electronic or real board in the sales department on which you publish (post) all the most important indicators for a specific day. This is necessary so that managers understand what has already been done at the moment to fulfill the sales plan, and what remains to be done.

In fact, this is a management panel that collects all important information in one place, where it is convenient to analyze it.

Dashboard is customizable by key indicators which may differ depending on the type of business. But you can at least use these:

  • Active work on the new client database (calls, meetings)
  • Work activity on the current database (calls, meetings)
  • Average return of clients
  • Number of closed deals
  • Plan fact

The advantage of this tool is that it does not require any costs for implementation.

In addition, the Dashboard must contain such a parameter as the percentage of the plan completed for the current date. It should not be confused with a simple share, which is the fact of payments as part of the set plan.

The percentage of the plan completed for the current date is much more difficult to calculate, but at the same time a very convenient indicator. It characterizes the pace with which the manager closes deals.

The percentage of plan completion for the current date is calculated by the formula:

% of the plan for the current date = Actual at the moment / (Plan for the month / total number of working days in the month, the number of days worked per month) 100

This formula will automatically calculate the indicator for each employee of the sales department, based on his results. If the percentage of completion of the plan for the current date is below 100%, then this means that at the current pace, the subordinate cannot cope with the task.

2. Explore the workday map of employees

This is also a simple and free tool that you can implement tomorrow.

The working day map reflects the business process, broken down into specific actions performed by the manager. That is, it looks like a list in which the time spent on one or another action is put down next to each.

The map is filled in by an outside observer. The easiest way is to present him as an intern so that the employees "do not twitch" and work as usual.

You need to appoint a person who, for at least three working days, will describe what each employee does, what functions they perform, what they spend time on.

Often this tool reveals that a large part of a manager's day is wasted. And not because of their laziness or irresponsibility. Take a photo of the day.

As a result of the analysis, you will learn:

  1. as the most effective employees achieve their results
  2. What makes no sense
  3. What takes an unreasonable amount of time
  4. Who is engaged in unproductive activities
  5. And what can be automated, delegated, outsourced.

After obtaining such data for each employee, you should:

  • adjust the organizational structure of the sales department,
  • adjust business processes: simplify and automate them, transfer some of the responsibilities to other employees,
  • segregate functions so that managers perform their direct tasks.

Sales department efficiency

3. Install CRM

To increase the efficiency of the sales department, it is important to see all the data in one system. CRM helps to keep records and control customer relationships, manage, monitor funnels, segment the base, find bottlenecks, set tasks and control the timing of their implementation.

Every interaction with a client should be reflected in CRM from the moment of the first contact. Then managers will be able to remind about your product / service in time, make a suitable offer and not forget about their promises.

In addition, each new person in the company will not ask unnecessary questions, quickly understand the history of relations and immediately get to work.

In CRM, you need to build at least 7 in different sections:

  • By current clients
  • For new clients
  • By sales channels
  • By products
  • By managers
  • By region
  • By target audience

With the help of CRM, functions such as:

1. by opening a deal for each lead that entered the system from any source: website, landing page, email;

2. Distribution of incoming leads between sellers according to different criteria: channel, audience, product, territory, employee qualification, degree of “warmth” of the lead;

3. Reminders, missed calls, letters;

4. Redistribution of tasks between managers;

5. Issuance of scripts depending on the stage of the transaction.

4. Install IP telephony integrated with CRM

This system will help to control the number of managers' calls, the length of the conversation, the quality of the conversation at different stages of the sale. You can adjust conversation scripts, your products, employees. We advise you to listen to 2 calls of each manager per day. Believe it or not, it will be more difficult to achieve efficiency in the work of the sales department without IP telephony.

5. Automate your email campaign

This is important for creating a chain of letters that would first form customer loyalty and then sell your product. Email mailing services help to see which letters the client has opened, at what time, what topics he is interested in, what he is not indifferent to.

Use this data to understand which email headers attract your customers and make them read emails. Make individual or group offers. Plan how many free events, webinars, presentations, after which the client can buy something. Don't let go of the client.

Create your own unique content and send it along with interesting offers to buy your product.

The manager should always work on the effectiveness of his sales department. After all, the better all the processes between him and managers, between managers and clients, between the sales department and other services are organized and adjusted, the higher the probability that it will even be possible to overfulfill the sales plan.

More ideas for you can get on ours from the company Oh Lee. We know more than 800 points of growth. Register right now.

21Jun

Hello! In this article we will talk about the organization of the sales department of the company.

Today you will learn:

  • What are the functions of the sales department?
  • How to organize the work of the sales department;
  • How to improve the efficiency of the sales department.

Tasks of the sales department

Sooner or later anyone successful business reaches such a state in which a pair of sales managers becomes insufficient for the sale of products. It is at this point that the question of organizing a sales department arises.

Sales department - a set of specialists who perform the functions of attracting and servicing customers, selling goods.

The tasks of the sales department are:

  • Increasing the number of consumers of the company. This task is entrusted to account managers and specialists in marketing communications. The former are required to work with and convert visitors into buyers. The second is to attract potential buyers to the store;
  • Increase in the average check. The seller must make sure that the client buys for a larger amount than he bought before. The goal is achieved in two ways: by increasing prices (but this is fraught with a reduction in the number of purchases) or by introducing cross-selling techniques. Cross-selling is the sale of an additional product in conjunction with the main one to the same consumer. good example cross-selling is the sale of a pre-cash item. Its cost is insignificant for the client, but in aggregate it gives a good additional income to the company;
  • Maintaining client bases, lead generation. This is a very important task of the sales department. Thanks to the accounting of customers and purchases, you can set up marketing communication tools, simplify the process of conducting, personalize customer relationships,.
  • Product promotion activities. A controversial function, since most often it is assigned to the department. However, if marketers do not take into account the opinions of salespeople when forming a company promotion policy, then the effectiveness advertising campaign will be in question. That is why the sales department and the marketing department are often subordinated to each other. We will talk about this now.

The structure of the sales department

There are several options for building a sales department.

The choice of one or another structure depends on the following factors:

  • The main tasks of the department;
  • The number of employees in the department;
  • Area of ​​activity of the enterprise;
  • The nature and complexity of the products produced;
  • The degree of differentiation of activities;
  • Territorial location of points of sale.

Functional-linear structure of the sales department

In the event that your company's assortment consists of a small number of product items, you sell goods in only one region and do not plan to expand, then the functional-linear structure of the sales department is for you.

As the name implies, the subordination of employees with a linear functional structure is organized according to linear type. This means that each employee reports to only one leader, which reduces the number of conflicts in the team to zero.

On first level functional-linear structure is the head of the sales department.

The functions of the head of the sales department are:

  • Setting the strategic goals of the department;
  • Control over the implementation of the goals and objectives of the department;
  • Training of employees of the department;
  • Collection and preparation of sales information for other departments;
  • Setting goals,
  • Maintaining discipline in the department;
  • Sales process optimization;
  • Records management;
  • Provision of equipment;
  • Establishing communication within the department and with other departments of the company.

Second level in the hierarchy of subordination are the heads of the functional divisions of the sales department. What exactly these functions will be depends on the specifics of the company's activities.

Most often, there is a manager for working with clients, a manager for marketing communications and a document management manager.

Also on the second level can be located employees who perform marketing functions. In this case, you place marketing under the subordination of the sales department, respectively, there will be no marketing department in your enterprise.

Possible division by sales functions. For example, the selection of leaders by and, direct and personal.

Third level represented by employees who are subordinate to functional managers. Each employee has his own range of duties corresponding to the main function.

Matrix structure of the sales department by geography

In the event that you sell goods in several regions at once, which are located at a considerable distance from each other, a regional matrix structure will suit you.

It is characterized by double (cross) subordination of employees: the same employee is subordinate to the functional and regional chief.

Dual subordination is fraught with the emergence of conflicts in the department, but at the same time allows you to unload the leading managers.

The decision to organize work according to the regional type depends on the volume of sales in the geographical market and the specifics of the region.

In the event that the demand in the region is small, it is advisable to transfer it to the manager for the neighboring region (that is, to combine geographical markets).

However, if geographic market has significant distinctive features (for example, demand is observed only for certain categories of products, consumers do not respond to standard promotion tools), then it is still worth thinking about appointing a responsible person for the region.

Organization of the sales department by product categories

This organizational structure also applies to the matrix. Only this time, employees report to functional managers and product category (product) managers.

This type suits you organizational structure, If:

  • You sell a complex, high-tech or innovative product;
  • You sell goods in small wholesale or retail lots;
  • You have a narrow but deep assortment;
  • Your product requires after-sales service (installation, adjustment, repair).

The purpose of organizing product activities is to identify product categories that require different approach to the sales process.

Example. Your product portfolio includes smartphones and their accessories. Smartphones, as a high-tech product, should be offered through personal sales channels, and for the sale of accessories, it is also suitable. This will save consumers time. In this case, you can distinguish between a sales manager for phones in physical stores and a sales manager through an online channel.

If the products that you sell are not related or complementary, then the organization of the sales department for product categories is the most efficient option.

Organization of the sales department by customer type

It is also characterized by double subordination: to the functional head and the head of consumer segments.

Classification of clients can occur on various grounds. Most often, corporate and private consumers are distinguished, "cold" and "hot", permanent and possible.

This type of structure is suitable for you if:

  • Each type of customer is based on their specific factors when buying;
  • You have allocated no more than three to five;
  • The consumer behavior of each segment is very different.

Stages of organizing the work of the sales department

The process of planning and organizing the sales department includes the following steps:

  • Determining the required qualifications of personnel. Conduct an analysis of all the work that each employee of the department will have to perform. For example, an active sales manager must inform consumers about, convert visitors into buyers, keep order in trading floor. Thus, we need a responsible, sociable, stress-resistant, active employee with competent speech. But if we were looking for an employee for passive sales, then the list of requirements could be reduced to two positions: responsible and competent.
  • Development of job descriptions. Job description includes the name of the position, duties and rights of the employee, his tasks and functions, a description of the resources provided for work, the amount of power and authority;
  • Distribution official duties between employees. It implies the division of functions between the employees of the department. For example, one seller works with buyers in the hall, and the other punches the goods at the checkout;
  • Formation of the work schedule. At this stage, you must determine the length of the working day, distribute lunch time and days off among employees;
  • Setting goals and objectives. The goal, as a rule, is set for the entire department as a whole or for each distribution channel individually. Tasks are distributed among employees. For example, seller “A” this month must sell goods in the amount of 100,000 rubles;
  • Development of a department activity control system. Designate the indicators by which you will determine the effectiveness of the department. It can be the volume of sales, the number of new customers. Systems approach to control sales will increase the efficiency of the entire department;
  • Definition of standards. Performance standards – quality and quantitative indicators the work of an employee, which strictly regulates the amount of work that he must complete in a certain period;
  • Development of a staff development system. If you want to consistently bring you profit, you must periodically.

Improving the work of the sales department

The low efficiency of the sales department, the failure to achieve goals and objectives indicates the need to take measures to improve the organization of the work of managers. These measures can be directed both to the sales department as a whole and to each manager individually.

Measures to improve the efficiency of the sales department:

  1. . This tool automates the process of compiling a client base, allows you to control the sales process, and also provides you with information about the performance of the department and each employee. In the event that you sell goods through telemarketing, we recommend integrating a CPM system with telephony, which will allow you to control the number of contacts, the length of conversations and their effectiveness. By the way, we advise you to sometimes listen to the conversations of your managers, this will allow you to identify problem areas. Be sure to work on them.
  2. Write a sales script. - an example scenario of a conversation between a manager and a client. It allows you to repeat the actions of the manager that led to the deal from time to time.
  3. Become (or hire one) and visit one of your outlets . You will immediately see the "weak" points of the sales process.
  4. Analyze. Have you experienced sales decline despite efforts to ? Do not rush to blame the product manager for everything. Probably, the sellers ignored the action and did not inform the visitors, and did not show any activity at all due to the lack of motivation, for which the head of the sales department is responsible for you.

Measures to improve the efficiency of each manager:

  1. Teach. Employees, and even more so customer service managers, need to be constantly trained. You can do this on your own in the form of games and "gliders". For example, gather the managers and act out a skit illustrating the process of selling a product to a "difficult" customer. Let everyone offer their own solution, and you notice the most effective ones.
  2. Set up an intra-company marketing system. Remember the rule: "As the company treats its employees, so the employees treat their customers." If you don't motivate staff, you don't create normal conditions labor, do not respect your employees, they will never work well.
  3. Organize monthly contests and other motivational events. For example, the employee who sold the largest amount of goods receives an additional day off next month.
  4. Make sellers work with the sales funnel. Explain to managers that they must turn passers-by into visitors and visitors into customers. Tell us about the technologies of working with a potential consumer at each stage of the sales process.
Improving the effectiveness of meetings. Methods for improving sales efficiency.

Improving the effectiveness of meetings

First you need to think about ensuring the high intensity of the work of your sales managers, and only then - about increasing the effectiveness of their meetings with clients. If a merchant makes too few calls and meetings, he is simply gaining experience too slowly. Teach him, do not teach him - it will be of little use.

But when the number of calls and meetings is already high, it's time to increase their efficiency and effectiveness! And Special attention we focus on meetings, because they ensure maximum personal contact with clients. Almost always, the main purpose of the call is to set up a meeting at which all issues are discussed. The fewer serious issues your merchants try to solve over the phone, the better.

Go to audit

Conduct an audit

What tools can be used to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your business meetings with clients?

  • Specific training - Your salespeople need to be familiar with the products and services they offer to customers.
  • Professional sales trainings - professional business trainers are invited to conduct them. Desirable - successful practitioners with extensive experience in personal sales.
  • Intra-corporate sales training - usually conducted by the most experienced and professional negotiators from among the employees and managers of your company.
  • Mentoring is learning by doing by example. In our case, of course, this is joint participation in negotiations with clients. Critical importance it also has a boost in deals, which is provided for young employees by experienced merchants and sales managers. Mentoring and boosting are so important that a professional sales manager should devote half or more of their time to them.
  • It will also be useful for your employees to study sales books on their own. There are countless books on sales, of which sensible ones are minuscule. Most helpful books Active sales» Rysev, Derevitsky's School of Sales and my book Big Contracts - it makes sense to buy according to the number of employees in the sales department, so that each merchant in your department has personal copies of these books.

Extensive Methods for Improving Sales Efficiency

Suppose your sales department is fully staffed. Intensity commercial work Your businessmen is high. Standards of statistics of commercial work are successfully fulfilled. A program of measures is being implemented to improve the professionalism of your employees and increase the effectiveness of meetings with clients. It is clear that in the case professional growth there is no limit to perfection. But you understand: at the moment, your employees are working as well as possible. Perhaps in the future they will learn to work even better. But this progress will be slow and gradual, since the level they have reached is already quite good. And most importantly: in the labor market, it is unlikely that you will be able to find businessmen significantly better than those that you already have. That is, you are unlikely to be able to change your fighters for more professional and productive ones.

It turns out that the sales department in its current form has approached the maximum possible efficiency of its work. What actions can be taken in this situation to further increase sales?

Two extensive methods of increasing sales effectiveness come to mind first:

  • You can linearly increase the number of employees in the sales department - for example, double it or triple it. It can be expected that if ten merchants make sales of X, then 20 merchants will make sales of 2*X, and 30 merchants will make sales of 3*X.
  • You can also expand the range of goods and services that you offer to customers, add new types of products to the price list. As a result, your merchants, holding the same number of meetings with the same customers, will be able to offer customers more goods and services at each meeting. This means they can make more money for you.

However, in practice, everything turns out far from being as beautiful as in theory. It was smooth on paper - yes, they forgot about the ravines. Consider the main risks that you can expect when implementing such extensive methods.

The idea to increase the number of sales managers working in your company and increase sales due to this can be very reasonable. Especially if the increase in the number of merchants in your team is associated with the expansion of the geography of sales. But there are also difficulties here:

  • employee costs, office space, taxes, etc. grow immediately, and incomes - far from immediately. Until new employees contact clients, until they make the first meetings with them, until they go through multi-stage negotiations with clients ... Well, this is not the biggest trouble. If you cannot afford to pay the salaries of merchants for several months before they go on sale, you clearly do not deserve a serious increase in income and well-being!
  • Worse, if the number of employees in the sales department has increased, while the number of meetings with clients for the department as a whole and the volume of sales have decreased. This can easily happen if, with a serious increase in the number of employees in the sales department, it was not possible to strengthen sales management in the same way. Suppose the sales department had one head of the sales department and seven rank-and-file fighters. The head of the sales department tightly controlled the work of employees, the intensity of their work was close to the maximum possible. It was decided to increase the number of employees in the sales department to 15. As decided - so they did. And the head of the sales department is still alone, as before. When one boss tries to manage fifteen businessmen, there can be no talk of any real control. Left to their own devices, salespeople make calls and meetings at a rate of 20-30% of normal. As a result, 15 employees make fewer appointments and sales than seven did before. And the money for the maintenance of the department goes much more than before! In addition, the management of the sales department is weakened, fermentation, decomposition and other unpleasant processes begin. As a result, in order to save the situation, the company's management has to decide to dismiss some of the merchants. Having wasted time, effort and money, we return to where we started.

Thus, with a significant increase in the number of employees in the sales department, success is possible. But only on the condition that additional sales managers be nominated, so that in no case weaken the management of the merchants.

Quite different risks may await those managers who try to increase sales by expanding the range - adding fundamentally new groups of goods and services to price lists. The manager thinks like this: “We sell group A products to customers. We make good money on this - but not enough. Let's start selling product group B. By selling A and B, we will earn more anyway than by selling only A!

A decision is made, a group of goods B is purchased and delivered to the company's warehouse. Merchants are offered to sell both A and B. Result: sales of product group A are still going on, sales of product group B are practically at zero. Why? The fact is that group A of goods has already been promoted by your merchants, customers are used to buying it from you. Usually, if the product is popular, the longer you sell it, the easier it is to sell. And product group B is new for your company. Customers are not used to buying these products from you. Selling them is many times more difficult than selling the familiar product group A to customers. Your salespeople are not fools, they quickly understand that selling product group B, they must spend five times more time and effort than selling product group A to earn that same commercial percentage. Why would they waste time and energy selling product group B at a loss?

Management sees: sales of product group B are not really going. The goods lie dead in the warehouse, freezing a significant part working capital companies. Leaders are starting to figure out what's going on. And soon they realize: it is simply unprofitable for businessmen to sell group B of goods! What to do? Eureka! Let's increase the commercial percentage for merchants for the sale of product group B! Let's make them a percentage of the margin earned for the company by selling product group B twice as much as selling product group A!

Conduct an express audit of the sales department on your own according to 23 criteria and identify sales growth points!

Go to audit

Conduct an audit

The commercial percentage is increased. Result? Again close to zero. After all, the percentage was doubled, and the complexity of the sale is five times higher. Selling a group of goods A is still much easier - and therefore more profitable. By spending equal time and effort, group A goods can be sold five times more and earn two and a half times more.

And to equalize the conditions, making the sale of goods of groups A and B equally profitable for your merchants, is unlikely to succeed. If you increase the sales percentage for the sale of goods in group B by five times, it can easily exceed the gross profit that the company receives from this sale. And there is no point in trading at a loss for the company!

So the goods of group B will remain dead weight in the company's warehouse. Time will pass, and it will be recognized that the experiment was unsuccessful. Warehouse stock should be sold for next to nothing. It's good if the supplier agrees to take back the rest of his goods - of course, at a price significantly lower than the one at which he once sold it to you.

Sad result? What are you, it could be worse! Another scenario is possible: when a strong administrative resource still forces the sales department to actively promote a new group of goods. While merchants are trying to push the market and gain a foothold on it with a new group of products, customers who work with the company according to traditional commodity groups are left without proper attention.

At one fine moment, competitors notice that your customers, with whom you work in traditional product groups, have lost the necessary care of your merchants. And every day they become more and more easy prey. From this state of affairs to a big trouble - one step. One of your most powerful and aggressive competitors may make a list of your key customers who make the bulk of purchases from you in traditional groups of goods. After that, he will give his merchants an order to work out this list in a targeted manner in order to steal as many key customers from you as possible in a short time. But it is the customers who buy traditional groups of goods from you that still form your main turnover and profit! The loss of 30-40% of these customers puts your business on the brink of a financial tailspin and death. It turns out: they wanted through sales new group goods to increase income, and as a result of all the efforts, we lost the bulk of the income that we already had!

Example: few people know that the Heinz company - the "kings of ketchups" - were originally kings not at all in the production of ketchups, but in the production of ... pickled cucumbers! Then they very successfully entered the ketchup market. But, the more their positions in the production of ketchup strengthened, the more they lost their positions in the production of pickled cucumbers. Now, in general, few people know that "Heinz" has something to do with pickled cucumbers.

In this story, at least the case ended with a happy ending: the company managed to gain a foothold and develop in a new market before it finally lost its position in the old one. Only one such story accounts for a hundred stories about companies that did not have time to rise in the new market, and flew out of the old one. As a result, they ingloriously ended their existence.

Increase in the average transaction amount

It turns out that extensive methods of increasing sales are far from being as good as it seems at first glance. Increasing the number of sales managers can work. But costs will rise immediately, and revenues later. If management sags, the results in general can be negative. If you try a different approach - expanding the range, selling new groups of goods and services - the results are MOST likely to be negative.

There is another method of increasing sales that you can use. intensive method. Its essence - in INCREASE of the AVERAGE AMOUNT of the TRANSACTION.

Indeed, each employee of your sales department can make a certain limited number of calls and meetings with clients per month. This means that each of your merchants can conclude in a month no more than some, in advance a certain amount transactions. We cannot increase this maximum possible number of transactions by several times. After all, it directly depends on the working time of a merchant, whose resource is limited. Of course, we can try to increase the number of merchants by several times. But, if we fail to manage, the problems from this will be more than good. We have already talked about this. But it can be quite realistic to increase the average transaction amount of your merchants by several times. Why not?

Often it only seems that the size of the average and maximum transaction is limited by the specifics of the business. If you carefully study the activities of different companies operating in the same market, it turns out that the size of the average and maximum transactions in these companies differ sharply from each other. A classic example is the advertising printing market. Some companies have a minimum transaction size of less than a thousand rubles, and they consider a deal of one hundred thousand rubles to be large. Other companies have contracts starting from tens of thousands of dollars, and they conclude a contract for several thousand dollars only as an exception. Major transactions for such a company are contracts worth hundreds of thousands, millions and tens of millions of dollars.

Of course, if you already conclude the largest contracts among all companies operating in your market, you cannot say for sure that the amount of your contracts can be increased several times more. But what if you know for sure that many of your competitors make significantly more big deals than your businessmen? You can convince yourself that competitors have a different business organization, they have more resources, better communication, and so on. But the true reason, most likely, is different: your merchants do not know how to make offers to customers for larger amounts, they are afraid to make such offers - and do not make them.

This classic situation is called the problem of "personal threshold" and its buildup. It is described in detail in my book Big Contracts. It describes a technology with which you can lead your employees to more serious amounts of transactions. Thanks to this, with the same number of transactions per month, the turnover and income of your company can increase several times.

What do we get as a result? The turnover and income of the company can grow many times over. The number of employees has not increased, which means that there is no additional burden on the administrative apparatus. Active work to reach new level transactions can be conducted with both new and existing customers. As a result, personal contact with existing customers can be renewed and strengthened.

Example: We built the sales department of a company - a manufacturer of licensed children's clothing. Even before the first recruitment competitions were held and the sales department was formed, their commercial director attended my Big Contracts training.

Conduct an express audit of the sales department on your own according to 23 criteria and identify sales growth points!

I gave the commercial director two key recommendations:

  • First, make a list of key customers in Excel, to whom the company regularly supplies children's clothing. Next to the name of each company, indicate in two columns: in the left column, the available average monthly supply (in dollars). And on the right - MAXIMUM POSSIBLE average monthly supply (also in dollars). That is, how much you can monthly ship goods to this network, if you negotiate with them as successfully as possible. Given the volume that they can sell monthly using all their resources. When the list is compiled, calculate in Excel the total amount of turnover per month - available and possible. Then draw up an action plan on how to increase sales from the left column to the right. And begin to act in accordance with this plan.
  • Second, start practicing negotiating for amounts of a million dollars or more.

The very next day after the training, the commercial director compiled the required list. After that, she immediately began to make appointments with existing customers to negotiate an increase in the volume of deliveries. In the first week, two such negotiations ended in success. Some of them were carried out with the PETRO hypermarket chain. There was a supply volume of $200,000 per month - it became $800,000 per month. I think she originally proposed to increase the supply to a million dollars a month - exactly as I ordered her in training. And already as a result of negotiations with PETRO buyers, the amount shrank to $800,000 per month. The most interesting thing is that the rate of return remained the same as it was. And it was not very bad - a direct margin on the cost was at least 150%.

As a result, the MONTHLY ADDITIONAL profit from this contract alone was more than the entire cost of our contract with that company to build a turnkey sales department. This was the first case in our practice when cooperation paid off already in the first month, even before we formed a sales department for our partner.

How will the cost of your sales force change? Salaries will remain the same, but interest and bonuses will increase in proportion to the increase in sales and income. It turns out that the increase in the company's turnover and income from sales will go faster than the growth in the total cost of salaries of sales staff (salaries + interest). For example, when fulfilling a personal sales plan, an employee receives half of the income in the form of a salary, and the other half as a percentage of the company's profits. Then, if an employee exceeded his personal plan three times with his sales, his income will double: 50% (salary) + 50% (interest) x 3 = 200%. The employee is happy - and the company is good. Income of employees will grow - their motivation and loyalty will increase. I think managing such a sales department will be even easier and more enjoyable than before.

Thus, if we increase sales by intensive methods - by increasing the average transaction value - we can get a lot of pleasant consequences from this. And most importantly - no contraindications!

Summary: a sequence of actions to increase sales

To decide how to improve the efficiency of the existing sales department, we will use the formula for sales effectiveness:

Sales performance = Number of sales managers ( sales representatives) x Number of meetings x Effectiveness of meetings

The analysis of the situation you have must be carried out according to this formula STRICTLY CONSECUTIVELY:

How staffed is your sales team? If your sales team is understaffed, it's risky to take too much action to increase sales. In such a situation, you should not press hard on employees in order to increase the intensity of their work and increase sales. Of course, you can influence them with positive methods - praise, persuasion and encouragement. But the main thing that you need to do in this situation is to get out of it as soon as possible. Recruitment needed!

You can also get our set of questionnaires, which we use in competitions for recruiting sales managers. You will be able to use these questionnaires in competitions in your company.

The conversion of each stage is determined (the ratio of potential customers reached and those who moved to the next stage) and the entire sales funnel. Then you can work on increasing the conversion rate at those stages where you lose your customers. narrow functionality, etc.), as well as the fact that managers work inefficiently within the meeting.

The first reason can be combated by conducting market research, analyzing competitors' products and improving your product in comparison with them. “Review your products and services. You may think that your product meets all modern requirements,” says Pavel Somov, business coach at the Practical Training Workshop. - It is also best to monitor the market through customers, communicating with them and understanding what competitors offer. Your target buyers will tell you about those products, conditions that would be interesting and useful to them, that no one offered them.” Clients will tell you absolutely everything, down to the cost and the "pitfalls" of competitive offers.

The second reason, as experts say, can be dealt with through control and a clear setting of tasks. “It is necessary to quickly monitor the work of sales staff, you should always have an understanding of what is happening with each client,” the expert continues. — This is important, because if an employee called once potential client, without talking to the decision maker, he "put the company in a box", and this could be a potential deal that simply did not work out. Also, according to him, setting plans and KPIs is important. Employees must clearly understand the goals and objectives. Even the most experienced sales manager will quickly break down if he does not understand what to sell and where to go. As a rule, as a KPI, you should set an indicator of the income you need and the development of relationships with priority customers.


Loyalty Retention

Do not forget to work with existing, and especially regular customers. After all, with each purchase they bring you more and more income.

Develop a customer retention system: a system of discounts, VIP cards for regular customers, drawings and special promotions for those who come back to you again and again.

“Constantly work with the customer base, analyze existing customers,” comments Pavel Somov. “Sometimes a simple call to a client you forgot about can bring a lot more results than, say, a hundred cold calls.”

It is also very important to remember that, in addition to actually selling products, you need to work with customers after the transaction. It is important to receive feedback: ask if you liked the product, what worked and what didn’t, what else would be useful. It is ideal to contact each client at least once a month, and then you will always keep your finger on the pulse and maintain the loyalty of your customers at a high level.