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SALES MANAGERS: Eight ideas to boost short-term sales results

Written by: Craig Arnoff

Article Overview: Effective sales management is key to boosting both short and long-term sales results. These eight ideas can provide short-term improvements and lead to sustained sales results.

SALES MANAGERS: Eight ideas to boost short-term sales results

Below are some innovative ideas for immediately boosting sales results:

1 - Initiate a contest. Be sure to create multiple rewards so that everyone feels that he or she has a chance to win something.

2 - Ask salespeople who have a particular strength (e.g. questioning skills) to present some of their best techniques at your next sales meeting.

3 - Consider a spiff or an additional cash reward to raise sales of specific products or services.

4 - Spend some time with people in tech support or customer service to see who has what it takes to become a good salesperson (with some training of course). Many managers who are short-staffed and who are having difficulty hiring high-quality people are looking within their own organizations for people to groom. Consider using our sales diagnostics service to pinpoint who has the best potential to succeed in sales.

5 - Schedule a time with each salesperson (e.g., Thursday afternoon) to go on two sales calls.

6 - Inspect some recent proposals --- are they likely to result in business?

7 - Inspect specific prospect accounts contained on the pipeline report and have your salespeople give you some details like: the names of the decision makers, a description of the decision making process, who the competition is, what type of urgency the prospect has to make the purchase quickly, etc.

8 - Keep your pipeline of prospective sales hires full so that you can add people quickly if you have unanticipated turnover or new sales opportunities.

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