Sales Managers - How to Manage Your Sales Meetings

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Sales Manager Skills: The Number 1 Skill All Successful Sales Managers Have

Sales manager skills are a given in any high performing sales manager. You know the ones we are talking about? Hiring, firing, performance management, sales coaching, business planning, motivating a sales team to name just a few. None of these will be delivered though if your sales managers are unable to do this one key skill. What is it? Communicate.

In this particular article we will cover the powerful aspect of nonverbal communication which is an important first step to improving your communication skills.

I know this is logical and yet most sales directors will gloss over this 'basic' skill.The true power of communication delivered in a thoughtful way will enable the most amazing results. A dictionary definition of communication centres around the ability to transmit messages from one person or place to another. Seems reasonable? For a sales manager they will also need to ensure that the information they communicate then gets acted on by whomever they are communicating it to.

One pre supposition about communication is that you cannot not communicate. Let's explore that a little. We communicate not only with the words we speak, in fact the most powerful way we communicate with others is through our body language and voice. Albert Mehrabians classic research identified that 93 per cent of the way we communicate is through our body and voice. With only 7% coming from the actual words and phrases we use.

This seems to be particularly so when people have positional power. For instance in our case a sales manager and her sales representative. Ensuring that communication is congruent is key.

Using a practical example of sales coaching. If a sales manager is giving feedback and advice a softer open body approach and style will make a big difference to the result's that are achieved. A fixed body position and voice tone will not be as motivational for the sales representative on the other end of the communication. This is where the technique of mirroring body language can work to build rapport and trust in the communication process.

The good news is that powerful communication skills can be learnt. The first step is awareness about how you are currently communicating. What is the voice tone you use? How are you standing? How fast do you talk? How close do you stand to the person that you are communicating with? What is your eye contact like?

When you ask many sales managers this question some have awareness and many don't. A great exercise is to observe someone else. Watch the interaction and how it flows. By doing this you will have insight to your own and others behaviour. If you are really serious about improving the way you communicate non verbally, watch yourself on video. Many a presentation skills course has made a significant difference to how people communicate purely by showing the delegates how they physically and tonally communicate.

Addressing nonverbal communication consistently has one of the biggest impacts on your power to communicate in a way that is acted upon.

So what next? Time to take some action. As an initial first step, if you are brave enough ask your colleagues and even significant other how they perceive you, through your nonverbal communication. You might just be surprised.

Nic Hallett is the MD of Excel Enterprise one Europe's most successful sales training companies that help sales managers improve their Sales Manager Skills. To Find out more about the how Excel Enterprise work http://www.excelenterprise.co.uk/

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How Sales Managers Can Introduce the Concept of a Zero-Mistake Culture in to Their Sales Force

The "zero mistake" principle was first used in manufacturing environments because it's a lot more cost-effective to manufacture a flawless product from the very start than to search for flaws that have emerged in the course of production and then fixing these. The principles of the "zero mistake" approach can be transferred to a sales environment and is, therefore, generally included by sales supervisors in their internal sales training programmes. Zero mistakes in selling means that the sales department's aim is to create a situation where there are no un-happy customers.

It will take a lot of work to build up a zero mistakes culture in sales. The task begins with you, the sales supervisor. As soon as you have recognised the merits of the approach, you need to shift your conviction to your sales people. From there it is really an easy step to transfer this approach to your customers.

Prior to doing anything to change your sales organisation, do a sort of stock-taking. This will involve a number of steps, including:

1. Enhancing your own personal client contacts. Do this by going with your salespeople on customer visits or make client visits your self. Listen and experience first hand what the clients think of you, the product, and the services you deliver.

2. Reviewing the very last complaint through to its conclusion. What future improvements did this indicate to you? What would make clients un-happy and what would make them happy?

3. Looking at yourself. How do you talk to your sales people regarding clients? What exactly is your attitude towards customers? How does your attitude or conduct colour the conduct of your sales people?

Taking stock in this way will show you exactly where you stand and exactly where, as a result, the vast majority of your salespeople stand.

Satisfied customers do not come about just because you send your sales team to the relevant sales training seminars. The basis for building happy customers is creating a working environment which makes it likely for no errors to occur, combined with an appreciation of your client and his/her wants.

Organise the sales process to make it as straightforward and streamlined as you can. Complex official channels for order forms, multiple copies of order information, or vague responsibilities don't create situations condusive to flawless work. Eliminate all the actions between client contact and delivery which are actually not crucial or which do not add to client satisfaction.

Convey your appreciation of the client to your sales team. Top performances in selling always depends on the working atmosphere. When you appreciate the client and their satisfaction is important to you, this attitude will rub off on your sales team. Exactly the same is sadly true of the reverse.

If anything goes wrong, make up for it! There are, sadly, still organizations that force bureaucracy on the clients and insist on the small print. The reason for this is often minimal freedom of decision-making on the part of the salesperson or service representatives. If something goes wrong, the sales person in contact with the client has to possess the desire and also the freedom to compensate for the error in some manner. Your client should feel that:

Everybody in your company has a stake in making certain that every thing goes according to plan with the delivery - even if sometimes a mistake happens. This way the client doesn't have to carry the can for your error.

As an illustration of this principle, consider the following example. Imagine you have delivered on time, but have not delivered their total order. Do not wait until your client contacts you to complain. Make contact with your customer and explain what has happened and apologise for the error. Offer them an alternative: delivery as soon as the goods are available, naturally free of charge, or immediate delivery of a substitute product.

Do build up a consistent follow-up procedure and use it. Each and every client who doesn't go on to order more items from you must be asked "why". This really is the only method to discover possible weaknesses in your sales organisation. You'll be amazed at how much data you obtain this way concerning the market place, the competition plus the customer. Make the data you obtain accessible, in report form, to the sales team and also the office sales team so they can react to this information.

In conclusion, close client relations and constant customer orientation, supplemented with targeted sales training are good ways of achieving competitive advantage and, during situations of high cost pressure, have the further benefit that they do not need a large budget to implement.

Richard Stone (richard.stone@spearhead-training.co.uk) is a Director for Spearhead Training Limited ( http://www.spearhead-training.co.uk/ ) a company that specialises in running management and sales training courses. Richard provides consultancy advice for numerous world leading companies.

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