Meeting and exceeding monthly goals is an obvious priority for all sales reps and sales managers. Every day we continue to read and share more and more about new and exciting ways to achieve our quotas. This week we thought we’d take a different approach to looking at monthly goals and provide views from the inside sales manager perspective and Monday will post the reps perspective. Today I’ll discuss the management perspective on what we need to do as leaders to help our reps be as successful as they can be. Here are my tips for ensuring success:
Meet one on one to present goals to your team the first day of a new month, and also close the loop on the previous month. Set goal expectations as early on in the month as you can so your reps are fully aware and prepared for the month ahead. Another habit to get into is to review opportunities that your rep passed in the previous month, and talk through the results of what came from them. Did they go to the next step? Was there positive feedback from the call that occurred? Are there any new trends you may have discovered? The first of the month is a great time to discuss this, and to plan ahead to improve for the current month.
Set up weekly meetings with your reps throughout the month as check in points. By utilizing weekly check-ins with your reps, you are assured of catching any problems before they can multiply. If you are only speaking with your reps twice a month, you may discover some areas that need to be addressed too late. The month could be half over before you even realize there is a problem. Checking in multiple times throughout the month to make sure they have adequate lists and the right support is crucial – which leads me to my next tip….
Be a sounding board for your reps and have an open door policy. Nothing gets under my skin more than when I hear about inside sales managers that aren’t open to sitting down with their reps to discuss where they are for the month, and to be open to their ideas about how to be better. It’s crucial for your team to feel like they can seek help from you at any given point throughout the month despite how busy your workload is. It is equally as important that your reps know they can contribute to their own success by offering suggestions and feedback on what does and does not work.
Aid with marketing automation. Set up a schedule for emails to go out every week to all of your team’s contacts that haven’t been touched or put into their call rotation. If your reps have lists of hundreds or thousands of contacts, there’s no way they can hit them all in one week. By setting up a mass email that goes out each week, they can nurture the prospects they can’t get to. This allows your reps to find the low hanging fruit from their lists of contacts which will also give them a boost of confidence, and get them closer to their goal.
Review the use of training tools. With all the inside sales tools available now, it’s crucial to ask yourself if you are using them appropriately. For instance, I have recently started using an email automation tool for my team. I am now at the point where I am asking myself if I am taking full advantage of it. It’s easy to get lost in the shuffle of our everyday tasks and responsibilities, and I’m the first one to admit it, but it’s crucial to review the tools we’re using to make sure we’re maximizing the value they bring.
It is very easy to get caught up in administrative and operational tasks throughout the month; make sure you are scheduling time to meet and review campaigns with your reps. Use these five steps as a basis to how your month should be structured and make sure you leave your office door open (when possible!). On Monday, one of my reps will provide her view on what it takes for a rep to be successful in a month.
