Frontline sales managers have the toughest job in sales. They are the last link between the company and the sales team’s interaction with the customer. For a company to be successful, the sales management function must perform. But sales managers are pulled in so many different directions, by so many people, it can be hard for them to find the time to focus on effective sales performance management. Even if they have the time, it’s too hard to get the insights they need from the flood of data in Salesforce and the reports from their analytics systems.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Sales managers deserve better.
My eBook ‘Winning Sales Performance Management – No Analytics Needed’ is intended to address this problem. The purpose of this book is to make it easier for sales managers to achieve the best sales performance possible from their teams, and make or exceed their quarter. In the end, that’s what matters. While the book is mainly about best practices for sales managers, you also will see how software, specifically designed to solve this problem, can dramatically improve sales performance.
We follow Kelly, a B2B sales manager working in the Midwest of the United States. Kelly has nine direct salespeople on her team, and wakes up everyday wondering how she can maximize the team’s performance. I describe what is challenging about Kelly’s job and her struggles to manage the right sales performance KPIs. We share her frustration at how difficult it is to gain visibility into the sales forecast and sales pipeline, and we suggest a new approach. To help her fully grasp her team’s performance and minimize risks, we recommend a cadence of best practices that she can use every day, week, month and quarter.
You see, we think that the sales management problem is not a deficit of data, but a deficit of insight. You can only get the right answer if you know the right question, so we ask the important questions to frame the problem.
5 Key Sales Performance Management Questions
- What is the best cadence for managing my sales business?
- How can I understand the sales performance KPIs in my business?
- Can I reduce risk and avoid surprises to make my sales forecast?
- Are there enough real deals in my pipeline? Where are the risks?
- QBR: What happened to my forecast/pipeline last quarter?
Great sales managers know that they have to apply proven sales management practices that work everyday in the trenches. Through our engagement with hundreds of companies and thousands of sales managers, we have learned a thing or two about what works, and what tools are needed. I expect that you will empathize with the problems we describe and hope you see value in our considered point of view.
You can download the book here. I would love to hear your comments.
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Donal Daly is Executive Chairman of Altify having founded the company in 2005. He is author of numerous books and ebooks including the Amazon #1 Best-sellers Account Planning in Salesforce and Tomorrow | Today: How AI Impacts How We Work, Live, and Think. Altify is Donal’s fifth global business enterprise.