It's a busy selling season for most sales professionals. Right around the corner could be a tougher selling environment as everyone's kids are getting out of school and the summer vacation pace kicks in. Sales reps have about 60 selling days this summer and, with all the vacations, etc, it's probably more like 45. 45 little days to make some sales! Last week, we shared some ideas to proactively sell more during the summer months. That was directed at sales people. THIS is directed at their Sales Managers.
Sales Managers, drop everything you are doing right now. Make it top priority to remove any barriers to selling your salespeople are facing. What is your company asking them to do that is hindering them from seeing customers? What are their "selling hours"? Is everyone clear they are not to be disturbed during those hours? What is being asked of them beyond winning business? Examine each and every one of those activities to determine how they benefit the customers and the sales reps. If the benefits don't outweigh the loss of sales time, get it off their to-do lists.
Make it clear to sales people that their #1 job is to sell. Not to fill out reports or train other sales people or put together marketing brochures or babysit implementation or learn their new CRM or join every internal conference call they are invited to or return internal calls during selling hours or, or, or... the list goes on.
You'll see from the activities I listed above that there are many useful, valuable activities a sales rep could be doing. Even positive activities, such as training a new sales rep, get in the way of their selling time.
The advice here? Be vigilant in regards to selling time. Protect it fiercely. It won't matter what else you could be doing if your team doesn't have the sales numbers.
If you need some visual help to protect selling time, Just Sell has some great Sales Day Calendars. Visit them here.