9 Tips on Improving Sales Performance

Author Information

Kylie Milan has 3 Published Articles

Australia,
Sydney,
Sydney,
Sydney, Australia,

9 Tips on Improving Sales Performance

Posted On : Jan-20-2012 | seen (731) times | Article Word Count : 574 |

For businesses, sales performance is crucial. Poor sales means stalled growth. How to improve sales performance? Check here for some tips.

For businesses, sales performance is crucial. Poor sales means stalled growth. Improved sales performance, on the other hand, leads to an increase in net revenue and sustained growth.

How to improve sales performance? Here are some tips:

1. Hire the best people for the job. Let’s face it: some people are just better at selling than others. So find ways to find more people that excel in selling and find ways to make them stay.

2. Train your sales staff well. This means building a good training program; one that includes a platform for easy monitoring, continuous feedback and setting of goals.

3. Know exactly what you want. Have a sales goal – which should align with the other main goals of the company – and communicate this well with your sales team.

4. With your sales goal set, you can start building an effective incentive program that will help improve sales performance. A good incentive program will help motivate the sales team to achieve individual and team benchmarks, increase profits and increase good will within the company. To begin such a program, identify the behaviors and end results that are important to the company and then create a program that will reward these behaviors and results.

5. Focus on quota-based and measurable goals. Programs that have specific and measurable goals generate the best results. According to the study “Incentives, Motivation and Workplace Performance: Research & Best Practices,” open-ended, quota based programs that give everybody a chance at earning the reward post better results than tournament-based or closed-ended programs that reward only a pre-selected number of achievers.

6. Always work to keep employee motivation high. One of the things you would really need is a good incentive program that sends the right messages in order for the employees to remain emotionally engaged and on track to producing better if not the best results. The program should be seen as transparent, fair and consistent; the training should focus on education and the support and feedback should be about empowering employees to achieve their goals.

7. Arrange formal and informal activities to celebrate individual and team achievements. These don’t have to be expensive events; they can even be low-cost to almost no cost. What’s important is for these efforts to be sincere and to convey to the employees that they are on the same team and working towards similar goals.

8. Make sure you celebrate the achievements both publicly and privately. The public component of recognizing top performers is the awarding which can be held as a separate event or as part of a company celebration like an anniversary. The private component is all about adding a personal touch to the recognition. These could be gestures like the top executive personally congratulating the top performers, sending them a special handwritten congratulatory note and the like.

9. Your program to improve sales performance should be omnipresent in the company. This means that it should be integrated across the entire organization and should align with the company’s mission statement and work well with the existing programs. To achieve this, most large companies use software that integrates rewards, training and feedback. This kind of software is also helpful for keeping track of the individual and team standings and helps formulate better feedback for the participants.

Re-Publish this Article

<h1>9 Tips on Improving Sales Performance </h1> Author: <a href='http://www.articleseen.com/profile_Kylie Milan.aspx'>Kylie Milan</a> For businesses, sales performance is crucial. Poor sales means stalled growth. Improved sales performance, on the other hand, leads to an increase in net revenue and sustained growth.

How to improve sales performance? Here are some tips:

1. Hire the best people for the job. Let’s face it: some people are just better at selling than others. So find ways to find more people that excel in selling and find ways to make them stay.

2. Train your sales staff well. This means building a good training program; one that includes a platform for easy monitoring, continuous feedback and setting of goals.

3. Know exactly what you want. Have a sales goal – which should align with the other main goals of the company – and communicate this well with your sales team.

4. With your sales goal set, you can start building an effective incentive program that will help improve sales performance. A good incentive program will help motivate the sales team to achieve individual and team benchmarks, increase profits and increase good will within the company. To begin such a program, identify the behaviors and end results that are important to the company and then create a program that will reward these behaviors and results.

5. Focus on quota-based and measurable goals. Programs that have specific and measurable goals generate the best results. According to the study “Incentives, Motivation and Workplace Performance: Research & Best Practices,” open-ended, quota based programs that give everybody a chance at earning the reward post better results than tournament-based or closed-ended programs that reward only a pre-selected number of achievers.  
  
6. Always work to keep employee motivation high. One of the things you would really need is a good incentive program that sends the right messages in order for the employees to remain emotionally engaged and on track to producing better if not the best results. The program should be seen as transparent, fair and consistent; the training should focus on education and the support and feedback should be about empowering employees to achieve their goals.

7. Arrange formal and informal activities to celebrate individual and team achievements. These don’t have to be expensive events; they can even be low-cost to almost no cost. What’s important is for these efforts to be sincere and to convey to the employees that they are on the same team and working towards similar goals.

8. Make sure you celebrate the achievements both publicly and privately. The public component of recognizing top performers is the awarding which can be held as a separate event or as part of a company celebration like an anniversary. The private component is all about adding a personal touch to the recognition. These could be gestures like the top executive personally congratulating the top performers, sending them a special handwritten congratulatory note and the like.

9. Your program to improve sales performance should be omnipresent in the company. This means that it should be integrated across the entire organization and should align with the company’s mission statement and work well with the existing programs. To achieve this, most large companies use software that integrates rewards, training and feedback. This kind of software is also helpful for keeping track of the individual and team standings and helps formulate better feedback for the participants. 
About the Author: Kylie Milan is a HR specialist, who manages <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.theeigroup.com.au">human resource systems</a> and provides innovative support and guidance related to hr functions. Our goal is to provide <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.theeigroup.com.au/our-services">strategic human resource management</a> to help Australian employers like you even better. Article Source: <a href='http://www.articleseen.com/Article_9-Tips-on-Improving-Sales-Performance_134522.aspx'> http://www.articleseen.com/Article_9 Tips on Improving Sales Performance _134522.aspx</a>

Article Source : http://www.articleseen.com/Article_9 Tips on Improving Sales Performance _134522.aspx

Author Resource :
Kylie Milan is a HR specialist, who manages human resource systems and provides innovative support and guidance related to hr functions. Our goal is to provide strategic human resource management to help Australian employers like you even better.

Keywords : performance management, training solutions,

Category : Business : Management

Print this Article Send to Friend