Too many companies lose money because their sales management team continues to make the same preventable mistakes that result in poor sales performance.

Here are 10 of the most common sales management mistakes and how to avoid them.

1. Confuse Product Training for Sales Training

Companies spend many thousands of dollars and their salespeople spend countless hours every year trying to keep up with all the new bells and whistles of their latest products. Unfortunately, this leaves fewer hours in the month for any sales development training.

Sometimes a better allocation of resources is train your salespeople how to uncover your prospects' pain instead of memorizing another product brochure. If anything, too much product knowledge can be your worst enemy because your salespeople regurgitate everything they know during sales calls instead of using that time to qualify or probe for information.

2. Hire Only Experienced Reps

Experience can be a great asset, but often it's not. Too many reps have sold for years, but still possess terrible selling skills. They carry a lot of baggage, are difficult to manage, and use a lot of outdated sales techniques.

Find hungry reps who want to improve and aren't complacent. When interviewing, find out what they have done during the past year to further their career and improve their selling skills.

3. Promote Top Salespeople to Management

Companies love to promote their top salesperson to management, but they don't provide training to teach the new manager how to be effective. Plus, some top salespeople just don't have the talents required to be an effective manager. Unfortunately, this cuts twice because you take your best rep out of the field and they may not be effective as a manager, which reduces the effectiveness of the other members of the sales team.

A better choice might be the consistent producer that demonstrates a propensity to work well with others. They are organized, well-prepared, and communicate well. If you have a person in mind for promotion to sales management, have them lead a sales meeting to see how well they handle it and how well they are received.

4. No Ongoing Training

You attend school until you are 18 at the very least, yet you don't find it necessary to continue practicing your selling skills or learn new techniques. Whether in sports, arts, or business, the top performers always strive harder to improve their skills.

By not providing ongoing sales training, your salespeople earn less, your company's earnings suffer, and ultimately you jeopardize the future of your company. Sales are the lifeblood of every company, and it should be treated...and invested in...that way!

5. No Accountability

Bill Brooks, one of my favorite sales speakers before he recently passed, used to say, "Don't let the inmates run the asylum." Too many sales managers make the excuse of not investing in sales training because they don't believe their sales team will utilize it. Worse yet, they leave the decision up to each salesperson.

If you are a manager or small business owner, you are the coach and leader of your team. It's your job to make sure your team is prepared to find new business, upsell current customers, and outsell the competition. This means you need to set the tone of what is expected. If reps won't adhere to your standards, they need to go.

6. Hire Poorly

A good rule of thumb is "hire slowly." Hiring a bad salesperson often costs companies tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses and lost revenue. You should constantly be looking for good salespeople, so when the opportunity arises, you aren't scrambling to find qualified candidates.

In addition, invest the time and expense to check references, gather objective information through comprehensive sales assessment tests, and ask the right questions. Taking care of the seemingly little things can pay big dividends.

7. No Sales Training Budget

If you don't provide your sales team with the tools and training they need to succeed, don't blame them when sales are down or inconsistent.

There are actually investment firms who evaluate companies based on how much they train their employees. They have discovered that companies who consistently invest in training for their employees outperform those that don't make a commitment to training.

8. Lack of Planning and Organization

You need to make sure your sales team comes prepared to sell every day. Here are some of the things they should always have:

• A list of their key accounts and their strategy on how to penetrate, upsell, and/or retain them.
• Their daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly activities they must do to achieve quota.
• A complete understanding of the sales process.
• An automated follow-up system.
• A clear understanding of the next step for each potential prospect.
• The name and position of each prospect's decision maker(s) and influencer(s).

At the end of every month salespeople are scrambling to close business. As a result, companies lose a lot of money because the sales department caves on price just to make quota. With some organization and planning, you will be involved in more deals and win more business at higher prices.

9. Don't Practice

Practice doesn't make perfect, but it sure gets you closer to it. There is simply too much competition and too many alternatives in today's marketplace for sales reps not to be prepared for every sales call.

Take an hour out of every week and have your salespeople role play how they should deliver mock initial and follow-up phone calls, ask probing questions, give presentations, respond to objections, ask for the sale, etc. This will result in big dividends.

10. No Sales Process

A clear sales methodology needs to be communicated and adhered to by your sales team. With a clear sales process, you and your sales rep always know where you stand with each account.

Mastering a sales process is far better, and results in fewer mistakes, compared to just "winging it." A sales process also makes it much easier to train new reps.

About the Author

Eric Slife, president of Slife Sales Training, Inc., provides companies with a comprehensive sales and sales management training program called Team Training. Team Training gives companies unlimited, on-demand access to North America's premier sales and sales management trainers. For more information and a complimentary MP3 download, "Top 10 Voice Mail Blunders," visit: http://www.salestrainingcentral.com.

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