Does Sales Management Optimization Increase Sales?

Sales is never easy, even though I've heard that many times.

"This product will sell itself..."

"I don't think you'll have to do much selling with this one..."

I could go on, but I won't.  There are no easy sales. I've said it before and any grizzled sales person will say the same. But can you make the sales process easier? Can you build a sales management process that will make a difference? Will training and helping your sales manager help increase the success of your rep team? The research results say yes.

CSO Insights announces the release of their Sales Management Optimization (SMO) study. More than 850 firms worldwide participated (my little co was one of them) in this year’s sales management research effort. Participants’ responses spanned more than 50 metrics on sales management development, sourcing and assessment.

The firm posits that the role of a sales manager is to be a coach to the team. The logic is -- if you don't invest in your sales manager, your sales management, then you create a weak link in the process. Who is coaching the coach is their main question. Some of the findings in this year's study:

• Managers are being spread thinner across more reps and more geography. With less direct access to sales reps, firms need to provide their sales managers with the tools and resources that will enable them to proactively coach their teams to higher performance.

  
  

• Win rates are flat from a year ago and down markedly from five years ago. Investment in sales manager training was also down year over year, clearly an area of false economy when you look at the leverage gained with proactive manager coaching.

With decreasing sales results, the data seems to point to a lack of training being the culprit. Also to attract and retain the right sales reps and managers. Within the research, CSO Insights explains that if companies raise revenue expectations, they also need to increase and invest in the tools and resources to help sales people be successful. Seems logical enough.

They summarize the research announcement with, "Sales managers are the fulcrums by which sales performance improvement levers are applied. To attain the improvements and competitive advantage needed in today’s marketplace, firms should look to increase the effectiveness of their sales management to optimize sales performance."

I guess my main question is -- how do you know if the training is effective? There are some great sales training programs out there; the best will provide you with tools to measure the results. Many are just motivational rah-rah sessions that don't last. Having written about a lot of technology solutions to help a sales team be more successful, I'm wondering if sales training (for reps or managers or executives) has kept up.

More details can be found at:  CSO Insights.