BlogBlog: Helping Sales Managers Increase Efficiency

Helping Sales Managers Be More Effective Managing Their Sales Teams

One of the main reasons dealerships decide to take the plunge with lead management software is to help management get a better handle on what’s happening on the sales floor.

Some want better reporting tools, others want tools that can tell them what’s getting done and what’s not. Other’s still want tools that can help increase their personal productivity and effectiveness.

For the traditional hands-on sales manager, a normal day starts with a one-on-one conversation with each sales person to review the sales log book. At ten or fifteen minutes a meeting, the morning sales recap can take a sizable portion of a sales manager’s first couple of hours at work.

Meetings revolve around a series of questions and answers concerning new leads and/or the progress on existing ones. At meeting’s end, tasks and tactics are set for active leads. Dead or inactive ones are set to “lost”.

While these meetings play a valuable role in keeping the sales manager up to date, they are not particularly efficient because the majority of the allotted time is spent reviewing present position. In my experience, almost 80 percent of the manager’s time at these meetings is spent determining what’s going on, leaving only a small percentage of time to actually impact what’s going on.

Sales managers with styles best characterized as “hands free” most often rely on the trust principal of sales management – they “trust” that either the work is getting done or that sales staff will come to them when or if they need assistance. Unfortunately that’s not always the case.

Unless it’s firmly ingrained in the daily sales process, it’s difficult for sales managers to find the time to review and coach the sales team every day. (No sales manager knows that better than myself!)

For “hands on” managers, software can drastically increase the amount of time they have to impact the team because they can scan through current leads without having to involve the sales person in the time consuming Q&A session. A well designed system also makes it easy to see what’s not getting done so they can act on it quickly.

Sales managers in most dealerships have little or no time for introspection. They rarely have a clear desk, let alone a clear mind, because they’re constantly on the go responding to fires that need attending to. Managers want the information they need at their finger-tips waiting for them sometimes even before they know they need it.

Well-designed lead management systems contain reporting tools that automatically send managers information on key performance metrics on a recurring daily, weekly or monthly interval. Good systems can also notify key dealership staff the moment specific actions occur – a good example would be when a trade is entered or when a lead is sent to the business office for finance approval. Managers want to know when key milestones in the sales process occur so they can act on it quickly if need be.

In reality, sales management tools make it easier for sales managers to hold their staff more accountable for what they should be doing as sales people. I know that sounds bold – in fact it’s exactly how one sales manager described the biggest benefit to him and his sales team from using software. Without tools sales staff may rely too heavily on others to tell them what needs to be done next. In extreme situations they will even blame others for their own lack of initiative. Well-designed software provides sales staff with a tool that let them take control so they can be held responsible and accountable by sales managers.

Quantech lead management software has easy-to-use tools designed to provide sales managers with the information they need to do their job; auto reporting, close ratios, goals setting, sales process, and exception reporting all come with Q-GPS.

Call today – let’s talk about sales management.