The Evolution of Sales Directors (18) - Strategy for the Probationary Period of Sales Directors

18. Sales Director Probation Period Strategy

“The probation period of 3 to 6 months is a dangerous period for a new sales director. During this period, the sales director is most likely to be lost. If If you can survive the probation period safely, the road ahead for the next three years will be easier. Let’s talk about the strategies for the probation period first. "

"The problems Zi Mingfan encountered were actually how to deal with Si. Human-like relationships. The first type is company leaders, especially the boss or immediate boss; the second type is the sales team, especially the backbone of the team; the third type is brother departments, especially core functional departments; and the fourth type is with customer groups. , especially core major customers. The first three categories are people inside the company, and the last category are people outside the company.

“Most people and departments have a mixed attitude towards the new sales director. The mentality of sweating. Everyone knows how difficult this position is. You need to challenge the market, challenge the limits, and challenge yourself every day. At first glance, many people dare not even think about the towering sales targets. If you see a business master who is calm and capable, responds in an orderly manner, and can hold his own, he will naturally not make things difficult for you. If they see a new "dumb-headed young man" who is not very good and can read a needle with a mallet, a group of people will definitely be secretly amused. Join forces to watch this 'groom official' joke. ”

“Let’s talk about strategies for levels 2, 3 and 4 first, and finally, strategies for bosses. ”

“The 'stabilization' and 'replacement' of the sales team, the 'nurturing' and 'suppression' of core major customers, the perspective sketch of the relationship between management characters; finally, for the boss, you have to come up with 3~ The 5-year marketing promotion strategic plan is the official version of "Longzhong Dui". Use your sales "three axes" to burn your "new official" three fires. "

"Try not to make big decisions in the first month you go, observe more and talk less. You are in the dark, they are all in the light. When you first arrive, you have no foundation in this company. The only advantage is that no one knows your details. You need to carefully observe the new workplace environment and see clearly the surrounding situation. It is best to go around the market and chat with sales and customers. ”

“A movement is worse than a moment of silence.” ”

“Then focus on sorting out the business chain. Based on existing people, data, contracts and other clues, trace the general business scenarios that occurred before. The ability to trace and restore business scenarios is one of the essential skills of a sales director. Tang Fengmo closed his eyes and thought quickly. Three-dimensional pictures seemed to appear in front of him, and the time reflector started. "All business operations will leave countless digital traces." For example: business trip application forms, expense reimbursement forms, catering and entertainment expenses, sales contracts... all kinds of big data can help you restore the business scene at that time. Looking back on the past will help you quickly enter your current role and better understand the present and the future. ”

“After sorting through it, you will find many issues left over from your predecessor. Generally speaking, there are three aspects: one is the product sales policy that has not been fulfilled privately, and the other is the market expenses that have not been fulfilled privately. The third is other issues such as division of sales areas or channels, cross-selling goods, and arbitrary prices. ”

“Private commitment means that without the authorization of the company’s superiors, in order to reduce sales performance, the company will mess up policies and make random promises on expenses. Some have written documents, while others are just verbal commitments. You have to look at these things in two. If your predecessor caused huge losses to the company's interests due to corruption, you must hold him accountable; on the other hand, if it was just to offset sales performance and there was no mess, you can criticize him. hand. "

"The attitude towards the remaining problems should be to acknowledge the blame but not take the blame. For customers, you cannot deny everything because of your predecessor's resignation. If there is written witness, you must handle it as appropriate. After all, your predecessor represented the company before; but you must report the details to your boss in a timely manner. If it is not exposed, these remaining issues will automatically stick to your head over time. ”

“Therefore, the more detailed the business chain is, the better. You cannot sign the work handover form until you feel that you have fully understood the pitfalls and hidden stings of your predecessor. No one will say anything about it. Remember remember. ”

Tang Fengmo had suffered this kind of loss before. He softened his heart and let the person go after signing the contract. He took all the responsibility on his own and almost lost his job. In the end, he was scolded as a fool by his ex behind his back.

"The sales team is a rather special group. It is extremely difficult for the new sales director to win people's hearts in a short period of time."

"If everyone is like Zi Mingfan It's easy to deal with all the people you are facing. Just reorganize and train the team. The boss will also give you the time and opportunity to start from scratch. You are a new employee, so you need to spend more time thinking about it. "

"First of all, the more stable the sales team is in the early stage, the better it will be for you as the new sales director. If your subordinates all quit, the company will question your leadership ability. Everyone left before you came and stopped doing your business. From the perspective of business development, stable personnel will help the sales director to quickly control the situation and develop the business. Work. When you first join a company, your performance needs to be established to prove that the company is right to hire you. "

"I summarized the four-step method for team stabilization: checking files, talking, traveling, and drinking. "Tang Fengmo thought of the days when he flew from one city to another and drank and talked all night with his new sales brothers. Although it was tiring and stressful, they were all beautiful memories of youth.

"File checking is to check the sales members' resume, interview evaluation, interviewer evaluation, honorary punishment and other information from joining to the present. Borrowing from HR, the sales director has this authority. This allows you to quickly understand A person’s basic information, how did he get his resume? Who recruited him? Who is the interviewer? "

He emphasized the word "very".

"Conversations should be conducted one by one. It doesn't matter what you talk about. The important thing is that you establish the first impression of each other, get to know each other and establish an initial sense of familiarity and trust. ”

“Going on a business trip with the sales team to meet customers. During the process of traveling and meeting customers, you will have a deeper understanding of your subordinates’ sales capabilities, how they deal with people, and their right to speak with customers. Leaving the company will allow your subordinates to let go of their sense of restraint and psychological baggage, allowing you to get more real first-hand information on all aspects."

"Drinking is a shortcut, especially drinking heavily, although it is very harmful to the body. After a big drink, you will understand everything and he will tell you what should be said and what should not be said. Your relationship will also become much stronger. This is natural for a sales director who drinks a lot. Advantages."

Tang Fengmo rubbed his belly, the soft flesh there was too hard to lose. The last time the sales team had a routine experience, no one in the room was spared the fatty liver disease. Occupational diseases in sales work, drinking with leaders, drinking with colleagues, drinking with customers... It seems that sales in China can never be separated from the wine shop... In recent years, he can hide and run whenever he can. Just run away... There are situations where you really can't escape... and you can only put your mind aside... silently recite "Life and death, destiny, wealth and honor are in heaven" several times to hypnotize yourself. A devastated stomach...

"In short, those who can unite must unite. Don't act like one emperor and one courtier. It's you who treat everyone with 'frankness' and 'sincerity' The best shortcut to gain widespread support. Play less tricks... You think, the sales that can survive are not the best among people. If you fool people, they will react sooner or later. The above method may be able to do so. Let you try to win the support and support of the majority of the team members."

"Forbearance is the first choice. The longer you stay in office, the clearer the situation will be and the greater your leverage will be. "But there are also special circumstances, just like there are a few troublesome students in every class in every school, there will always be someone who will jump out to give you a try, either explicitly or covertly. Fighting. 'Bullying' and 'xenophobia' are common attitudes, and your honesty may sometimes be seen as weakness and incompetence, especially for individuals who challenge your authority in public. , we must strike resolutely. Sometimes, we have no choice but to kill the chicken and scare the monkey."

Li Meng nodded. He was very worried about being tricked by those treacherous old salesmen last time. He was unconvinced, but he had been kicked out and had no chance to retaliate.

"Theoretically, you occupy the central leadership position of the team. You can easily attack any opposition, but the time, timing, rhythm, etc. must be grasped well, and the broad mass base must be solid. For the stabbing head Let's look at it in two.

If it can be used, try your best to get it. As long as you want to do your job well and work hard towards the goal, you can stay at work; for those who have lost confidence and are passive and slow in work, which can only have a negative effect, we must resolutely give them Clear out. Once you decide, you must act quickly. Remember that you must be dismissed from the company and cannot be transferred to other departments, leaving you with hidden dangers. ”

“Either you don’t take action, or you must ‘seal your throat with a sword’ once you do, otherwise there will be endless troubles.” Remember, remember! "Tang Fengmo emphasized this issue again and again and could not leave any nails for himself.

"'Changing blood' is sometimes a last resort, because the pressure of performance will soon hit us, and if the team cannot be unified quickly, you will There is no way to lead troops to fight. I'll definitely give you some trouble at the critical moment. You won't have the time and energy to deal with these, and when the time comes it will affect the overall situation and you won't be able to explain it to your boss. "

Time is the friendliest friend for newcomers.

"As time goes by, we have fought side by side several times, and we understand each other better and better. As long as you are upright and fair, you will have the ability to lead everyone forward. Naturally, it became a real team that supported each other. ”

“Another more difficult aspect is the handling of large customers. Generally speaking, in the long-term business development of each company, it will accumulate several relatively large customers with a long time, large scale and high proportion. There are inextricably complicated relationships with people at all levels of the enterprise. ”

“We need to be cautious in handling relationships with these large customers. Generally speaking, their attitude towards new sales directors is much more arrogant than ordinary customers. If you cannot deal with them, your work will be difficult to achieve. ”

“They like to do something special. For example, more favorable sales policies, greater resource investment, etc. These are not big problems, and it is not a big problem to appropriately provide certain special policies within a reasonable range. Your main conflicts in the future will mainly focus on the signing of sales targets, the division of sales scope, and the management of market regulations. "

"Once their original interests are touched, these big customers will fight you. It is certain that sales tasks will increase. What is a reasonable sales target? If you order too little, your value will not be reflected. If you order too much, the pressure on the other party will increase sharply. Sales targets are generally linked to rebates. Just listen to the saying "Sign less and do more". The original sales areas/channels cannot satisfy the growing appetite. Will we give you more territory if you ask for it? What kind of method? Violations of the market management order are often caused by these large customers. Do you control or ignore the conduct of diversified goods, irregular prices, etc.? What kind of management method? ”

“These people will fight you back and forth a few times at the beginning. Once you see how bad the new sales director is, they may stop. Everyone will live in peace and help each other for a long time. , move forward hand in hand. If you find out that the other party is very good at one point, they will endlessly pick out a lot of things for you, and you can't finish just serving them. "

GK Company has "Eighteen Princes" and FP Company has "Four Major Families", none of whom are good at fault.

"But if there are repeated provocations to the company's principles As for the bottom line, we might as well step up efforts to rectify it. Sometimes it's "just punch away to avoid hundreds of punches", and the reason for falling out is for better cooperation. There was a lot of fuss over Gree's complete cessation of cooperation with Gome. Later, it was still difficult to cooperate on how to cooperate. ”

“If the sales director is determined to rectify a large customer, he needs to pay attention to the following: First, fully communicate with the boss in advance and reach an internal consensus. Second, collect authentic evidence, contracts, photos, invoices and other witnessing materials. Third, do a good job in dealing with the aftermath. Once you break up, prepare for the worst. Figure out which customers will make up for the sales performance of this big customer and how to divide the territory. Arrange these issues properly and just let them go. You'll feel bad at first, but you have to do it. Take one, and everyone else will be honest. As the saying goes: ‘Be uncomfortable for a while, feel comfortable for a lifetime’. ”

“‘Care’ and ‘suppress’ big customers. The main focus is on "pacifying" and the secondary is on "suppressing". Show respect and sincerity to them first. It would be best if the other party can cooperate. Objectively speaking, treating these big customers well will make a huge contribution to your overall development. If we can achieve mutual success, it will be the best result. It is a last resort to resort to some means. ”

“This is also human nature. When it comes to things, don't be timid.

If you give in, everything will be lost, brother..." Tang Fengmo glanced at Li Meng, and he was beating his heart. "Once it comes to a life-or-death situation, can this kid show some of the blood of a man? "

He has no idea at all anyway.

"Let's take a look at your company's human relations. The current organizational structure and personnel arrangements of the company that you can see are all reasonable products of various trade-offs, power struggles, and power constraints in a complex historical environment. The core management, various middle-level leaders, the backbone of each department, and key core positions... In theory, the layout of each person and position is carefully designed... This is the wisdom and wisdom of the management A manifestation of will..."

"We talked about before that a group of people are used by the boss to look after the home, that is, the back office department. Including administration, finance, human resources, legal affairs, information technology and other departments, they are like the "Forest Army". One wave of people is used by the boss to expand territory, that is, the field department. It mainly includes sales, marketing, brand and other departments, which are like "mercenaries". The relationship is clear at a glance. ”

“To truly control a company, the most important thing is whether it controls human rights and financial rights. So generally speaking, the human resources department and the finance department must have people carefully placed by the boss, who are relatives or confidants of the boss. Either a responsible person position or a key position. When dealing with these people, you must pay special attention to what you say. You need to understand clearly what should and should not be said. "

Li Meng curled his lips, with a shameless look on his face. The education he received was to appoint people on their merits, not nepotism.

Tang Fengmo smiled at Li Meng, "You have to be ridiculous If you are the boss of a company, you will definitely do the same thing. There is no company in China that does not have relatives and friends of senior executives. I have never seen one in all my years of traveling. ”

It’s all talk and work. -Professional managers. Relatives are the people the boss trusts most and have the highest loyalty to the company. Any trouble in the company will be reported to the boss. They must hope that the overall development of the company will be higher and higher, but they may not be able to see through the fog in the workplace. Sometimes they will inadvertently pass on the wrong information carefully packaged by workplace experts to the boss; cronies refer to veterans who have followed the boss for many years. Among employees, those who can stay are either those whom the boss can trust or those who can provide core value to the company. As they get older, they will naturally have a deeper affection for the company. Generally speaking, cronies are more competitive in the workplace than relatives, and they value their own living space more seriously. If their interests are touched, they will suffer a greater backlash. Many professional managers have died at the hands of their cronies. Professional managers are at the outermost periphery, and bosses generally both use them and guard against them. As the company develops, there is a huge gap in talent demand. There are not that many smart and capable relatives in the family, and most of the original cronies lack skills, so they can only find professional managers. ”

“But professional managers are expensive. Some thieves and short-sighted small bosses reluctantly agreed to the high salary of professional managers and hired them first.” Then arrange for two relatively cheap own people to work with this professional manager. After a few months of learning, they will kick the professional manager away after they understand it. This situation is very common in Internet companies. You must be careful when choosing a boss and be accurate in your judgment. It doesn’t matter if you can’t see it accurately. If you find this situation after joining the company, leave immediately and stop the loss. It won't let you work for a long time anyway. ”

“So, you have to draw a human relations perspective in your mind on the company’s organizational chart. How did so and so come to be? What is the relationship between who, who, and who, and who? Complete it bit by bit. ”

“I just arrived at a company and my eyes darkened. How can I know who is related to whom? There are no words engraved on their foreheads..." Li Meng was a little confused after hearing this.

"Then talk less and observe more. Remember, don't trust anyone easily. No matter how inconspicuous this person is. "Tang Fengmo reminded him repeatedly. There was an old man who looked after the gate of the company where he worked before. He was stubborn and tough in speech. Many people offended the old man because of their careless speech, and were scolded miserably by their leaders for being ignorant. Many years later, Tang Fengmo reminded him repeatedly. Only then did I find out that the old man was the executive director’s uncle.

“As time goes by, everyone knows who is related to whom.

Most of the employees are ordinary people. Basically, no ordinary person has a tight mouth. The secrets that everyone knows about him are basically told by his own mouth. Sometimes it’s to show off, sometimes it’s to prove yourself, sometimes it’s done inadvertently after drinking too much, and sometimes you forget what you said. After a while, you will unknowingly find that big characters are clearly engraved on everyone's forehead. All personnel relationships have always been clearly defined, and whoever belongs to whom belongs to whom. ”

“If you sort these things out clearly, you will not be reckless when doing things in the workplace. Otherwise, sometimes you will offend people and you won’t even know what happened.” You only care about working hard outside leading troops to fight, and the boss's eyes can't see you all the time. You can't stand up to the people at home after they whisper in your boss's ear a few times. Not to mention business owners, the emperors in ancient times were also like this, "three people make a tiger". If you want to gain a foothold and then make a difference, you must first maintain this group of people. This is the rule of the game in the workplace, there is no way around it. If you don’t follow it, it won’t last long. "

Tang Fengmo stared into Li Meng's eyes, and then said something that Li Meng will never forget.

"You must always remember one sentence: Don't trust the human resources director! Don't trust the human resources director! Don't trust the human resources director! "

After Tang Fengmo finished speaking, he lit up a cigarette and started puffing away. The HRDs in the past workplace flashed before his eyes, one after another with gentle manners and smiles. For a moment, they seemed to be your closest friends. Allies seem to be your most deadly enemies for a while. Countless sales directors are in their hands from birth to death, and from death to life. Loyalty and betrayal are their laws of survival and value, which are also the rules of the game.

"Does Old Tang have any prejudice against the human resources director? "Li Meng muttered in his heart, but seeing that Tang Fengmo was a little excited, he didn't dare to say it out.

"They can only be your colleagues, they can hardly be your friends. ”

“It is difficult to make you successful, but easy to destroy you.” "

Tang Fengmo blew out a smoke ring, which turned into a strange pattern and spiraled upward. In the smoke, Li Meng opened his eyes wide and looked hard, but he couldn't see Tang Fengmo's true face clearly.

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