By Debbie Depp
So, you think your employees are a challenge? Try managing a bunch of teenagers. That's what McDonald's does, and with astonishing success. Each year the fast-food giant trains roughly 400,000 15-19 year-olds in everything from how to mop the floor to when to change the grease for the French fries.
McDonald's founder Ray Kroc realized that the true product of a business is not what it sells, buy how it sells it - and that with a documented process, even a staff of high schoolers can sell.
You don't need a Ray Kroc to teach your sales staff to produce. You do need to apply his philosophy to your business. What this means, above all else, is to establish predictable, easy-to-replicate selling steps.
An entire industry has sprung up around one of management's biggest challenges: increasing sales productivity in the face of high job turnover. Witness the countless books, seminars and motivational speakers, all vowing to pump new life into tired salespeople. And no wonder. A recent study by Towers Perrin showed that during a two-year period, the average sales force turns over about 43 percent and is downsized by 20 percent.
It's tempting to turn to a quick-fix solution. But how long before your sales staff's initial rush of enthusiasm fades and their numbers drop back to their previous level? You're better off foregoing these short-term approaches until you give your sales force what it really needs: a better sales process. You should have in place a set of guidelines so clear, so thoroughly thought-out, that your people will be able to follow them and deliver, regardless of how long they have been with your organization.
A documented process provides your salespeople with the structure they need and with a written account of how to get the job done efficiently and effectively. It allows you to be systems dependent rather than people dependent. Unless you can replicate your unique way of doing business every single time, you can't produce consistent results.
Once you document your process, establish a way to monitor sales activity. I once worked with a sales rep at a Massachusetts high-tech firm who made his quota every year, though at a cost that went unnoticed by management. The rep routinely neglected his base business in his zeal to fill special orders. While he was writing up sales for oddly-configured computer systems, which cost his company time and money, his steady (and easier-to-please) customers were defecting to the competition.
The moral here is that you can't expect what you don't inspect. Managers need to define a process that counts not only the dollars a sales rep produces, but which also monitors sales activities, such as number of calls on new prospects and existing customers. It's called accountability.
Without a comprehensive game plan, a company is likely to get crushed by a competitor who is smarter, quicker and better prepared. The solution lies in the process. The process runs the business; the people run the process. A well-defined sales process will become the foundation for all of your sales efforts. Just ask Ray.
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