It's an indispensable and solid foundation on which to build your action. The hardest part, however, remains to be done: ensuring that this strategy is deployed as effectively as possible in the field, so that it bears fruit and achieves your results objectives. There are 3 major levers available to you in this area: the commitment of your teams, the translation of your strategy into operational action plans, and the implementation of effective management. What are they?
Guarantee a high level of commitment from your teams
Engaging means getting your teams to decide to take concrete, effective and measurable operational action. The level of commitment of your management and sales teams depends on a number of non-exclusive factors. How can you positively influence this commitment?
First of all, by sharing the defined strategy : present this strategy to your teams, clearly explaining the why, the what and the areas of work defined to involve them in its implementation.
But commitment also meanslistening to your teams about their motivations and obstacles, in order to deal with the latter, and involving them closely in the development of the actions to be taken.
Finally, don't lose sight of the fact that you also need to "make people want to do it", beyond the constraints, by proposing an exciting ambition ! Annual seminars, in particular, are key moments for effectively engaging sales teams (we have devoted an article to best practices for successful seminars and team engagement).
Translate sales strategy into operational action plans
Sales action plans are your staff's "roadmap": they determine the year's major highlights (sales seasonality, trade shows, contract renewals, etc.) and the precise planning of actions, resources and tools to be implemented on a weekly, or at least monthly, basis.
They are the operational relay for the sales strategy defined upstream: number of opportunities to be identified, frequency of visits by customer or prospect segment, type of visit to be carried out (discovery of needs, identification of decision-makers, closing, etc.).
They ensure that the level of effort, coverage and sales pressure expected of their portfolio is translated into concrete action in the field.
To guarantee the implementation and scope of these action plans, however, one final point is crucial: their management.
Deploying effective sales management
What are the components of sales management to ensure effective deployment of your strategy and implementation of action plans?
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- Action monitoring and support for sales staff: segmentation of accounts in the CRM, action planning, creation of reports and monitoring of coverage and sales pressure dashboards, combined with regular one-to-one interviews and co-construction of progress plans to improve results.
- Analysis of results: monitoring and management of KPIs. For example, during sales pipeline reviews, monitoring and analysis of volume, value and time spent on opportunities to optimize allocation of sales effort.
- Coaching and regular training of sales staff: developing sales performance by acting on skills and competencies. Field accompaniment and coaching sessions, in particular, deliver convincing results. (See our article on field coaching).
It is necessary to act on all these levers to ensure effective deployment of the sales strategy you have defined, and to secure the achievement of your objectives. In some cases, however, it can be complex for Sales Managers to act on all these factors in a coordinated way, for example in a context of strong market pressure. That's why we offer support programs that enable you to act successively or globally on each of these levers, with a view to accelerating the implementation of actions and optimizing their results.
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