We were doing a small seminar last week when we noticed
that only one company in the room actually had a sales
department. The rest thought they did and probably would
say they did but when we analyzed the situation, they
realized they actually had misplaced their sales department
a few years ago and hadn't noticed.
This led us to the realization that sales departments can
be inadvertently misplaced and closed. This is extremely
detrimental to the business because a business without a
sales department is just a ghost of what it could be.
Has your Sales department disappeared or been misplaced?
Here are a few ways to find out.
Percentage Of Time Analysis
One of the companies at the seminar was composed of the
owner and 4 salespeople. Sounds like a large sales force.
However, a time analysis revealed that all but one spent
10% of their time (about 4 hours per week) on sales. The
rest of their time, they did service and sales of other
products, paperwork, service calls etc.. Counting heads is
not as accurate as counting hours. We suggest you take an
accurate count of the amount of time each employee spends
on actual sales activities - prospecting and doing demos.
The result may surprise you. How much time is your sales
department actually selling?
Number Of Sales Presentations
Another way to measure the size of your sales department is
a game we call "Count The Presentations". Take an accurate
count with customer names of the presentations or sales
visits performed last week. First, calculate how many
presentations is a day's work in your industry. If you sell
complex products to businesses, it could be one per day. If
you sell in-home to consumers, it could be two per day. If
you sell by phone, it could be 30 per day. Take your total
presentation that should be done each day and divide by the
number of presentations per day that should be done. The
quotient you calculate represents the number of active
salespeople on your team. If it is less than you expected,
you need to hire or refocus your current team on sales.
Hours Of Operation
It is a proven fact that customers prefer to buy when they
are too busy. Consumers don't want to take time off to meet
the sales guy. So for most consumers that means evenings
and weekends are the prime selling time. Business people
don't want visitors at their busiest times and restaurants
want no salespeople during their peak traffic periods. Does
your sales staff work these prime selling hours or are the
stuck with the nine to five mentality?
One way to estimate the "force" in your sales force is to
see what percentage of the golden selling time your team is
in the field. If you set the "golden selling time" as 5 to
9 Monday to Thursday and Saturday, that is a total of 24
hours per week. Measure what percentage of those hours your
staff is out selling and you have a good measure of the
percentage of a sales force you actually have. If you have
4 salespeople who are in the field 50% of those hours, we
believe you will find you should discount the size of your
sales force by 50%.
It is also interesting to me that many companies who
struggle in sales have new recruits and part timers working
the best sales hours. This is a serious handicap to
success. It just doesn't pay to have your experienced and
talented staff in when fewer customers come by and your
least experienced and successful team on the floor when
most buyers come in.
Call Back Success
Another measurement of sales success is the number of sales
generated each week from calling prospects who did not buy
at their initial appointment and getting another chance to
get the sale get the sale. Good companies add about 15% to
total sales from call backs. If your percentage is less,
you are leaving money on the table that could be in your
pocket. For example, my wife and I visited a large
furniture store yesterday but did not buy. Could a call
from a manager asking why, get us back in? Yes it could.
Further, they would find out from the call why we did not
buy. This would allow them to make decisions from actual
(and valuable) customer feed back.
Focus & Importance
Another interesting measure of your sales department is the
focus of your company and the importance of sales. If you
company believes that anything other than presentations and
sales is important today, you don't have a sales
department. If the first question on everyone's mind today
is how many did we present and sell last yesterday, how
many will we do today, you have a sales department. If that
is the last thing on the minds of your staff, you do not.
Ask each of your staff members what is the most important
thing on their minds today. The result may surprise you. If
the answer is anything but presenting and selling, you will
benefit from changes.
Sales Or Customer Dis-Service?
Another interesting measurement of your sales department,
is its membership. Is anyone a full time salesperson? Just
as important, is EVERYONE focused on selling? Do you keep
track of the number of appointments generated per call-in?
Do you train your entire staff on how to use calls to
generate sales? Does your delivery staff call on neighbors
of your customers to see if they your products or services?
Do your techs ask customers if they have any other needs?
If not, these staff members are overhead when they could be
an important part of your sales department.
If you take these tests and find you have misplaced your
sales department in the years since you opened for
business, now is the time to take steps. Without sales, a
company withers and dies. You have the power to direct
every member of your team to sell every day. Remember that
your costs don't go up as you focus on sales but your
income does. No matter how many sales you make each month
without a sales department, you deserve to sell a lot more.
We suggest you keep this article and take these
measurements monthly to see if you are making progress. The
funny thing about sales departments is the moment you take
your focus of them they begin to disappear.
----------------------------------------------------
Carl Davidson looks at sales management and asks if your
sales department is actually selling. This management
training article talks about focusing on achieving sales.
For more information, visit
http://www.salesandmanagementsolutions.com
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