Customer Management

The main missions of any sales organization are:

Create customer

Keep customer

Grow customer

Customer Retention

Do you want to grow up with your business? 

Let us take the right example, in the Premier League in 2011 at Match Manchester United and

Arsenal, then Manchester won 8-2, the result was disastrous, 

What was the reaction of the Arsenal management? 

They did 3 very important things... 

First, they came down with a statement acknowledging the problem. 

Second, in the same statement, he apologized for the poor performance and promised that:
he would get better. 

Third, they returned the ticket to all the fans. 

Something too, last year Arsenal returned to each participant 100 pounds of the wish to participate in,
the matches because they are not qualified for the Champions League and,
qualified for the European League only there is a price difference, 

The lesson: to any institution that wants to keep its customers. 

You have to keep in mind that:
there is a huge difference between the customer and the service/product provider,

If the customer knows how to do the service/product he will not order it and pay his/her money,
and as long as you are satisfied you will remain a service provider.
So you put yourself in an evaluation position and,
therefore you must make an effort to satisfy the customer.

In the end if you want to do a respectable business you must respect your customers,

and an important part of respect is:

1- acknowledging the error and,

2- apologizing for it and,

3-offering a simple compensation that shows you in a check.

Focus

Focus is important to manage the scarcest resource in the world which is time that unless it’s probably managed nothing else could be managed.

There are two types of focus:

FOCUS AS A NOUN: Is just something you have

Is a central point, as of attention or activity.

It is a static thing

Usually mean having a single goal.

E.g.  John F. Kennedy challenges NASA put a man on the moon within a decade or, coming back to Bill Gates, a vision of a personal computer on every desk.

The upside to this kind of focus is clear and compelling.

You pursue a single objective and don’t get distracted along the way; you build momentum as many different people aligned behind achieving this one goal.

The dark side to focus as a noun.

Kodak was so focused on optimizing for traditional film capture and processing that they did not see or accept the transformation in their industry.

Then they found themselves caught off guard by the disruptive innovation of digital cameras.

The most important quality of a good Sales Manager

Integrity - doing what you say you will do (DWYSYWD), whether it is convenient or not, and whether or not circumstances have changed since you committed to do it.

Goal setting, communicating the goals efficiently and effectively to the team, and empathy.

Understanding your people and understanding what drives them is key.

Positive reinforcement:

And this could be the only thing a sales manager need do, appreciate, applaud and reinforce even the small "right-things" people do well, which creates a positive culture; an atmosphere of support, accomplishment and feeling good about the things we do. 

And it need not be done all that often. The rest of the time, stay out of the way and let professional sales people work.

And if you feel the urge to do more, ask the top 20% who produce 80% of your sales how they can be better and/or better served by you and the company. 

Vision: A great Sales Manager must be able to see opportunity even when others do not

Role model:

He/she is a role model who possesses positive spirit and has an emotional intelligence to know how to lead and encourage his team. Being a fair player is also a characteristic, which gives a benefit to the team.

How To Fire A Salesperson Without Creating A Stink

There is nothing more critical than being able to hire and fire as a sales leader. Building teams is all about hiring, coaching and unfortunately, sometimes firing.
Firing is the most uncomfortable of the 3. Firing is hard. I’ve seen people get fired in more ways than you could imagine and it’s usually not pretty.  It’s done so poorly, the manager is dreading it, the sales person is blindsided, and it leaves a stink on the entire team for days and sometimes weeks.
Getting firing right means being able to do it without creating a stink in the process.  It means making it a seamless, non-event.  Believe it or not, this is possible. It just takes finesse and a process.
The way to fire someone without a stink is to never actually have to fire them. It’s to get to a place where you BOTH agree it’s not working and it’s in everyones best interest to move on. This is done by coaching people up or out.
I learned this phrase a long-time ago and it has been part of my leadership tool bag for years. It goes like this; if you have an employee you think is on the bubble, someone whose ability you question, start engaging them early. Start engaging them before there is a “real” problem. Establish regularly scheduled coaching sessions where you evaluate the employees performance. During the coaching sessions target where the employee is struggling and focus on measurable improvement. If the employee can make improvements and grow, give them more responsibility and support. Keep coaching them up. However, if they aren’t making improvements and they aren’t meeting expectations, convey the failure clearly and reemphasize the importance of meeting the expectations for the next meeting. Each week, as expectations are not met, let the employee know they aren’t meeting expectations and ask them how they feel about their performance and how they feel about not achieving the results they are responsible for. The key here is to move away from telling them what you think and move towards getting them to share what they think. It’s to get the employee to share how they feel about their inability to deliver and what they feel they need to do going forward based on the fact their not getting the results.
The key is to create an environment where they take ownership, not just you.
As more deals slip. As the pipeline shrinks. As quota is missed, the employee will know exactly where they are and what is coming. They will know because they had been talking with you since the first monthly quota was missed, not the 3rd. They will know because the two of you had talked as the pipeline was shrinking. They will know because, you will have told him the deal he was betting on to make quota wasn’t going to close and it didn’t. He will know the job isn’t for him because he wasn’t allowed to hide. Everything has been in the open. You and he addressed his failures as they happened. They weren’t allowed to be become “anomalies” and excuses.  Every failure, missed expectation, failed goal was on the table as it happened, not in a closet piling up, only to be brought out in a giant heep at a later date.
They key to firing a sales person is to let their failures do the firing for you. It’s to let each failure settle in, bringing them closer to the end in a slow roll.  It’s not to stuff all the failures into a closet until the closet is so full it’s bursting at the seems that you have to rip it open letting all the crap fly out. When that happens, firing someone stinks. It’s not good for anyone.
Don’t put the failures in a closet. Give each failure to the sales person as it happens. Overtime, THE SAME AMOUNT OF TIME OR MAYBE EVEN SHORTER than if you stuffed it all in a closet, the salesperson will break under the weight and by then, you will both know it’s time and a gracious exit happens all by itself.
Firing a sales person is NOT an event. Treating it that way creates a stink. Firing is a process. Do it right and not only will it not stink. It may just smell fresh and clean.

How to improve bad performers ?

Underperforming employees are not hard to find. They are perpetually tardy or absent, or procrastinate and mismanage projects. They are cavalier about company rules, create conflict in the ranks or seem to do just enough to get by. They abuse the system.
For fellow employees these individuals are a sore thumb, a drag on productivity and a punch to overall morale. 
For the business, they hurt profits and drain management’s time. According to International report , managers spend nearly 17 percent of their working hours dealing with poor performers. 
That’s basically a full day a week that could have been spent being productive.
It is critical that leaders proactively deal with underperformers. 
Experts identify two main reasons employees underperform at their jobs. 
1-Either they lack the ability or skill set required, or 
2-They lack the motivation or desire to perform, or both.
Managers should begin their plan of action by properly identifying the degree to which an employee’s poor performance is due to a “can’t” or a “won’t.”

1. Study: Start the process by studying the employee. Be curious about why they are working the way they are. Document times and dates, and gather concrete examples or poor behavior or performance so you can properly assess whether the issue is due to lack of skill or lack of will. This information can be used to confront the employee and create a strategy for improvement.
2. Strategy: Set a one-on-one meeting with the employee and present your concerns about their performance. Take note of any reasons they give or ways you can help them improve at their job. Review the requirements of their job, and collaborate on a strategy for them to accelerate their performance.  Examples include skill training, education, and mentoring for the “can’t do,” and feedback, concrete goals and new work arrangements for the “won’t do.” Lastly, set a time period and a time to meet back (such as 30 days) and reassess.
3. Review and Decide: After the allotted time, meet with the employee to review their performance. If they have excelled, applaud their efforts and continue with the strategies and structure that set them on the right path. If they have not, but seem motivated and committed to their work, consider moving them to a more suitable position in the business. If they have not performed and are uncommitted to improve, make the tough call to let them go.
4. Be a leader, not a manager: In both cases, avoid seeing the employee as the enemy or fostering an environment that is combative. Great leaders inspire their people. Keep feedback and communication open and positive. Look for creative ways to help your people succeed. One great question every great leader should ask is, “What can I do to help?”

On a final note, consider how your organization is facilitating poor performance. Prevention is much easier (and cheaper!) to implement than treatment. Leaders and management should examine their hiring and retention practices, which directly impact employee performance and motivation. Some examples include better background checks, expanded interviewing and job assessments, more creative recruiting practices, detailed job descriptions and better orientation and onboarding practices.
Plus, employee development and career opportunities should be included in any healthy workplace.  As business strategies and operations change, employees should be given the tools and  skills needed to succeed.