BCA

 By John Riley

 Sales managers don’t get much sleep these days. Scouring the landscape for orders is a character building experience. Meanwhile, the economy continues to limp along as sales managers and their master’s search for solutions that will keep their companies afloat.

 Of course, management recognizes many companies have drastically cut back their inventories, but they also know some companies are still buying and they want a piece of that action. If that isn’t happening, executives usually make a change in sales managers or restructure the sales force. It’s a predictable course of action, especially if they are not familiar with, or have forgotten, how sales people fight for Team One in the trenches. The real problem may be management itself.

Expectations can be a problem

 For example, management expectations can exceed the sales force’s capabilities. This can easily happen if there has not been a dialogue between management and the sales manager to set mutually agreed sales goals at the outset of each year. Motivation is normally built into the process through a sales incentive program that handsomely rewards the high achievers. While the goals must be realistic, they need to be ‘stretch’ goals, which usually call for a stellar performance’. With both management and the sales manager on the same page, unrealistic expectations can be minimized or eliminated.

 Since sales people are in a high risk/high reward function, executives who do not have sales backgrounds may sometimes find the rewards earned by their sales staff to be unjustified and an unnecessary burden on the company’s budget. As a result, they may be prone to reduce the size of a sales person’s territory or the number of accounts he handles as a not so subtle way of reducing the commissions the salesperson can earn. Additionally, a salesperson faces aggressive and skilled competitors who are equally determined to earn their commissions so producing results is by no means assured. Establishing and maintaining a well structured incentive system is absolutely essential to attract and keep high achievers.

 Things aren’t always what they seem

 Reliable organizational support is necessary to provide service continuity to customers when a salesperson is off calling on other customers or prospects. Support personnel occasionally see their sales people entertaining customers, flying to exciting locales to meet with prospects, accompanying the company President to call on an account, or being invited to a customer golf outing. This sometimes leads to members of the office staff becoming envious of their sales people undermining their commitment to sales support. What the office staff doesn’t see is their sales person being called at home at 9:30 pm to hear an irate customer report the salesman’s product had failed resulting in a production line shut down. After rushing to the customer’s plant to help resolve the problem, the salesperson finally gets home at 2:00 am. Or office staff doesn’t see the salesperson’s face when she learns, after four intense months of working on specifications and production issues for her customer that the promised order was going to a competitor who did none of the work, but offered a slightly lower price. Management needs to insure the support staff  recognizes and understands the multifaceted and essential role of the sales staff.

 In the final analysis, the sales force is accountable

 So when sales tank, don’t be too quick to blame the sales force. Ask if sales goals have been mutually agreed, a realistic incentive system is in place and the organization is providing the necessary support.  Make adjustments if necessary, however, in the final analysis, the sales force is accountable.