How to Create a Strong Sales Management Process

Remote work is here to stay.

With the newfound distance between managers and sales reps, our sales processes need to account for the new complexities in the environment, with how we manage our reps as well as the pipeline as a whole.

We look at the sales management process as a complex machine with many moving parts. By understanding and optimizing your sales process, you can drastically improve the quality of your leads, increase your conversion rates, and speed up your sales cycle. 

We go over the benefits of a strong sales management process, and the steps needed to develop one to blow your competition out the water. 

What Is the Sales Management Process?

The main task of sales management is to coordinate a collective sales effort, with the end goal are maximizing both profits and the company’s value for customers.

Every sales management process starts with the sales team to maximize their productivity.

Successful sales management strategies mobilize and motivate a synergistic salesforce, continually track and optimize efficiency, and perfect an advantageous sales pipeline/funnel to reach targets.

The Benefits of a Strong Sales Management Process

A strong sales management process not only drives the overall revenue but has quantifiable benefits for the sales team.

Quality Leads

Faster Sales Cycles

Higher Conversion Rates

Accurate Forecasting

Increased Morale

Five Steps to Improve Sales Performance

Improving sales performance starts with the right hire. Here are 5 steps surrounding the same management process that will improve your company's sales performance.

1. Hiring the right sales reps

   Hiring the right sales team is one of the most important segments of effective sales management strategies. A group of competent sellers is the foundation for the rest of the sales management processes. All other efforts are contingent upon team members’ selling capabilities.
   
   It is daunting to identify outstanding talent among a group of candidates. Sales rep selection is one of the most critical decisions, yet it seems impossible to foresee applicants' performance.
   
   PerceptionPredict offers tested and proven predictive analytics to assist sales talent decisions. Our Performance Fingerprints utilize pertinent data about the company and position to formulate key sales characteristics. We establish a ‘sales DNA,' a custom layout for the necessary combination of psychographic traits.
   
   Our analysis then rates current and pre-hire sales reps’ suitability for a role based on skills, behaviors, and traits culminating in cogent job performance. 

2. Leading the team

   Leadership as a successful sales management strategy requires striking a balance between encouragement and accountability. Therefore, it is imperative to maintain an authentic and stable presence during triumphant times and more stressful circumstances.
   
   Team building is a must to uphold collaboration. But every salesperson is an individual. Sales managers who connect with their team as individual people can level with them. A genuine relationship helps compellingly motivate and laud each rep according to their personality.
   
   New hires, in particular, rely on measured guidance. Onboarding is a major responsibility of the sales manager. Upon joining the team, even experienced sellers deserve proper training that integrates newcomers and communicates expectations.
   
   

3. Building and maintaining the sales pipeline

   Sales management best practices always incorporate the sales process. The sales pipeline or sales funnel constructs a step-by-step formula to turn leads and prospects into closed deals. Intensive expertise about the product/service and customer base informs the sales pipeline’s progression and the deliberate sales strategies for reps to employ along the way.
   
   Sales managers should expect customers’ needs to evolve. From prospecting and qualifying to quotes and closing, audit and modify each sales process step. Continually accommodate the customer and the team’s performance.

4. Actively tracking metrics

   Metrics underly a sales manager’s entire sales management process. Quality sales management hinges on managers' analysis of the sales process, product or service, customers, and sellers. Various metrics contain insight into sales process phases, sales tasks, and skills.
   
   The data pinpoints what skills equate to success within the team. The numbers also expose where along the pipeline team members need training or a different strategy. Metrics illuminate how successful sellers are at a given time and where they should aim going forward.
   
   Hard data that tracks sales metrics is the only real tool to see and promote productivity. Performance indicating metrics include quantity and average deals size, win rate, conversion rate, sales length, and many more. A practical and smooth CRM is one available technological tool that can run numbers daily to quantify sales effectiveness.
   
   

5. Forecasting

   Armed with the appropriate metrics, strategic sales management sets sensible yet diligent future sales targets. Accurately forecasting ongoing revenue and progress stimulates salespeople’s performance and educates company decisions.

How PerceptionPredict Drives Sales Performance Through Predictive Analytics

People who will meet and exceed sales goals are a fundamental piece of the sales management puzzle. Sales hiring decisions are a powerful force behind the performance of the sales team and the organization as a whole. Incorporating predictive analytics from PerceptionPredict elevates sales performance by prioritizing the productivity variables that matter for your business.

For current and pre-hire salespeople, evaluate and predict sales competencies via real-world KPI projections. PerceptionPredict investigates exactly what your team requires so you can locate and bring in the perfect talent.

To find the highest-performing addition to your salesforce with PerceptionPredict, book a demo today.