How can we improve the performance of the sales team?

? My answer is only one sentence: sales performance = average personal performance of salespeople х number of salespeople, so there are only two ways to improve the performance of sales teams, one is to improve the personal performance of salespeople, and the other is to increase the number of salespeople. Someone asked a question: according to you, isn't it very simple to improve team performance? Why didn't we do such a simple thing? Just as Goldbach's conjecture is simply interpreted as 1+ 1=2, but few people can prove it, simple problems are often the most difficult to do, and so is the promotion of sales performance. Whether it is the increase in the number of salespeople or the improvement in the average performance of salespeople, marketing managers need to do a lot of basic and meticulous work to finally achieve it. Details determine success or failure. Sales managers must understand a truth: sales performance is like water in a bucket. Any place where management is not in place in the process of sales management may become a short board of wooden barrels, and short-board wooden barrels cannot hold full water. In order to increase the number of salespeople, we need to establish a scientific selection and appointment system for salespeople, and we need to keep new salespeople as much as possible under the premise of controlling the overall cost. In order to improve the average performance level of sales staff, we need to formulate marketing strategies, effectively manage sales processes, motivate and control sales teams, and provide more support for sales staff. Only by knowing people can we employ people, and the selection of sales personnel is one of the most important functions in the process of sales management. No matter how well we do in strategy, training, motivation, assessment and target management, we will get mediocre results because of recruiting mediocre sales staff. The price of mistakes made by sales managers in hiring salespeople is serious. An authoritative survey shows that every time a salesperson is lost, the direct and indirect losses suffered by the enterprise are more than four times the monthly salary of the lost salesperson! The loss of sales staff not only brings cost loss and low team morale to the enterprise, but also leads to the interruption of customer or project tracking, and even changes customers' impression and trust in the enterprise. The problem of hiring salespeople leads to the loss of salespeople, which brings at least four risks to the team: 1, and cost risk-it is a loss-making investment to spend compensation and sales expenses on unqualified salespeople. The purpose of the sales team to hire salespeople is to cultivate them into profit centers, but before the salespeople start to create profits for the team, the sales team must continue to spend all kinds of remuneration and sales expenses. If the salary and sales expenses are spent on unqualified salespeople, no matter how well the sales manager does in planning, training, performance appraisal, incentives, etc., it will eventually be a loss-making investment, because these unqualified salespeople will eventually leave their jobs, and the team will not get any compensation for the salary and sales expenses provided to them in the early stage because of their departure. 2, performance risk-unqualified sales staff will eventually lead to team goals. The number of sales positions in a sales team is generally fixed, and the number of sales positions is usually linked to sales performance. If a large number of unqualified salespeople occupy the positions of qualified salespeople, then the sales target of this team will never be achieved. 3. Resource risk-unqualified salespeople encroach on the existing resources of the team, but also waste the future resources of the team; On the one hand, unqualified sales staff will occupy a lot of existing resources of the team, including customers, regions, sales opportunities, training and so on. On the other hand, unqualified sales staff will also make the original valuable customer resources and sales opportunities not get the expected benefits, wasting the resources that the team may get in the future. For example, some projects may eventually fail because of the participation of unqualified salespeople, and these projects may succeed if they are run by qualified salespeople. 4. Survival risk If the sales manager can't recruit sales staff, or the sales staff that he finally recruited can't stay, then the survival of the sales team will be threatened; Therefore, the sales manager must look at the selection and appointment of sales personnel from a strategic perspective, so that the selection and appointment of sales personnel can become an effective tool to improve the overall size of the team and personal efficiency by constantly organizing metabolism; At the same time, in order to avoid unnecessary costs caused by mistakes in sales personnel selection, sales managers should also solve various problems in sales personnel selection by establishing scientific sales personnel selection processes and tool models. Robert, a famous American sales management scientist and president of multinational consulting firm Management Dimensions? j？ Calvin once said, "What is the most important function of a sales manager? It is the employment of sales staff. " The appointment of sales staff is a marginal problem between human resource management and sales management, but it directly affects the overall performance of the sales team. Therefore, it is a necessary skill for a sales manager to establish a scientific model, tools and processes for the selection and appointment of sales personnel. On the selection and appointment of sales staff, the sales department should be the protagonist and the human resources department should be the supporting role. Any sales manager who does not personally participate in the recruitment process of sales staff, or lacks the skills or experience to establish a scientific recruitment model, tools and processes for sales staff, will fall on the starting line. It can be said that a successful sales manager should first be a successful sales human resources expert! Scientific sales staff selection process and tool model can help us build a filter, through which we can screen out the people we need step by step. The more detailed the steps of the salesperson selection process, the more scientific the tool model that the salesperson chooses, and the less likely we are to have problems in the salesperson selection. A successful enterprise's process of selecting and hiring salespeople generally includes the following steps: 1, building a salespeople competency model, writing a job description according to the salespeople competency model, collecting candidates for preliminary screening, interviewing candidates, checking information and background investigation, and deciding to hire salespeople. Building a salespeople competency model is a unique way to strengthen competitiveness and improve performance based on the needs of organizational strategic development. In the early 1950s, the State Council felt that the effect of selecting diplomats based on intelligence factors was not ideal, because many seemingly excellent talents were very disappointing in practical work. In this case, Harvard professor David? Dr. david McLelland was invited to help the State Council design a personnel selection method that can effectively predict the actual work performance. In the course of the project, Dr. McClellan applied some key theories and techniques, laying the foundation of competency method, such as abandoning the presupposition of talent conditions, starting from first-hand materials, and finding out the personal conditions that can truly distinguish job performance by comparing and analyzing the specific behavior characteristics of excellent diplomats and ordinary diplomats. In the early 1970s, David? Dr. mcclelland founded Macbeth Company in Boston, USA, providing competence application services in human resource management for enterprises, government agencies and other professional organizations. Under his guidance, Macbeth became an internationally recognized authority on the application of competency-based approach, and the competency-based approach was gradually recognized by everyone. Competency method holds that there are many competency characteristics of employees, but what enterprises need is not necessarily all the competency characteristics of employees. According to the requirements of the post and the organizational environment, the enterprise will define the competency characteristics that can ensure employees to be competent for the post and ensure them to play their greatest potential, and select employees according to this standard. It is necessary to use competency model analysis to extract the competency that can predict employees' work, that is, the best competency of employees. The competence of employees includes the following aspects: knowledge-information needed in a certain professional field. As a professional salesman, the knowledge you need to know mainly includes: product knowledge, customer knowledge, market competition knowledge, industry knowledge, business knowledge (including logistics, settlement, contract and contract law, after-sales, business etiquette, business travel, bidding, quotation, etc. ), as well as the basic situation of the company (company history, current situation, business philosophy, corporate culture, management system, etc.). ). Skills-the ability to master and use professional technology. Quoting skills, telephone communication skills, finding potential customers skills, sales interview skills, persuasion skills, objection handling skills, product display skills, negotiation skills, closing skills, customer service skills, competition skills, bidding skills, analysis skills, time management skills, insight and adaptability, analysis and judgment, clear goals and plans, etc. Are the core skills that salespeople need to master. Social role-individual's cognition and understanding of social norms. For example, adhere to integrity; Self-awareness-perception and evaluation of one's identity. For example, a self-affirming attitude; Trait-a person's characteristic or typical behavior. For example, being rigorous, earnest, full of team spirit, able to consider problems from the standpoint of others, optimistic, studious, modest and so on; Motivation-an idea or idea that determines the internal stability of explicit behavior. For example, internal motivation and strong desire for success, positive outlook on life; The traditional sales staff selection and employment model generally pays more attention to the external characteristics of candidates, such as knowledge, skills, experience, conversation, etc., while ignoring the deep-seated competency characteristics such as motivation and characteristics, so there is often no way to ensure the competency of candidates. With the competency model of salespeople, we can set up the testing process according to the competency, and finally help enterprises find salespeople with core motives and characteristics, which not only avoids the risks and losses caused by mistakes in recruiting salespeople, but also reduces the training expenditure of enterprises. According to the competency model of sales staff, write job descriptions. The competency model summarizes the basic qualities that salespeople should have, but it only provides us with a framework for analyzing problems. In fact, in the face of different customer groups, different markets and different historical periods, the abilities required by salespeople selling different product lines are often very different. Therefore, before starting recruitment, the sales manager should analyze the demand characteristics of each specific position and formulate a more detailed description of the post competence according to the actual situation, that is, the job description. When compiling the statement of work, distinguishing the different characteristics and needs of different types of customers is the most important factor to consider. The sales manager must consider the problem from the customer's point of view and make sure that the salesperson who appears in front of each customer is exactly what they are willing to accept. The basic contents of job description include: job name, job code, job grade, direct superior, direct subordinate, job responsibilities, job requirements, working conditions, promotion path, job rotation, etc. Collect candidates and conduct preliminary screening. Whether it is a sales manager or a human resources supervisor, there may be times when you feel headache because you can't recruit the right sales staff. Although there are many people applying for sales positions, there are more companies that need to recruit sales staff. An excellent salesperson has to face several job opportunities at the same time, so many people think that recruiting salespeople is a thankless thing. We should realize that in fact, excellent salespeople are scarce resources at any time, and we need to take the initiative to find a needle in a haystack. What kind of net is needed to catch what kind of fish. If we want to attract extraordinary people to join us, we must take some special measures and even show the spirit of caring for the humble. Mediocre sales managers and human resources directors can only use mediocre means, so they can only get more mediocre salesmen in the end. Finding potential salespeople needs to go through various channels, because only through various channels can the choice and success rate be increased. The main channels for finding potential salespeople are: 1, other positions in the organization, recommendation by customers or customers themselves, recommendation by existing salespeople or internal staff, headhunting company, media advertisement, rival company, talent agency or job fair, Internet and campus recruitment. After obtaining the list of potential salespeople through various channels, the preliminary screening methods mainly include resume evaluation and telephone (. Resume evaluation is a preliminary review of the resumes received. By observing the contents of resumes, those job seekers who do not meet the requirements are eliminated, including those with unclear positioning, frequent job hopping, carelessness, poor written communication skills, chaotic logic, too complicated experience or a big gap between their age and the positions they are applying for. After the resume evaluation, conduct telephone or video interviews and ask some simple questions to those candidates who have passed the resume evaluation, so as to eliminate more unqualified candidates. Telephone or video interviews can further examine the following aspects of candidates: 1. Ask questions about the resume content, and verify whether the resume content is true by the speed of the candidate's answer and the coincidence between the answer and the resume. 2. Examine the applicant's professionalism and adaptability by asking him what he can't do. 3. By asking candidates to answer why they want to resign, their understanding of the industry and their previous performance, we can examine whether the candidates have the necessary communication skills and familiarity with the business. Candidate interview and candidate evaluation is the most important link in the recruitment process of sales staff, and it is in this link that many enterprises make the same mistake. Some enterprises have not established competency model at all, and the recruitment interview depends entirely on the personal understanding and likes and dislikes of the leaders, resulting in a joke that the candidates are measured by their ability to fool, their alcohol consumption and even their looks. Some enterprises have established simple competence, but they can't distinguish the authenticity of candidates' quality, because the current employment situation forces many candidates to become "interview experts", and they study "face classics" every day, so they can answer various questions raised by interviewers in a relatively appropriate way, making the interview a mere formality; There are also some companies that believe too much in fancy evaluation software and evaluation models, resulting in people who are not suitable for their own needs. The root cause of the above problems is that these enterprises generally have not established scientific interview evaluation principles and standards. A set of scientific interview evaluation principles and standards should conform to the following principles: first, interview evaluation should be based on competency model; Second, interview evaluation should truly reflect the quality of candidates. Competency model requires us to have a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the applicant's sales knowledge, sales skills, social roles, characteristics and motivations, so we should design interview methods and interview questions according to these items, and try our best to make these interview methods and interview questions reflect the real situation of the applicant as much as possible to prevent being deceived by the false image created by the applicant. Before the interview, the HR supervisor should be responsible for setting up an interview team. Team members should not only be the internal staff of the human resources department, but also include the managers of different departments such as the company's top management, human resources supervisor and sales supervisor. Before the interview, the interviewer should design a set of systematic interview procedures and questions, which may include written test, live role-playing or two interviews. Corresponding scoring principles, standards and weights should be designed for each test process to ensure the fairness and credibility of the test. The interview should be conducted in a relaxed atmosphere, which is conducive to the candidates to show their normal quality. The first interview question is sales knowledge. We can examine the applicant's product knowledge through written examination, and then examine the applicant's business knowledge through interview. For example, we can ask: What are the main clauses in the contract? Could you please tell me something about your experience in visiting route planning and self-time management? How much do you know about customers in this industry? The second type of interview is sales skills, which can be conducted by combining written examination with interview or simply interview. At this stage, it is necessary to set professional questions to evaluate candidates' practical business experience, understanding ability, communication ability, expression ability and logical ability. We can ask: please briefly describe the most successful sales case you think you have done; How do you overcome the price objections raised by customers? It may take a long time for customers to talk to subordinates in the office. What should you do? After listening to your introduction, the customer asked you to leave a sample and said that he would contact you later. Do you think this visit was a success? The customer said he wouldn't buy it if you didn't agree to his price, and this price is unacceptable to you. How do you handle this situation? The third interview question is the social role question, through which we will examine the candidates' understanding and cognition of social morality and business ethics. For example, we can ask: have you always adhered to integrity in the sales process? Can you talk about how you fulfill your promise to customers? What do you think of your competitors? The fourth interview question is self-cognition, that is, to examine the applicant's perception and evaluation of his identity. For example, we can ask: please talk about your advantages and disadvantages and give examples; What do you think of the profession of salesman? Are you satisfied with your present situation? The fifth kind of interview questions are idiosyncratic questions, that is, to examine the personality characteristics or typical behaviors of candidates. For example, we can ask: What is your hobby? How do you make customers like you? Do you get along well with your classmates at school? What do you think is the secret of keeping a harmonious relationship with your classmates? What do you put in your bag when you visit customers? What sales books have you read? What is your motto? In the sales model, do you prefer to cooperate with others or work independently? Why do you think customers finally choose to cooperate with you? How much salary do you expect to get? What was your income last year? The sixth interview question is motivation, which examines the purpose and motivation of candidates. We can ask: Why did you choose a sales position? Why did you leave your old company? If the company offers you other positions, will you accept them? What are your immediate and future goals? Who do you admire most? What do you think of him that deserves your admiration? After the repeated bombing of these six interview questions, even candidates with more interview experience will expose their personal qualities in front of us. The competency model of making the final decision is a very scientific model, but it is not a perfect model. In order to better understand the candidates' personal situation, we also need to ask the seventh kind of questions, that is, some questions about the special requirements of the post. For example, for a position that requires a relatively stable staff, we need to know his family members and job changes in detail, as well as his motivation to choose to work in this city and the motivation to choose this position; For positions that need to travel frequently, we need to know the support of his family, his burden and the possibility of his long-term business trip; After the seventh question, we will grade all the candidates, and then determine the final list of candidates according to the grading. At this time, should we start to inform these selected salesmen to go to work according to the telephone number on the list? Not yet. Because the members of the recruitment team may still have doubts about some candidates, or feel that they still lack the necessary understanding. For such a chosen person, we choose to give up in principle. Because once these candidates become salesmen, they may bring us unpredictable risks. After excluding those candidates who may be uncertain, we have to make a final check on the background and identity of all candidates. Candidates confirmed by background and identity are our final sales candidates. The conclusion is that although it is hard, it can't blow out yellow sand and see gold.