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Soft Skills
Empowering the sales force
Paras Rastogi focusses on the factors that make a
great sales team.
Today the biggest challenge that any sales head faces is to
decide what degree of empowerment he has to provide to his sales force across
various levels. The question, which is more apparent is—how can sales team
members have a common sense and purpose and a shared game plan? In today’s
competitive sales scenario it’s important that sales empowerment is done
at the right level with the right information. At all levels, employees have
been charged for doing more with less resources, heavier workloads and, in some
cases, a reduced sales force. In today’s business environment, it’s
vital that the companies that seem to grow have sales teams of highly motivated
individuals who know how to sell the company. They know its products and services,
position, the key competitive differentiators. They access and speak to the
needs of C-level executives, and even position themselves as knowledgeable,
trusted advisors. As we know, a highly effective sales force contributes significantly
and builds a successful business.
 The
empowerment of the sales force has a direct link with the product category and
the competitive sales environment. If the product is generic and has competition
from regional as well as national players, empowerment has to be more. Here
the sales force should carry a sales target on the bottomline contribution than
the topline. More importantly, sales teams must be prepared with a thorough
understanding of the prospect’s needs and business challenges. Doing their
homework and asking important, probing front-end questions is the key. They
must be well versed with the industry challenges, opportunities and intricacies,
as well as their business objectives and criteria.
Lets discuss the two classic cases, a case wherein a negotiation is happening
with a roadside vendor who knows the intricacies of business and margins, and
in the second case, a sales person of a large store is trying to sell the product
at the MRP listed on the product. In both the cases, the business scenario and
the product category are different, and so is the level of knowledge each one
has on his business. In the case of the roadside vendor, he will always play
with the price according to the sentiments of the customer and give appropriate,
on-the-spot discount to close the sales. Whereas the sales person of a large
store will try to sell more on feature and will stick to the MRP of the product,
he even would let lose the sales even if the sales could have been closed at
some marginal discounts.
IT sales is complex and can be defined into four major categories—products,
services, solution and consulting. Each category requires a different level
of empowerment as it is directly linked to the customer’s purchasing pattern
and decision criteria. A product or service which has smaller sales cycle and
less decision criteria should have sales force more empowered than the complex
sales scenarios like solution sales, whereas the evaluation parameters are too
many and even the sales cycle is long.
Empowerment to the sales force can be provided in two ways, sharing the sales
vision and communicating about the goals and product discount mechanism.
Sharing the sales vision is an equally important communication
that has to be shared with the sales team across the levels. It is vital that
sales teams have a clear vision that all the members understand and agree upon.
They will then be committed to transforming energy into action. Establishing
a long-term vision is important as it ensures that the team efforts support
each individual’s goals and objectives. The shared vision is instrumental
in generating commitment and accountability among all team members. Ideally,
open and structured communication on sales vision should be applied at all levels.
Most organisations today have an overall vision and lack a separate sales vision
for the organisation.
How you describe your market determines how big or small it appears to be. It
also determines how you measure your share and position within it. Most significantly
your choice of how you define your market will affect on how you price your
offering for it.
The level of information on the gross margins of the products should be communicated
to the sales force for certain product category that is more generic and volume
oriented. The culture of your company and even your country of operation will
have an impact on the empowerment level and on margin information sharing to
the sales force.
In today’s scenario where quarter numbers are more significant than a yearly
number, the theory of sales empowerment becomes more important to really make
sure that deals are closed faster and in a prescribed time frame. While there
are many factors that make up the environment in which our sales teams operate,
a particular learning strategy has been especially successful in keeping teams
aligned, collaborative, motivated and intact. Continuous strategy to empower
sales force will incorporate learning around leadership, communication and having
a shared game plan—all with the intent of improving and sustaining development
at the individual, team and organisational level.
Paras Rastogi has more than ten years of work experience
in Sales & Marketing. The views expressed in this article are his own.
E-mail: rastogiparas@yahoo.com
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