Mastering Sales Management: The Road to Sustainable Success

By Ed Young, Fabricator’s Business Coach

Sales management isn’t just about closing deals; it’s the backbone of any successful business operation. From setting targets to motivating your team, effective sales management is the key to driving revenue, fostering customer relationships and ensuring long-term growth. However, in today’s competitive landscape and uncertain economic climate, simply having a sales team isn’t enough. It’s crucial to master the art of sales management to maximize your team’s potential and propel your business forward.

The Significance of Sales Management

Sales management encompasses a wide range of activities, from setting objectives and forecasting to motivating and empowering your sales team. It’s the engine that drives your business forward, fueling growth and profitability. A wellmanaged sales function generates revenue and builds strong customer relationships while enhancing brand loyalty and driving innovation. Effective sales management is essential for staying ahead of the competition and achieving sustainable success.

Many business owners struggle with managing their salespeople because they think salespeople are different or that making a sale is an isolated event. The truth is that salespeople aren’t any different than the rest of your employees. They need to know what is expected of them; they need goals; they need real-time feedback on performance; they want to do meaningful work; they want to be recognized and rewarded for their contributions to the company.

Define Your Sales Process

Making a sale is not an isolated event. It is the culmination of a process — a series of events. Just like a successful countertop installation depends on successful prior events, getting the order depends on successful prior events. Sales management is about managing those events and the people who perform them effectively.

Lead Generation

The sales process starts with lead generation. Typically, that includes social media ads, digital ads, email campaigns, traditional marketing and outside sales calls. Tracking metrics for each activity is essential.

Which social media and online ads generate the most clicks, form submissions and leads? What are the response rates to your email campaigns? How many sales calls are your outside salespeople making, and how many are successful? How is your lead acquisition cost trending? Tracking and trending these metrics will help you evaluate and improve your lead-generation process.

Following Up

Follow-up is where most fabrication shops blow it. They will do many of the right things to generate new leads but fail to follow up on them.

To manage the follow-up process well, you need to define your process. What happens when you get a new lead? How quickly do you follow up? What is your follow-up process? How much of that process is automated (text, email) and personal (phone call, visit)? What is your follow-up sequence and timing (the order of texts, emails, and calls, and how far apart)? At what point do you consider the lead dead, and what happens to the lead then?

Tracking follow-up timing along with successful contact rates by salespeople is a great way to manage this phase of the sales process.

Quoting

It’s obvious that you can’t get orders if you don’t generate quotes. How many quotes do each of your salespeople create each day? What is the average quote amount? What is the total quote volume each day, and is it enough to keep your shop well-fed? Breaking down this data by market segment, material type, quote amount, and salesperson will give you great insights into how well your process is working and where you need to improve. Note that follow-up is just as important after the quote as after receiving the initial lead. Tracking the same metrics here is critical.

Conversion

Many shops have an idea of their average quote-to-order conversion rate. However, few actually track the data and trend it over time. Breaking this data down by salesperson, market segment, material type, and amount can give you valuable insights into which markets are the most lucrative for your business.

Setting Expectations: The Key to Success

Setting clear expectations is crucial for aligning your team’s efforts and driving performance. Define your objectives, processes and performance metrics in detail. For example, when it comes to quote follow-ups, outline each interaction’s timing, communication methods and content. Documenting these expectations ensures clarity and accountability within your team.

Communication is key. Share the documented processes with your team, solicit feedback, and provide ongoing training and support. Effective follow-up involves regular feedback on performance and maintaining accountability. Solid tracking systems, such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, are essential for monitoring performance and ensuring accountability. Using a CRM is the key to managing data and keeping the emotions and assumptions out of the management process.

The Power of Coaching

In addition to the follow-up activities that are part of the sales process, following up on the performance of individual salespeople is a must. You can set expectations, communicate and train process attributes and track data. Simply making individual performance data visible can help raise awareness and create some friendly competition. However, you must also check in with salespeople frequently, or you will lose the opportunity to improve their performance.

When an individual isn’t performing well, a lack of coaching support can create a “doom loop” of decreasing performance. Use the data to create teachable moments where the salesperson is motivated to improve. Structure your coaching time by understanding which part of the process the person struggles with. A little role-playing to practice the preferred behaviors can produce strong improvements in performance.

Unleashing Your Sales Potential

Effective sales management is a multifaceted endeavor that requires clear expectations, consistent follow-up and the use of technology to maximize efficiency. By setting clear goals, documenting expectations, and implementing structured follow-up processes, you can unlock the full potential of your sales team. In an uncertain economic climate, mastering the art of sales management is the key to sustaining growth and success. So, embrace the power of effective sales management and watch your business thrive in today’s competitive marketplace.

Ed Young is the owner of Fabricator’s Business Coach, a consulting firm designed to strengthen and elevate fabrication shops of all sizes. A former shop manager, Ed fully understands the challenges of today’s professionals. He has consulted with a range of businesses, from one-person startups to international Fortune 100 corporations, covering a broad array of products and processes. As a result, Ed knows that each business needs an appropriate structure for its unique situation. To learn more about how Fabricator’s Business Coach can take your shop to the next level, visit www.fabricatorscoach.com or reach Ed directly at Ed@fabricatorscoach.com.