The managers of many large companies today understand from their own experience that neither brand awareness, nor high-quality advertising, nor holding profitable promotions for customers or constantly increasing the price of goods can solve the problem of sales efficiency once and for all. Such methods lead to short-term surges in consumer demand, which requires much more material investment.
If a company is engaged in the sale of a specific type of product, then its work can be made truly profitable and profitable by creating a sales department capable of selling absolutely everything, always. At the same time, he must conduct his activities under any factors that do not even depend on the company: changes in exchange rates, seasonality of demand, in case of a change in the economic situation, and so on. You may say this is unrealistic. However, if the construction of the sales department and its further management were carried out competently, everything becomes possible.
Subtleties of organizing the process
In order for the sales department to start working as quickly as possible, it is necessary to hire employees. At the same time, the focus should fall not on ordinary salespeople, but on real managers who have high professionalism in this field and are also able to work for the company.
So, building a sales department is unthinkable without hiring suitable employees, and what real “sales people” should be should also be discussed. After all, it’s interesting what is the reason for this phenomenon: people with the same education and work experience differ in the degree of success in sales. What is their solution?
The human brain is formed and grows by 90% during the first four years, and then it develops through constant interaction with the outside world, recording all new experiences and impressions throughout life. This is how our brain works, and this factor determines whether we will be successful in a certain activity or doomed to failure. As a result of a study with more than a thousand outstanding sellers of our time, scientists became clear what distinctive features and qualities they possess.
Seven facts about “true sellers”
- Exceptional memory for faces. Some people tend to easily recognize those whom they saw only once in their lives many years ago. This social skill is very important, and even more so for salespeople, since they constantly interact with a huge number of different clients. Research has shown that this ability is innate and cannot be developed or developed.
- Does rejection really hurt? So, you are a sales specialist, and you have just learned that a major deal with a potential client, for which you had high hopes, has completely fallen through. Of course, you will be disappointed emotionally and mentally, but you will also feel physical pain, as evidenced by the results of studies conducted by Columbia University. When analyzing the state of the brain and the reaction of an emotionally rejected person, scientists came to the conclusion that mental and physical pain have much in common, proving that the loss of a client leads to the formation of real “wounds”.
- Passion for drawing in the margins. A sales employee who tends to doodle or doodle during calls, meetings, or meetings is 29% more likely to remember information that comes to them. These sudden impulses are called doodling. In general, this means any sketch performed spontaneously, automatically. And research in the field of cognitive psychology has shown that this is a fairly effective method of remembering data.
- Are you always this cute? Not long ago, studies were conducted, as a result of which it became clear that human qualities such as kindness, courtesy and generosity are directly related to the activity of the hypothalamus and the production of oxytocin and vasopressin, which are responsible for feelings of affection and tenderness. A good sales worker has a natural need to help people, and this is the result of chemical reactions in his brain.
- Is it necessary to read? The majority of salespeople do not like to read, this is due to the fact that their brain works only in the direction of speaking, and it is not intended for reading. Speech is an automatic process that is the most natural part of brain activity, and reading requires three different areas of the cerebral cortex to work together. Sales coaching materials should be created with this point in mind.
- Shyness is not a death sentence. The most interesting finding is that the stereotype of pushy, egotistical salespeople being the best is not true, as 91% of the best salespeople are characterized by a humble and humble disposition. Research has shown that brash sales professionals, full of arrogance and bluster, win far fewer clients than they drive them away.
- “I’m not nosy, just curious.” All effective salespeople have such a trait as an insatiable desire for knowledge, or an inquisitive mind. Curiosity is a thirst for information and new knowledge. Research has shown that 82% of successful salespeople are highly curious compared to most people. This quality of mind helps them discuss even the most complex and inconvenient topics with clients in order to close all questions regarding the deal, and this is what contributes to its faster conclusion.
Now you understand that building a sales department can be realized with the involvement of just such people. When hiring employees, it is necessary to identify these features of thinking and personality traits, then you can count on the effective operation of the new structure in the company.
Features of a Prospective Seller
There is a joke that a high-class manager even in a cemetery sees “plus signs” instead of crosses. True sellers are able to enjoy their work, receive pleasure from new clients won, from concluded deals. Their work is a drug of its kind for them. A true sales manager is not just a polite, well-mannered and hardworking person. This is a specialist who lives and feeds on sales. Only such a manager can become a real salvation for the company.
Personnel selection
So, organizing a sales department requires paying attention to exactly how managers will work: will the activity be based on the individual work of each salesperson or will it be team interaction. Sales department management, as practice shows, will be carried out most effectively if the salesperson is equally professional and capable of working collectively and solo. It turns out that a person applying for a position in the sales department must be able to set a goal for personal results, and at the same time be flexible enough to interact with other people. It is not only the understanding and awareness of sales techniques that matters here, so the seller must have positive communication skills at a professional level.
So, when organizing a sales department from scratch, you must understand that a more or less savvy person is able to study several guides to help pass an interview. During the interview, pay attention to exactly how the person speaks, whether he knows how to listen, and what questions he wants to hear answered. It is much easier to study theory than to acquire such human qualities as a sense of humor, kindness, and tolerance.
Mathematical approach
Before you start selecting employees for the position of sales manager, you must create a high-quality profile of this position. The profile indicates what requirements you have for the applicant and what responsibilities will be assigned to him. When choosing an employee, the characteristic “I liked” cannot be considered adequate. The entire list of requirements for the position should be formulated as clearly as possible. You cannot hire a person who, based on his behavior pattern, is not suitable for the position, because you will not be able to change him. The type of your sales manager should match the type of business you are in.
Sales department coordinator and its activities
If properly managed, this structure can make a significant contribution to the success of the entire company. At the same time, it doesn’t matter at all whether you are selling exactly what you are selling: diapers or mobile phones. The process itself in any trading area works according to the same principles. There are only three stages of sales, these are the main ones:
- searching for new potential buyers;
- direct sale of the product;
- completion of the transaction with the signing of all necessary documentation.
The functions of the sales department flow from all of this, and breaking the process down into its components is quite simple. However, in some companies, sales managers are involved in additional activities, in particular. invoices, do accounting, call new clients, etc. For high-quality management of the sales department, it is necessary to divide responsibilities between specialists, and also make them work as a single, well-established mechanism. 100% of a sales manager’s working time should be devoted to sales processes, that is, working with clients for whom he is responsible, as well as directly selling products. This task must be solved most effectively so that the profit of your company increases. The remaining functions of the sales department can be transferred to employees who are not directly involved in the sale of products, that is, to specialized specialists.
Management: distribution of tasks and control of the process of their implementation
Sales managers are the key links in all companies involved in sales. They are the ones who interact with customers and generate income. And for this reason, you must additionally hire assistants for the work of the management department. The structure of the sales department requires their presence. Companies with specialists in this profile will cost very little, since the average payment for each of them is approximately $500. These costs are fully compensated by the number of successful transactions that the manager will make.
Typically, assistants are people who are easy to train. When you hire them, you form a convenient personnel reserve for the company. Among them there are always candidates who are capable of occupying the position of sales manager. They already work in the company, are familiar with the specifics of its activities, and there will be no need to spend additional funds on their training. Since the tasks of the sales department involve the need to sell, with the help of assistants you can relieve managers and free up as much of their time as possible to perform their main duties.
Effective motivation
If the sales department has a problem of lack of employee motivation, then this is the most terrible problem for a company seeking to make money. There are many factors of demotivation that will need to be dealt with, otherwise they will negatively affect the company's activities as a whole. These factors can be listed:
- the employee has no financial motivation;
- the employee does not fully understand his or her primary responsibilities;
- a person was hired who is not a professional in this field;
- the sales department coordinator does not cope with his responsibilities fully;
- illiterate distribution of responsibilities, which necessarily leads to a decrease in labor productivity.
It is important to understand that the main motivation for a sales manager is the money that he will receive if new deals are concluded that are beneficial for the company. The remaining incentives will receive only a secondary role, but no more. This is due to the fact that a sales specialist measures his own qualifications in money. He understands that the larger the deal he concludes, the more contracts he signs with the company’s clients, the higher the income he will receive as a result of all this.
Competition is a mandatory phenomenon among managers within the same sales department. Managing it well is about making this competition motivating, encouraging, transparent and fair. The structure of the sales department should be based on a very specific motivation scheme:
- everything should be simple and clear for the manager so that he can easily navigate it;
- everything should be automated, then it will be perfectly transparent;
- The manager must be able to independently calculate each of his moves.
The work scheme of most company managers is based on offering managers a salary based on a percentage of sales for concluded transactions. There is an option for the employee to have a base rate, to which all interest is added. Typically, the rate is set with the aim of attracting truly reliable specialists so that the functions of the sales department can be fully performed.
Intangible ways
You can also motivate employees in non-material ways. It is important to understand that the material component of the motivation program should not be excluded here. Among such methods are the following:
- setting new professional tasks for employees that can arouse their interest and desire to go towards the goal in order to achieve it;
- competent leadership that allows each sales department employee to feel important and indispensable for the entire company;
- providing independence within certain limits;
- creating the most comfortable conditions for the employee’s direct activities;
- automation of sales and sellers management.
The development of the sales department should be carried out under the obligatory condition of its automation. Now the market offers a fairly wide range of special software, which makes it possible to increase the efficiency of sales management and managers.
conclusions
The wholesale sales department works on a similar principle, the only difference is in what volumes are traded. At the same time, one important point remains - the sales manager must have the appropriate qualifications.
The success of the business largely depends on how we organize and manage the sales department. The manager's task is to get his subordinates to complete their work in an efficient manner and with maximum results. It's often the case that you can do a better job than any of your salespeople, but you'll never do a better job than the entire team. Let's look at our methodology for building a sales department for a trading company.
Sales department architecture
When building a sales department from scratch, at the design stage you need to think about the architecture. It can be divided into the following types:
- classic single stage
- two-stage
- three-stage
- five-speed
The main purpose of dividing into stages is to increase the efficiency of managers. Adam Smith substantiated the effectiveness of the division of labor using the example of pins.
The technological process of making a pin consists of 18 operations. If all these operations are performed by one master, then in one working day he will not have time to make even 1 pin. But if these operations are divided among eighteen craftsmen, each of whom performs his own operation, more than a hundred pins can be made per day. And when using devices and machines - orders of magnitude more.
Sales Department Systems
To build an effective sales department, it is necessary to build systems:
- recruitment and training;
- motivation;
- regulations;
- control.
Recruitment and training system
Hiring system
Writing a vacancy
The search for salespeople begins with writing a vacancy. When writing it, first of all, it is necessary not to look for ready-made solutions and not to steal from other companies. Write your vacancy according to the following plan:
- About the company (5-6 sentences)
- the product or service that the company sells;
- what place does it occupy in the market;
- large and interesting types of clients;
- figures that allow you to assess the scale of the work;
- future plans;
- reasons for opening a vacancy.
- The product of the position is what is the end result of the position (the main task of the position), what we pay the salary for.
- Responsibilities - what needs to be done to receive the product.
- Working qualities - we replace cliches with specific characteristics of the candidate (for example, we replace “independence” with “you are able to make informed decisions on your own and you like it when a manager does not stand over you”; “dedication” with “you never give up something and if you take on something -then you will definitely follow through to the end”, “stress resistance” to “you calmly endure the intensity of passions and heightened emotional background on the part of the manager and do not explode out of the blue”, “attentive” to “you are always attentive, especially when applying for a job and When you apply for a vacancy, begin your letter with the words: “Great start”). If you can’t do without stamps, then turn out the phrase, for example, “ You are considered sociable..." We describe the specific competencies that we want to buy.
- Conditions:
- Removing false limiters:
- work experience not less than...
- experience in this field...
- two higher educations…
- age or gender...
- Payment - how much you can actually earn and how, is the maximum monthly income limited, indicate additional sources of income;
- Device according to the Labor Code of the Russian Federation;
- preferential loan programs;
- work schedule (...sometimes you have to work until late in the evening...);
- Are business trips expected?
- description of the workplace, office location, parking;
- reasonable restrictions (driver's license, knowledge of English)
- Super bonuses:
- education system;
- trainings;
- internships;
- X-box;
- library…
Each position has its own price, which depends on the title of the vacancy. For example, the salary level of the head of the sales department is much higher than that of a senior manager, although in essence they can perform the same tasks. By posting the same vacancy with the same text, but with a different job title, we get completely different people. You can write the required positions one step up or down: senior sales manager - sales manager - assistant sales manager.
The most effective employees are already working. But due to the employer’s mistakes: due to the fact that he is not properly managed, suppressed, deceived, he ends up on the labor market. It is necessary to constantly search for the best employees.
Technology for selecting candidates for sales managers
There are quite a lot of technologies for selecting sales managers. Every HR specialist uses his own. We chose for ourselves a selection technology based on vector psychology. Briefly the essence is this.
- Determination of the values of psychological vectors. According to the description of vector psychology, people with a high vector value are suitable for working as a sales manager:
- oral - 80 - 100% - in other words, “talkers”;
- urethral - 70 - 90% - people striving for primacy, bright, cocky;
- anal - from 70% - people who like to systematize, analyze, put things in order.
- Selection of incoming candidates:
- during a telephone interview - during the conversation it is necessary to determine the values of the oral and urethral vectors, suitable ones are invited to an interview;
- during an interview - creating a positive psychological climate:
- the exact determination of the values of all vectors is carried out;
- sales skills;
- test for non-financial motivators;
- a vacancy in the company is for sale.
Training and adaptation system
To quickly adapt company employees, it is advisable to have regulations and training materials:
- general points on organizing business processes;
- job descriptions and their explanation;
- sales books (sales training);
- product training;
- examples, cases.
If it is possible to assign newbies a mentor (an experienced and loyal employee) who will give feedback, this will be a big plus.
Motivation system
In addition to financial motivation, there is also non-financial motivation. Some experts argue that people choose a place of work based on non-financial motivation.
Following a certain technique when hiring personnel, non-financial motivators of the candidate are identified, after which, focusing on them, the vacancy, the company and the minimum salary are sold to him. But the average salary, of course, should be the market average: it will not be possible to pay a good specialist a salary below the market.
Cultivation of non-financial motivators
To motivate staff not only with money, the company also uses the cultivation of several non-financial motivators. For example, professional growth, convenience, team, stability, etc.
To cultivate professional growth, the company conducts product and sales training, visits to exhibitions, creates thematic libraries, operates corporate universities, and provides supervision.
When cultivating convenience, workers are provided with good indoor conditions (a bright and large room with windows, comfortable tables and chairs), transport is organized that delivers workers to and from the enterprise, flexible work schedules are agreed upon, etc.
System of regulations
Like any position, salespeople have their own functions (responsibilities) - what needs to be done. In order to perform its functions correctly, instructions are needed - how to perform a certain task.
In the absence of instructions, a number of problems arise:
- the manager says: “I didn’t know how to do it”, “I thought it was right”;
- sales people constantly ask the same questions about completing typical tasks, even if they have completed it recently;
- are not responsible for the result.
As already written above, the instructions help reduce the requirements for the quality of personnel and help in training new personnel.
Effective formats for writing instructions are a checklist and the ESS (Elementary Simple Steps) concept.
A checklist is a list of checks that must be carried out while performing a task step by step. By ticking sequentially the items on the list, the employee knows at what stage the task is and what actions need to be taken next to achieve the result.
The concept of ESS is to break down the simplest actions and describe a specific task in as much detail as possible. By performing these actions consistently, the result will inevitably be obtained.
In my practice, I also use video instructions. Thanks to them, you can clearly show, for example, how to work in CRM or behave in negotiations. And the audio format is perfect for solving cases of telephone conversations or negotiation situations.
Control system
Having hired salespeople, you don’t have to wait a month or more to understand how effectively they work. The main technique that needs to be used is the financial result triangle. The main idea is that if one or more edges are missing, then the financial result falls through them. For a financial result, it is necessary to have 3 facets: how much the manager works (how many calls are made, commercial proposals sent, meetings held), how well he works (sales skills and product knowledge), with whom he works (does the manager work with the right companies and are the people he communicates with in the company).
All this and other information can be collected and controlled in CRM systems. The main principle is the aggregation of information in one place and the ability to analyze it. Some CRM systems are already ready to display relevant reports, while others will need to be further developed.
Of course, control of the sales department does not end with these three indicators; there are others, but this is a topic for another article.
The sales department is the engine of any business; it is the sales department that sets the pace of work for the entire company. High sales guarantee sustainable growth of your profits and guarantees for the future. Therefore, building a sales department is the most important task of a business owner.
What is a sales department
Not everyone understands what a sales department is and how it works. Most people don’t even understand what actions need to be taken to ensure product sales. Often an entrepreneur will come up with a good product, bring it to perfection, and wait for clients, but they still don’t come. Other entrepreneurs will hire a head of sales department (ROD) and managers and demand results from them, but they still don’t get it. In fact, you should be puzzled by the issue of organizing sales even before you start producing or purchasing goods.
The sales department is an organized system of product sales that allows for predictable sales. A sales department can be called one department head, a retail outlet, or an entire department consisting of a dozen departments that sell goods in various ways. It doesn’t matter what your sales department looks like, it is important that it is a system that you manage.
For example, if you are, you cannot be called a sales department. Since your sale was random, but if you put sales on stream, then you can be called a sales department.
Sales department functions
The main function of the sales department is to organize the sale of products to customers, both new and existing. To ensure its functions, the sales department must solve several problems:
- How will your company position itself in the market;
- What are the satisfactions of the product sold by the company;
- What does the company's potential client profile look like?
- Where is it easier to offer your product to a potential client;
- How to offer a product;
Finding answers to these questions is also the task of the sales department. It doesn’t matter what the name of the department that will solve these problems in your company is, but in the end, the answers to them will allow you to organize a full-fledged sales department. Remember that creating a sales department from scratch is an investment and often a very serious one. In order not to throw your budget down the drain, think about how best to organize sales, immerse yourself in this process to the maximum.
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