January 2010
No matter what type of product or service your company provides to the graphic arts marketplace, you won’t be in business long without a steady influx of sales. With the worst of the economic maelstrom hopefully behind us, assessing your sales performance from last year and setting realistic expectations for this one can help your sales team start 2010 with greater confidence and self-knowledge.
Get a View from the Field
Assess each territory with appropriate team members. Use this analysis as an opportunity to discover which of your reps know the pulse of their territories and which don’t. Numbers and bottom line results are obviously important, but so is other feedback.
Examine Last Year’s Sales Forecasts
It’s no secret that 2009 was rough for salespeople in almost every industry. With this in mind, focus on the following: Did your sales staff deliver on their promises from a year ago? Were all generated leads followed up with in a timely fashion? What opportunities were missed? Take a look at each rep’s projected top accounts. How close was actual performance to early forecasts? As the year progressed, were you kept informed of changes in the sales plan? Were corrective actions taken? A sales rep can’t help a crummy economy, but they can keep their employer aware of events as they unfold. Remember, you can’t decide where you’re going unless you know where you’ve been.
Analyze Your Department
Sales are all about making your numbers. If your team met their sales targets, what factors contributed to this? Pore through the sales reports to determine whether success derived from marketplace intelligence or basic activities like making more sales calls. Did you add any new services or equipment that helped speed up production? Is there an upcoming investment opportunity that could make 2010 a more profitable business year?
Do You Have the Right Tools?
Do your salespeople have all the resources necessary to attain their targets? Sales training, marketing support, customer service staff and increased productivity devices such as smart phones and laptops can all generate good returns on investment. If you can calculate any, consider boosting these purchases for 2010. If not, cut back on your unrewarded generosity.
Create Your Roadmap
Before implementing a plan, managers and salespeople need to agree on overall sales goals. Once this is accomplished, set monthly or quarterly benchmark targets--otherwise you’re setting your company up for disappointment and possibly future financial difficulties. Lay out a plan clearly defining the expectations you have for each member of your sales team. Each sales rep should have a detailed business plan communicating:
- Overall sales goals
- Specific client goals
- Self-improvement action steps
- New customer acquisition including specific activities that will convert prospects into customers. Included should be targeted numbers for:
- New prospects identified each month
- Telephone “dialings” each day
- Telephone conversations with potential buyers each day (or week)
- Sales visits to new prospects each week (or month)
- New customer quotes each month
- New customers on the books each month (or quarter)
- Sales volume generated from new clients each quarter
In short, help your sales reps create a road map for their future success.
Charting a course for aggressive, intelligent growth can be difficult. Grow Sales, Inc., has been helping printing and other graphic arts companies with their strategic concerns and growth needs since 1996. Whether your company is in transition, the middle of an upswing or seeking help to get there, let us put our sales and marketing leadership to work for you.
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