Sales Manager Effectiveness.. The Key To Sales Productivity

Social media tools recently connected me with Philippe Le Baron who is the President of LB4G Consulting, Inc, a Sales Management consulting firm based in Charlotte, NC. He read my blog, I visited his website, we chatted on the telephone and we LinkedIn. This is starting to become the new way to meet biz contacts!

What sets Philippe apart from many other sales consultants, beyond his very cool accent, is his unique focus on improving sales productivity via the effectiveness and activities of the sales management team. AND Philippe is also a stand-up comedian! (Watch his video.) I asked Philippe to share more about his techniques with the Sales Operations Blog readers. Here is Philippe’s guest blog.

Sales Manager Effectiveness.. The Key To Sales Productivity

By Guest Blogger, Philippe Le Baron

Are you frustrated managing sales people who seem to be content to just “cruise along” and do not achieve the numbers you expect?

Have you tried applying the newest theories of sales productivity management to your local or  multi-cultural sales force “engine” with less than the outstanding results?

Sales leadership is both an  art and science- and depends heavily on how well your sales managers can execute. After working with many different organizations and sales cultures, I’ve developed a simple and practical approach to improve sales productivity via the sales management team, which I call “1+1+1=4!™” I believe the first and foremost mission of a sales manager is to create all the conditions for their reps to succeed.

Here are some highlights of this sales methodology:

If you have ever run a consulting business or a Professional services business, your revenue forecast was based on your people production:  your delivery organization was living by the following ratios: chargeability, billability, average price per day, per person, average number of  bid investment days,  etc..

Sales productivity boils down to creating the same kind of “people based forecast,” but for sales people only. If you use a regular sales forecast that is opportunity/account based, the sales volume total should be the same on both reports. But what your sales productivity forecast brings to the table are two extra items:

1) A past/present/future picture for each of your salespeople that adds value to your opportunity based forecast and therefore to your “forecast confidence factor”.

2)  An “early warning system” for each of your salespeople based on simple ratios specific to their sales cycle that tells you in advance whether or not the sales person is on the right track (before the month/quarter is over).  Regardless of what he/she tells you.

By providing these two “hard facts, data analytics”-based reports early enough to your sales manager, he/she can then use this extra information to inspect business in a better, more informed and more predictable way.

In order to calculate and understand these two extra variables, you need to consider the set of outputs and inputs that are specific to your business on both the Rep level and Sales Manager Level.  Here are some examples…

Sales Outputs & Inputs

REP OUTPUTS: Sales volume is, of course, #1 on the list, but you also want to consider how we get there. Here are some examples…

• Brand image
• Leads
• Sales cycle ratios (prospect calls, meetings, bids, hit ratio%,…)
• Customer loyalty
• Market share
• Referrals
• New customers
• New market penetration
• Activity
• Average deal size
• Deeper customer penetration

You need to set objectives for the Sales Rep outputs that are specific to your business, and  measure results and progression such as; You expect your reps to produce W$ of sales-  You know that in your business, this represents X bids and Y meetings, that go over an average sale cycle of X month.

The inputs are like a staircase… you need to define how many steps, and which are they, that pave the way to success for an average sales person in your business. That is how you create the benchmark and the ramp up.

REP INPUTS :  Here is where you look at the conditions that are fed to a sales person to help him succeed. For example…

• Quota
• Territory
• Compensation plan
• Self (given) skills and Motivation
• Company culture
• Company support (management, functional,…)
• Existing client base
• Market conditions, competition
• Offering
• Time

What is interesting here, is to consider who is responsible for establishing most of these inputs to a sales person’s success.. it’s the Sales Manager(s) This is why the first and foremost mission of a sales manager is to create all of the conditions for their reps to succeed. Now sales managers are no magicians either, but  they should understand what pivotal role they play in their rep’s success, and failure…

Let’s take a look at what this production system looks like for a sales manager :

SALES MANAGERS INPUTS are similar to the inputs for sales reps with  one big  add on :

• Your sales team (each and every one of your reps)

SALES MANAGER OUTPUTS focus on how the team performs…

• Sales volume, margin achievement, growth targets,
• Forecast predictability
• Sales management cycle ratios
• Productivity ramp up/acceleration
• Pipeline to goal conversion
• # star reps
• low reps turnover (unless you are in a different business very rep consuming…)
• % of reps at goal

The effective management of this set of outputs and inputs can make the difference between growing sales and blowing away your quota versus, declining sales performance in a challenging economy.

Key Takeaways

Sales Managers play a critical and pivotal role in the success of their sales teams.

By creating..

1) A past/present/future picture for each of your salespeople that adds value to your opportunity based forecast and therefore to your “forecast confidence factor”.

2)  An “early warning system” for each of your salespeople based on simple ratios specific to their sales cycle that tells you in advance whether or not the sales person is on the right track (before the month/quarter is over).

through management of outputs and inputs, you will create more accurate sales forceasts, are better able to coach and develop your reps and will produce more consistent and sustainable sales production.

Learn more…

To learn more about Philippe Le Baron and LB4G Consulting, please visit his website: www.lb4gconsulting.com. Philippe is also a newly published author of  “1+1+1=4! the Winning formula for RISING Sales Managers” available here.