Getting the sales manager to be a proactive part of the salesperson’s program pays big dividends.

Do you have a sales manager? If you don’t, should you have one?

My answer is a resounding “Yes!” Even if you are a small rep firm, you need someone to act as the leader of the sales force and supervisor of the salespeople. How can you expect salespeople to manage their business if they are not managed by the company they work for?

The most important part of a salesperson’s work is not making calls. It is planning their activity for their 10-20 core accounts — those accounts that represent 80 percent or more of their commission income. Leadership is the key. Someone needs to help the salespeople build a plan and also assist them as they begin to work the plan for each of their customers.

One Customer at a Time

This is the key to all planning for a rep firm. The salespeople need to be totally focused on each significant customer and each significant line.

Multiple-Line Selling Strategy

If the rep firm has a good multi-line package, each significant customer should represent substantial opportunities for each of the rep firm’s major lines. If the rep firm has 20 lines, there are five to seven that account for 80 percent or more of the commission income. Each salesperson needs a plan for each of these customers for each of the major lines.

Detailed Questions Have to Be Answered

Getting the salespeople to dive into the details is the first big challenge. This is an exercise in discipline.

The Big Book — Getting Into the Weeds for Profit!

One good method is to develop a big book for each salesperson. Set up a three-ring binder alphabetically for each salesperson. The binder is organized to have each customer with a separate section. Within that section there should be an overall assessment of the customer and the rep firm’s relationship with the customer.

Review of Last Year

Numbers count. The salesperson should provide a section of the customer data documenting all sales by line for the past fiscal year. Beyond the numbers, the salesperson should make comments on the results by line. What contributed to sales — a big order? Steady day-to-day business? One or two customers buying from this distributor or outlet?

The core of the sales manager to salesperson program is the game plan by line for each customer. Forcing the salesperson to identify which specific products he or she will be promoting and selling to the customer is key to getting excellent results for the customer.

Although it is tedious, the salesperson must think this way. And the sales manager must be informed about the salesperson’s approach to each line with each customer.

Size Does Matter

The above approach to selling the customer is the launch pad for making sales grow. This overview gives the sales manager a starting point to discuss the customer with the salesperson. The salesperson needs to honestly and frankly write up his or her relationship with the customer’s key people and how the customer has gone about purchasing or not purchasing the rep firm’s key lines.

Why do they buy or not buy? What competitor is getting the business?

Next Year — Game Plan?

The salesperson should summarize the activity by customer and by line with an overview of how the sales process will go during the coming year. What results can be expected as the year progresses?

Regular Monitoring

Finally, the sales manager and the salesperson should set up a regular review program. Quarterly reviews by customer and by line make sense. The salesperson needs to look back at the past quarter[s] and look forward to discussing the plans for each customer in depth.

Go Deep

The discussion focuses on knowledge. This is the key to making this approach to sales management for results successful. It takes time and discipline to get the results that both the sales manager and salesperson desire. It is worth the work.

Good luck and good selling.

MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at [email protected].