Sales Managers: Work Smarter, Not Harder

Sales managers must do their due diligence to ensure that they, as well as their teams, are armed with the tools they need to be successful at their jobs. But managers; it is time to work smarter, not harder.

While call activity and pipeline data has historically been gathered through weekly check-ins and manually reported, less than accurate CRM data, managers now can get in the path of every call being placed (or taken) by their sales team (be it dispersed, or under one roof) to ensure that individual and team goals are being met. The best part? With a sales enablement tool, this process is automated, and data is captured 100% accurately in real time, saving managers time and effort and closing the performance visibility gap between managers and their reps.

Work Smarter, Not Harder

The actual conversations taking place at the customer level are the richest sources of market intelligence available to a manager, so it is essential for organizations to establish business processes to not only gather more subjective data, but to improve upon and challenge traditional, and perhaps outdated, management practices with a sales enablement tool.

Real-time activity capture can not only aid in setting benchmarks for current reps, but it can also help set the standards for new hires. By observing both qualitative and quantitative call performance, specific call parameters can be set, giving sales managers the peace of mind that their teams are adhering to the right scripts and overcoming obstacles with proven responses. From historical experiences (and common objections observed on past calls), sales teams should be able to reflect upon failures and understand potential key areas for improvement.

The only way to create value from past mistakes is by being able to 1) capture activity and 2) analyze it for patterns, trends, or behaviors that either help or hurt your reps’ effectiveness with clients. Revenue and quota goals are obvious numbers to measure with regards to a sales teams’ calling activity, but often, managers are at a disadvantage when they attempt to understand the effectiveness of their reps’ calling behavior without actual data.

When it comes to measuring sales activities, sales managers must adhere to the following:

• To grow a pipeline, you must manage the activity that generates opportunity which leads to deals.
• Managers must take note of the number of calls resulting in conversations, and from there how many of these conversations generate a dollar of revenue.

A Sales Manager’s Success

Any intelligent sales manager should be managing both the amount (quantity) and the actual effectiveness (quality) of sales rep activities that lead to closed (or lost) deals. By enabling their sales teams to work smarter – not harder – by analyzing call activity data, companies will see positive behaviors exercised and will quickly be able to remediate the negative.

If sales managers can measure and manage activity levels accurately—with benchmarks in place—sales performance becomes a numbers game with clear-cut wins and goals to benchmark. With these standards in place,  sales managers have a much better shot at achieving goals and generating more revenue.

Learn how Gryphon can help you better manage call activity and the daily activities of your reps to reach your revenue goals today.