How often do you step back and examine what your Salespeople are doing? The suggestion is not that your people are slacking! More than likely your Salespeople are hard-working individuals with the desire to do well – you wouldn’t have hired them if they weren’t. However, how much of their day is actually spent selling? Not account managing. Not order processing. Not updating CRM systems, but selling.

The confusion comes in defining what ‘selling’ is. Surely the definition of ‘selling’ a product or service is to convince potential customers of the value it would provide them. A sale is made when the customer is satisfied that your product/service meets their needs and is willing to exchange money for it. Your salespeople have a unique skillset fundamental to growing your business. They are persuasive. They can persuade a lead to do something they otherwise would not do – namely, to invest in your product/service. So utilise them! If selling is the act of convincing, Salespeople should spend most of their time doing just that. With this in mind, take a moment now to examine what your Salespeople spend the majority of their time doing.

In most organisations, the Sales team represents a hub of activity – Salespeople are always busy. But busy doing what? Common Sales tasks which are not selling include: account management, order processing and updating CRM systems (as mentioned earlier), preparing quotes, complaint management, networking, internal meetings… the list goes on. Order processing is an interesting example because technically a customer is renewing a contract which will lead to an invoiced sale and consequently, money for the business; but the ‘selling’ will already have taken place. Anyone can invoice an existing customer but only a Salesperson can successfully invoice a new one. As a Sales manager or a business owner you should ensure that your Salespeople are making the best use of their time and bringing in new sales for the business. The first step towards achieving this is to offload all non-sales activities. One example of this could be to move your Sales team inside which would minimise the time they spend travelling to see potential clients.  

Allow your Salespeople to spend their time selling and watch your new sales soar!

_{By Phil Snelgrove, Lauren Wiles}