Part 2 of a 4-part series on managing seller-doers.
In Part 1 of this series, we explored how to create a sales-friendly culture… that is, to help make your firm the kind of firm that likes, respects and appreciates what your seller-doers make possible for everyone else there.
Now, with your culture improving and a seller-doer sales team in place, it’s time to create your sales plan… that is, your “roadmap” to help you and your team achieve sales success. Following is an outline to help you create that plan:
Step 0: First, Do Your Homework
Before you can decide where you want to go, you need to be clear on where you’ve been and where you are right now. To that end, pull together the following resources to provide a foundation of information for creating the deeper details of the sales plan:
- Past year’s sales reports and analysis
- Past year’s sales pipelines and analysis
- The 5-year report: ‘revenue by client by year for the past 5 years’ and analysis
- A competitor review and how you stack up against them
- Conversations with some current (and former) clients
Step 1: Set Sales Goals
For each seller-doer, sales goals – at their most basic – should include: Target Revenue and Profit Margin. But to provide an even clearer picture of success in your sales plan, drill down a little to include:
- Revenue from Existing clients
- Revenue from New clients
- # of new clients
- Revenue by industry targeted
- Revenue by service line
Step 2: Define your ICP – Ideal Client Profile
Make sure that your seller-doers are focusing their efforts – particularly in the hunt for new clients – on the right type of prospects. The clearer the ICP, the less time will be wasted pursuing the wrong type of buyer:
- What industries (and sub-industries) do you target? Are some better than others?
- What companies within those industries… by size, type, location, etc.? Are there any specific companies you want to target?
- What are the titles/roles of the individuals most likely to be involved in the buying decision?
Note: Make sure your marketing team is aligned with these ICPs… so that their efforts are also targeting the right buyers and in doing so, supporting the sales effort.
Step 3: Be Clear on Your Messaging to the Market
That is, how do you want your seller-doers talking about your firm? You don’t want to force them to use scripts (these always come across as inauthentic), but rather provide them with ‘talking points’ that each seller-doer can put into their own words:
- Start with your General Benefits Statement; that is, describe what your firm does, who you do it for and how clients generally benefit by working with your firm.
- In addition, make sure to be clear on:
- The kind(s) of problems that you solve (not research problems, but business problems)
- What makes your firm unique when compared to the competition
Step 4: Provide Guidelines on Sales Activities
While you don’t want to micro-manage the day-to-day sales activities of your seller-doers, it is helpful to provide them some sort of guidelines – based on past successes – to help them with time management, for example (these are just examples, not recommendations):
In real-time
- Keep your CRM up-to-date
- Keep your sales pipeline up-to-date
Daily
- Connect with potential buyers on LinkedIn
- Send out ‘cold emails’
- Check in with any proposals in the field
Weekly
- Make check-in calls with sales prospects (nurturing)
- Share resources with sales prospects
Monthly
- Deliver at least one sales presentation
- Submit at least one proposal
- Reach out to a lapsed client
Step 5: Work With Marketing
Understand that for your seller-doers to be successful, there’s need to be integration with your Marketing team in the sales plan, especially in the areas of awareness/brand building, lead generation and new client acquisition. Some examples of how Marketing can support sales are…
Awareness/brand-building
- Email marketing
- Social media posting & engagement
- SEO
- Advertising & PR
- Content creation & distribution
Lead Generation
- Help with exhibiting at conferences
- Hosting webinars
- ‘Gated content’ campaigns
New Client Acquisition
- Creation of case studies & white papers
- Creation of Sales Presentation decks
- Proposal templates
- Gathering testimonials
Step 6: Coaching & Managing the Seller-Doers
A sales manager’s job is two-fold… to manage the firm’s sales process and to coach the seller-doers so that they continually improve. This could include:
Managing
- Creation of this sales plan
- A variety of sales reports
- CRM reports, particularly pipelines and activity levels
- Customer Satisfaction survey results
- Weekly sales meetings (with marketing)
Coaching
- 1-on-1 coaching & development sessions with each seller-doer
- Listening-in on the seller-doers’ calls and presentations, then providing feedback
- Gathering feedback from the clients the seller-doers call on (“the buyer’s perception is the seller’s reality”)
- Skills development activities (including role playing, micro-lessons and sending them to sales training workshops)
Step 7: The Sales Team (optional)
While most firms will have a team of seller-doers that report directly to a ‘sales manager’ for the selling portion of their role, here are some additional positions to consider for your team:
- Full-time sales rep: not a part-time sales rep – like a seller-doer – but a sales professional who is selling 100% of their time.
- Sales Development Rep (SDR): a junior-level person who’s only job is to cold call and follow-up on inquiries to find & qualify opportunities before handing them off to a seller-doer.
- Account Manager (AM): Someone who owns the client relationship once the sale has been made. Their role is to a) keep the client and b) grow it where possible.
- Key Account Manager (KAM): like the AM above, but someone who owns the relationship with just a handful of your very largest clients; this is more of a senior-level role as they are responsible for a large percentage of your firm’s revenue.
While none of these roles are required, they are worth thinking about as your firm continues you grow.
Conclusion
Managing a team of seller-doers – or even just one of them – is no small task. As the sales manager, you are likely the business owner, President or other senior leader who’s been tasked with managing the sales team ‘on the side’… a tough job. We hope this outline provides you some helpful ideas as you work to put together a sales plan for your own firm.
Good luck and good selling.
Next week, Part 3 of this series will explore a very popular & polarizing topic… creating and implementing an effective sales compensation plan.