Selling in a Tough Economy - Strategies For Sales Managers

Which Salespeople will Thrive and Who will Dive as the Going gets Tough?

Selling in a tough economy will separate those salespeople that "can" and those that "can't".

The fact is, it doesn't really take a great a salesperson to achieve quota in times of double digit market returns. But what should you as a sales leader do when the economy starts to hit the brakes? How do you ensure your sales team achieves their sales targets when the market is flat?

How do you as the sales leader plan to achieve your sales budget when there is so much indecision and fear in the market?

Think about it, do you really know how each of your salespeople are going perform in these troubled times?

Here's a method to most accurately determine how the people in your sales team are likely to perform when the going gets tough.

Step 1:

• Review the actual sales of each of your people over the past two sales quarters.
• Separate their sales into three camps. Camp one should include those sales where your salespeople actually had to "create the sale." The created sale is one where the salesperson actually developed the sales from start to finish. These are the sales which your company would not have received but for the efforts, creativity and persuasion of the salesperson.
• The second camp of sales will include those that on close scrutiny show that not that much effort was required to bring them home. These are the "walk up starts, the easy ones, the lucky ones, the one's where the salesperson happened to be at the right place at the right time, with the right offer.
• The third group is comprised of those sales that fall somewhere in-between camp one and two. These are those sales that whist some effort was required to make the sale; there were a number of factors that fell easily into place helping to bring the sale home.

Step 2:

Now simply analyse the percentages. Looking at each individual salesperson determine:

• What percent of their sales come from camps one and three? This total will be your best indication of how your salespeople will perform in a slow market.
• Now review camp two. During tough economic times the easy sales found in camp two will tend to dry up and you will be relying on those sales your team actually create to meet your team sales target.

When you apply this assessment to each individual within your sales team, you will very quickly work out who amongst the team will be likely to thrive and who will die as sales opportunities shrink.