Leadership is a more responsible role in any business. A good leader empowers his employees and leads them towards achieving the mission of the business. A sales leader is someone who coordinates and manages all the sales-related activities and also develops powerful sales strategies consistently to keep the business running. Having said that, you now know how important is his/her time and how well he should manage his time to increase his productivity.
Sales leadership productivity is one thing if taken care of properly has the power of increasing the overall sales productivity of any business. But some old-school practices kill your sales lead’s productivity in today’s digital world too. It is essential to know what factors hinder his way to productivity and correct them earlier.
Here we are going to discuss 5 things that kill your sales leadership productivity:
1. Giving unnecessary importance
As a sales manager, you have to be clear about the things you should focus on. Giving unnecessary importance to smaller tasks will ruin your productivity. Chasing every prospect costs you a lot of time. For example, if you have found a new prospect, your sales team should be equipped with the necessary follow-up steps and mode of contact whether they could reach them via calls or emails, etc. Instead, you should not be the one directly involved in such smaller things.
Your team should be well trained to do simple sales tasks independently and you should monitor and give inputs only when necessary. Task management is a crucial factor that decides your business productivity.
An effective sales employee tracking app like Lystloc has features like live tracking, location-based attendance, and task management in which you can assign and manage employee tasks in just a few clicks.
2. Multiple meetings
The meeting is like an everyday event in a sales manager’s life. But too many meetings might end up draining your energy. You need to be clear about the objectives and actions to be taken after the meeting. Prepare well these two aspects before you plan any meeting. Be it with your sales employees or your clients, meetings should be well planned to execute effectively. You can also club meetings if possible to deliver the same message. Also, using an app like Lystloc will help you to avoid stalking your
employees with multiple calls/messages by giving them the freedom to work, and also gives you a stress-free way to monitor them by location-based attendance and tracking. You will also be able to get the meeting notes within a few minutes once the client meeting is over. By following these simple steps you could avoid excess meetings and focus on other important tasks.
3. Inadequate training
The sales team of any business should have up-to-date knowledge of the product/service they sell and the current business environment. This can be ensured by frequent training sessions and workshops. Upskilling has to be a part of work in today’s highly competitive market. Lack of proper training means the employees may end up doing tasks in the wrong way because they keep their doubts in mind or they will ask their sales manager every doubt they have. Both cases are going to affect the sales leadership productivity eventually.
4. Improper time management
Every second of your working hour, you should be contributing something to your company. There will be few important clients for your business in terms of the revenue they give or the reach and fame they have in the business etc. Naturally, the sales manager will always be curiously involved in any small activity related to those clients. But how effective your communication is, is the deciding factor of your productivity. For example, instead of asking for their convenient time in calls/messages and then scheduling a meeting, you can opt for apps like Calendly in which you can invite your client with a link to your calendar so that the meeting will be fixed at a convenient time for both. The shorter you are making the sales process, the better will be your productivity.
5. Usage of wrong or outdated practices
As a sales manager, you should be using tools and software that save your time and effort. Instead of typing emails on your own each and every time, invest time in creating personalized templates. Use tools like yesware for effective email tracking, scheduling, templates, etc to simplify your mailing process. Tools that help with getting qualified leads like LinkedIn sales navigator, TalentLMS for training, Lystloc for on-field employee tracking, and many more. Select and use tools that are best for your business productivity.
To sum up, the sales team is one of the driving forces of a business. To manage them, a sales leader should avoid the above-mentioned traits. If your sales lead is effective in managing his team, your business sales and revenue will be increasing and so is client satisfaction. Stay away from the practices that kill your productivity and focus on building strategies that help your business grow.
