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Timur Aslanov - Arithmetic of sales. Vendor Management Guide

Timur Aslanov

sales arithmetic. Vendor Management Guide

Every company that sells something wants to sell more. Money is never superfluous, and any businessman thinks about developing his enterprise, increasing market share and, accordingly, increasing revenue and profit.

In this book, we will discuss with you what tools to increase sales are in the hands of the head of sales or the director of the company and how to use them to solve this problem.

We will go over all the main aspects of the work of the sales department in the company and discuss what and how should be done in this direction, what can be improved, improved, revised in order for your company to make more sales. After all, if each site results in even small improvements, in general it will give a synergistic effect and a breakthrough in sales can be significant.

It is clear that a lot depends directly on what kind of business you have, but there are also common things that are inherent in most companies. We will analyze them, and already fine tuning for a specific business - this is homework for you.

Perhaps, somewhere, my story will seem too detailed to you - the book is designed for a wide range of heads of sales departments, and each of my potential readers has their own level of knowledge, and each specific mini-area in sales has its own level of immersion.

On the other hand, of course, within the framework of one small book it is impossible to fully cover all the issues related to increasing sales. You can write a multi-volume book on this topic (I am thinking about it, by the way). That's why this work does not claim to be a comprehensive and complete disclosure of the topic.

I wish you success and doubling your earnings!

Timur Aslanov

Sales is math

So, we are faced with a mathematical problem: to increase certain parameters. Eat x, but we need x plus y. The question is where to get this very Y and how to add it to our X.

Let's try to figure out what sales volume is in any company, what it consists of and how it is formed. This will help us understand the constituent parts - the components of success, so that later we can construct this success.

For clarity, we will support our conversation with pictures.

Sales volume is, for example, a cube.

There was this cube:

And our task is to make the cube look like this:

What do we need to do to make this happen?

Let's see what this cube consists of.

And it consists, like any structure, of individual bricks.

What are these bricks?

These are concluded and paid contracts. Deals. Sales. Each brick is one sale or one payment. Therefore, your monthly sales volume consists of a set of bricks - sales made per month.

If there are few sales, then your cube at the end of the month looks like this:

And if there are many, then like this:

That's what he was all the same such, and we will fight.

So, let's say that the volume of sales, as in the last figure, is 100 (one hundred of some abstract units - transactions, contracts, payments, thousands of dollars, etc.; we take just a number for simplicity of the example), that is, this cube consists of a hundred bricks. And the one you have now is 40 bricks. Well, don't worry, forty is not so bad either. There are only thirty neighbors.

True, the following question is also important here: where is the vector directed - what is the trend?

Up or down?

If the neighbors the day before yesterday had 20 bricks, yesterday 25, and today 30, then tomorrow - a hundred points - they will have 40. And how many did you have the day before yesterday and yesterday? 50 and 45? 40 and 40? Then this means that they take off, and you land, and this is a very serious reason to sound the alarm and urgently solve the issues of organizing and managing sales in your company. Because tomorrow you will have 30, and those 10 that you lose will be with the neighbors. And it's a road to nowhere.

But this is a separate issue. Let's talk about it later.

So, you have 40, but you need 100. And not once, but every month.

And with the understanding that after some time it will be 120 and then 150. That is, we are not talking about a one-time miracle, but about the miracle becoming a monthly one.

Current page: 1 (total book has 9 pages) [available reading excerpt: 2 pages]

Timur Aslanov

sales arithmetic. Vendor Management Guide

In this book, we will discuss with you what tools to increase sales are in the hands of the head of sales or the director of the company and how to use them to solve this problem.

It is clear that a lot depends directly on what kind of business you have, but there are also common things that are inherent in most companies. We will analyze them with you, and already fine-tuning for a specific business is homework for you.

On the other hand, of course, within the framework of one small book it is impossible to fully cover all the issues related to increasing sales. You can write a multi-volume book on this topic (I am thinking about it, by the way). Therefore, this work does not claim to be a comprehensive and complete disclosure of the topic.

I wish you success and doubling your earnings!

Timur Aslanov

Sales is math

So, we are faced with a mathematical problem: to increase certain parameters. Eat x, but we need x plus y. The question is where to get this very Y and how to add it to our X.

For clarity, we will support our conversation with pictures.

Sales volume is, for example, a cube.

There was this cube:

And our task is to make the cube look like this:

What do we need to do to make this happen?

Let's see what this cube consists of.

And it consists, like any structure, of individual bricks.

What are these bricks?

These are concluded and paid contracts. Deals. Sales. Each brick is one sale or one payment. Therefore, your monthly sales volume consists of a set of bricks - sales made per month.

If there are few sales, then your cube at the end of the month looks like this:

And if there are many, then like this:

That's what he was all the same such, and we will fight.

True, the following question is also important here: where is the vector directed - what is the trend?

Up or down?

But this is a separate issue. Let's talk about it later.

So, you have 40, but you need 100. And not once, but every month.

And with the understanding that after some time it will be 120 and then 150. That is, we are not talking about a one-time miracle, but about the miracle becoming a monthly one.

Let's see where 40 come from. By what forces they are achieved and from what sources. Usually bricks are brought into the cube by sellers. That is the sales department. Here they brought 40 bricks. And what forces and means? There are 10 of them, and on average each brought 4 bricks. This, of course, is a conditional scheme. This is possible in an ideal world, but in reality it almost never happens. We'll talk more about this.

But if we assume that this is the case to simplify the scheme, then our task is to understand how we can get 100 bricks.

1. Option one. If 10 sellers brought 40 bricks, then, to get 100 bricks, we need 25 sellers.

2. Option two. To get 100 bricks, we need each of the 10 sellers we have to bring not 4, but 10 bricks.

3. The third option, the closest to reality, is combined. We will consider it in more detail.

Of course, not everyone brought 4 each. As I said, this does not happen in life. Several people brought 10 each. There is a group of those who brought from 4 to 7. And there are several people who brought from 0 to 3.

This tells us the following.

10 bricks a month is real. Even today, when we have not yet conducted an audit of the company's sales and have not identified resources to increase the volume. It’s just that if there are sellers who don’t bring 10 bricks a month, then perhaps they have some kind of obstacles: objective (people do not have sufficient knowledge or they have a worse customer base, etc.) or subjective (they are lazy and idlers or just sales - this is not for them). Representatives of the latter categories are subject to immediate dismissal, since the presence of such characters in the team does nothing but harm.

Thus, the number one task is to lead everyone to start bringing 8 to 10 bricks per month. 10 is the maximum figure today, and even the best sellers do not give out the maximum volume every month during the year. Everyone has ups and downs. Vacations, illnesses, periods of burnout and depression, a stormy personal life and seeing off a child to school are thousands of everyday reasons that affect work.

For bad salespeople, these causes affect performance eight months of the year. Good ones have three or four, no more. But there is no getting away from this.

Unfortunately, so far no one has figured out how to automate the sales process so much that you can entrust this business to machines. Whoever creates and patents a sales robot will become a billionaire. In the meantime, alas, we have to deal with living people. And here we have a full set of problems associated with the human factor.

So, as a starting point, we take not 10 units per month per person, but 8. Thus, we get that we need 12.5 people per 100 units. But, as we just said, life makes its own adjustments to our plans on a regular basis, and we need to make an amendment to the plans for the fact that not all of our salespeople will be excellent students. In each class there are excellent students, good students, three students and two students. They are in any sales department. Even after you and I fired those lazy people who brought us less than 4 bricks, we are not protected from the fact that we will not get new ones soon: with each set we will receive not only good sellers, but also bad ones, no matter how careful the selection may be.

The difference is that at school, the teacher is obliged to pull losers at least up to the ninth grade, and in our sales department they can be expelled at any time. You should always remember this and not be afraid to fire. All salespeople should know that if they don't make money, the company won't tolerate them.

So, given that there will be deductions and other circumstances, we need to focus on 15 people, each set a plan of 10. We get 150 bricks by the end of the month, with a discount on all force majeure, 100 should eventually be drawn.

Our math problem has this simple formula:

sales volume = number of salespeople × number of customer contacts (meetings, calls, etc.) × the quality of these contacts.

That is, roughly speaking, the more people will make calls and meetings (depending on how your sales are organized), the more meetings each salesperson will make and the better he will conduct these meetings (and, accordingly, more efficiently), the higher our sales volume. With that in mind, we will decide how we should proceed.

So, we have the following tasks:

1. Increasing the number of sellers: we recruit as many employees as possible in the sales department, based on the volume of the customer base and the number of potential customers.

2. We teach them sales techniques and give information about the product so that they make the most effective contacts with customers.

3. We develop a methodology for motivation and control so that the number of contacts with clients is maximum.

This solves the problem mathematically and theoretically. If you follow all the steps listed in this chapter, then sales will go up. They just can't go!

In the following chapters, we will talk in more detail about how to solve these problems. And also about what else affects the volume of sales in addition to our formula, or what else affects the fact that the formula works as efficiently as possible.

Time management in sales

What is stopping you from achieving even better sales results? What is stopping you or your salespeople from selling more?

Nothing steals sales like the misuse of your work time and the misuse of work time by your subordinates.

Let's take a successful salesperson.

He sells well. And you know that he sells well and could theoretically sell more. Let's see what's stopping him. It is possible that he spends part of his productive time on routine work, instead of making new sales.

There is a very useful technique in time management - the timing of the working day. Ask your super seller to write down for a week every day what exactly and for how long he did. You will be surprised how much time is wasted. And he, too, will be surprised, and he will fix some things himself even before your intervention. By the way, I recommend that you write down after yourself - it clears the brain perfectly. Because it is one thing to have some idea of how you spent your working day, and quite another to have a document where everything is impartially recorded. The difference will impress you.

So, we have timed the working time of your sales person, and now your task is to understand what part of the routine work you can free him from, so that he also devotes this time to sales.

I will give two examples.

The first is from Dan Kennedy, the American sales guru:

“One of the most successful real estate agents I know - not a broker, but an agent - has three assistants working for him. It is a personal assistant for washing and drying clothes in dry cleaning, car washing, clerical work, buying gifts, restaurants, and booking travel tickets; a sales assistant looking for leads, answering phones, filling out contracts; office assistant, keeping records, posting ads, leading the mailing list. This is right. Everyone should do what he does best. The best salesperson should devote as much of their time as possible to sales.

I also read the second example in some American book: it was about two managers who sold financial products. One of them complained to the other that he had a client - an elderly woman who is very good and buys a lot of things. But it requires special attention. The client lives outside the city, and every time he has to go to her, which takes a lot of time on the road and traffic jams. Other sales suffer as a result. The second manager replied: “I also have such a client, but I did it simply: every time we need to see her for the next transaction, I order her a limousine back and forth, which costs me two hundred dollars, but I save three or four hours of working time and during this time I earn much more. And the client is satisfied: she is given attention and respect.”

Thus, the main message of my message is this: in order to sell more, you need to increase the amount of time that you spend directly on sales.

Maybe you find it inappropriate to hire an assistant for your salesperson to solve household issues- it's up to you. My task is to give you food for thought: perhaps you will have your own version of how to organize the process in order to free up time for the best sellers.

If you sell yourself, then you probably need such an assistant. Or maybe the seller just needs to be freed from working trifles: writing reports, preparing some papers, searching for clients, etc. Maybe he spends some of his time fulfilling the requests of other employees. For example, in the company of one of my clients there was an accountant who was very fond of delegating his duties to everyone around him, including sales department employees who, at the request of this accountant, spent precious minutes and hours calling the accounts department of clients, clarifying some details and clarifying questions about documents. When the director found out about this, he was furious, and the accountant, of course, got what he deserved. But the managers themselves did not dare to refuse the accountant's requests and dutifully carried out his instructions, taking away time from own sales.

If an employee is a great salesperson, he should only sell. And the more time he spends on sales, the more sales you will have.

But it is also necessary to work with the sellers themselves in this regard in order to instill in them at least minimal time management skills. Talk about time eaters, about the need to say “no” when colleagues distract from work, etc., so that during the working day no one and nothing takes the seller’s time for things that do not lead to financial result.

And, of course, you need to ensure that during the sales process, your employees do not waste their time explaining and negotiating with people who do not make decisions, because this time can be spent more efficiently.

But this is already a question at the intersection of time management and sales techniques.

Sales funnel

So, we settled on the fact that we need 8-10 bricks per person per month for this stage. Therefore, we need to understand how many contacts with the client each seller must make in order to bring at least eight bricks - paid transactions by the end of the month.

This is where the concept of a sales funnel comes to the rescue. It seems to be a well-known term, but practice shows that for many sales managers the story of a funnel is a kind of revelation. Let's briefly consider what it is.

The sales funnel is the ratio of the number of closed deals to the number of initial contacts with customers.

That is, to put it simply, you made 100 calls to 100 potential customers. Of these, 10 people agreed to the meeting, of these ten, five showed interest in your offer, and of these five, three bought what you sell from you. Here it is, in fact, a funnel. There are 100 contacts in the wide neck, and 3 sales in the exit in the narrow neck. Your ratio is 3 to 100. This is neither good nor bad. For each business and even for each sales manager, this ratio is different. There is no general figure that would be a model.

Eat general rule: The funnel always narrows. The output is always less than the input.

Therefore, in order to get 8 sales, you need to make 267 calls. This is a very important figure that we need to work with. We know what to start from, what to demand from managers, etc.

When planning a certain volume of sales, you need to be aware that if you have average cost deals 10,000 rubles and you want to collect a million a month, then you need to conclude 100 deals. If you have a ratio of 5 to 100 in your sales funnel, then you need 2,000 initial contacts to close 100 deals. And here the question is: is there such a number of potential customers in the database? whether there are a sufficient number of sellers in the company (after all, each seller can only have a certain amount of these same contacts)? Well, and so on. Thus, starting from your sales funnel, you can plan all the work.

Next important aspect sales funnels average duration sales process: how long does it take on average from the first call to the client to the conclusion of the transaction. This also allows for more efficient planning. Let's take, for example, a month: accordingly, if you planned to raise a million in September, then this work should begin no later than the first of August, then the first deals will be concluded by the first of September.

Thus, if you have all the information about your sales funnel, you can control the situation at any time and adjust the actions of managers, make relatively accurate forecasts and identify places where your urgent intervention is needed.

But you must understand that after you have measured your ratio in your sales funnel, you have another tool to increase sales. Today your ratio is 5 to 100. But this does not mean at all that this is your limit. You must constantly strive for the unattainable in order to take more and more new heights.

And what is unattainable in our case is the ratio of 1 to 1: one contact - one transaction. This, of course, is fantastic, but you simply have to sort out all aspects of the sale and understand how to increase your ratio to at least 10 to 100.

This must be done constantly. And the main tool in this business is working with objections and refusals, because sales are lost on refusals, but refusals are different from refusals, and work good seller is to distinguish a true refusal from a false one and to transform a false refusal into an agreement and a deal. And here it is necessary to be actively involved in this process. Monitor failures. To analyze all these cases at meetings of sellers, internal trainings and jointly look for solutions.

By talking about the sales funnel to newbies in the learning process, you clearly illustrate the thesis that their job is 80-90 percent work with failures. This must be done without fail. Because many, coming into sales, have the illusion that all people are potential buyers and if they just call and open their eyes to your wonderful product, they will immediately rush to buy it in large quantities. When this does not happen in practice, novice sellers give up, and the stage of early burnout begins. They begin to think that they just got in touch with a bad company whose product no one needs, and they quit en masse.

Your task is to warn them in advance that rejections are normal, that they should not be feared, that they should not give up, that this is the essence of the work of the seller - to wade through rejections to close deals. That in every hundred buyers there are always three who will buy, and you just need to find these three. And when they learn how to do this, it will be easier for them to understand how not only to find three consonants, but also to recruit three or four more of those who disagree.

Conclusion: determine your ratio in the sales funnel and start working closely with it. Plan all actions based on your ratio, and think for yourself how to improve it. And you can improve it in several ways - for example, by improving the sales technique of your salespeople and honing your product knowledge.

Product knowledge

Therefore, if you want to increase sales, then you simply need to introduce tight control over how sales are actually carried out in your company. Not the way you imagine it. Namely, how they are actually implemented.

I'll give you a specific example.

Some time ago, during another business trip to a small Russian city, my colleagues and I went to have a bite to eat at a local restaurant. Not the last place in town claiming to be certain place On the market. As we looked at the menu, I watched who was sitting around and what they were talking about. Two tables away from us, apparently, the owner of the establishment was sitting and talking with the manager about what and how to improve in the restaurant's assortment in order to increase sales. The topic is interesting to me, and I listened carefully. They discussed new dishes, new ingredients and cooking methods, beautiful names for them. The owner tried to come up with different chips and non-standard moves, which could not but arouse my respect.

The waiter came up to us to take our order. And then the show began. The menu really had interesting and varied names that attracted attention. But not a single question about what this or that dish consists of and how exactly it is prepared (fried in a pan or on a grill, which, you see, is far from the same thing and is important when deciding on an order), the waiter could not answer. He blushed, puffed, scratched his head and promised to clarify in the kitchen. We ended up ordering something simple (dumplings, I think) that could be decided without negotiating with the kitchen through a negotiator like our waiter.

Of course, our dish was much cheaper than the fancy options that we originally planned to order. Of course, the institution did not receive the money that we were really ready to pay for more expensive dishes.

And the owner of the restaurant sits and puzzles: how to increase sales? why is it bad with such a cool menu there is a trade?

Conclusion: no matter how great a product your company sells, no matter what marketing moves no matter how your marketers invented to package and present the product beautifully - if your sellers do not know the product they are selling, there will be no sales.

A seller who floats in the product, mooing or saying that he needs to clarify something, will not be bought. There is always the opportunity to call back to another company and find a manager who will sort everything out.

It is not enough to force them to "learn materiel", as Chichvarkin said. It is necessary to regularly check all employees who communicate with customers for knowledge of this very equipment: conduct certification and recertification, write tickets, as in an institute, and arrange exams. Only in this way it is possible to ensure that the seller will be “in the know” and will be able to competently answer all the questions of the client.

The seller must not only know everything about the product thoroughly, but also be able to anticipate certain tricky questions of the client regarding the operation of the product and have reasoned answers to them. Because a seller who is “out of touch” may accidentally sell a product, but a knowledgeable seller is more likely to sell it, and also sell accessories and service in addition, and the client will not only return to him later, but also recommend to friends.

Chapter 1
Sales is math

So, we are faced with a mathematical problem: to increase certain parameters. Eat x, but we need x plus y. The question is where to get this very Y and how to add it to our X.
Let's try to figure out what sales volume is in any company, what it consists of and how it is formed. This will help us understand the constituent parts - the components of success, so that later we can construct this success.
For clarity, we will support our conversation with pictures.
Sales volume is, for example, a cube.
There was this cube:

And our task is to make the cube look like this:

What do we need to do to make this happen?
Let's see what this cube consists of.
And it consists, like any structure, of individual bricks.

What are these bricks?
These are concluded and paid contracts. Deals. Sales. Each brick is one sale or one payment. Therefore, your monthly sales volume consists of a set of bricks - sales made per month.
If there are few sales, then your cube at the end of the month looks like this:
And if there are many, then like this:

That's what he was all the same such, and we will fight.
So, let's say that the volume of sales, as in the last figure, is 100 (one hundred of some abstract units - transactions, contracts, payments, thousands of dollars, etc.; we take just a number for simplicity of the example), that is, this cube consists of a hundred bricks. And the one you have now is 40 bricks. Well, don't worry, forty is not so bad either. There are only thirty neighbors.
True, the following question is also important here: where is the vector directed - what is the trend?

Up or down?
If the neighbors the day before yesterday had 20 bricks, yesterday 25, and today 30, then tomorrow - a hundred points - they will have 40. And how many did you have the day before yesterday and yesterday? 50 and 45? 40 and 40? Then this means that they take off, and you land, and this is a very serious reason to sound the alarm and urgently solve the issues of organizing and managing sales in your company. Because tomorrow you will have 30, and those 10 that you lose will be with the neighbors. And it's a road to nowhere.
But this is a separate issue. Let's talk about it later.
So, you have 40, but you need 100. And not once, but every month.
And with the understanding that after some time it will be 120 and then 150. That is, we are not talking about a one-time miracle, but about the miracle becoming a monthly one.
Let's see where 40 come from. By what forces they are achieved and from what sources. Usually bricks are brought into the cube by sellers. That is the sales department. Here they brought 40 bricks. And what forces and means? There are 10 of them, and on average each brought 4 bricks. This, of course, is a conditional scheme. This is possible in an ideal world, but in reality it almost never happens. We'll talk more about this.
But if we assume that this is the case to simplify the scheme, then our task is to understand how we can get 100 bricks.
1. Option one. If 10 sellers brought 40 bricks, then, to get 100 bricks, we need 25 sellers.
2. Option two. To get 100 bricks, we need each of the 10 sellers we have to bring not 4, but 10 bricks.
3. The third option, the closest to reality, is combined. We will consider it in more detail.
Of course, not everyone brought 4 each. As I said, this does not happen in life. Several people brought 10 each. There is a group of those who brought from 4 to 7. And there are several people who brought from 0 to 3.
This tells us the following.
10 bricks a month is real. Even today, when we have not yet conducted an audit of the company's sales and have not identified resources to increase the volume. It’s just that if there are sellers who don’t bring 10 bricks a month, then perhaps they have some kind of obstacles: objective (people do not have sufficient knowledge or they have a worse customer base, etc.) or subjective (they are lazy and idlers or just sales - this is not for them). Representatives of the latter categories are subject to immediate dismissal, since the presence of such characters in the team does nothing but harm.
Thus, the number one task is to lead everyone to start bringing 8 to 10 bricks per month. 10 is the maximum figure today, and even the best sellers do not give out the maximum volume every month during the year. Everyone has ups and downs. Vacations, illnesses, periods of burnout and depression, a stormy personal life and seeing off a child to school are thousands of everyday reasons that affect work.
For bad salespeople, these causes affect performance eight months of the year. Good ones have three or four, no more. But there is no getting away from this.
Unfortunately, so far no one has figured out how to automate the sales process so much that you can entrust this business to machines. Whoever creates and patents a sales robot will become a billionaire. In the meantime, alas, we have to deal with living people. And here we have a full set of problems associated with the human factor.
So, as a starting point, we take not 10 units per month per person, but 8. Thus, we get that we need 12.5 people per 100 units. But, as we just said, life makes its own adjustments to our plans on a regular basis, and we need to make an amendment to the plans for the fact that not all of our salespeople will be excellent students. In each class there are excellent students, good students, three students and two students. They are in any sales department. Even after you and I fired those lazy people who brought us less than 4 bricks, we are not protected from the fact that we will not get new ones soon: with each set we will receive not only good sellers, but also bad ones, no matter how careful the selection may be.
The difference is that at school, the teacher is obliged to pull losers at least up to the ninth grade, and in our sales department they can be expelled at any time. You should always remember this and not be afraid to fire. All salespeople should know that if they don't make money, the company won't tolerate them.
So, given that there will be deductions and other circumstances, we need to focus on 15 people, each set a plan of 10. We get 150 bricks by the end of the month, with a discount on all force majeure, 100 should eventually be drawn.
Our math problem has this simple formula:
sales volume = number of salespeople × number of customer contacts (meetings, calls, etc.) × the quality of these contacts.

So, we have the following tasks:
1. Increasing the number of sellers: we recruit as many employees as possible in the sales department, based on the volume of the customer base and the number of potential customers.
2. We teach them sales techniques and give information about the product so that they make the most effective contacts with customers.
3. We develop a methodology for motivation and control so that the number of contacts with clients is maximum.

This solves the problem mathematically and theoretically. If you follow all the steps listed in this chapter, then sales will go up. They just can't go!
In the following chapters, we will talk in more detail about how to solve these problems. And also about what else affects the volume of sales in addition to our formula, or what else affects the fact that the formula works as efficiently as possible.

Chapter 2
Time management in sales

What is stopping you from achieving even better sales results? What is stopping you or your salespeople from selling more?
Nothing steals sales like the misuse of your work time and the misuse of work time by your subordinates.
Let's take a successful salesperson.
He sells well. And you know that he sells well and could theoretically sell more. Let's see what's stopping him. It is possible that he spends part of his productive time on routine work, instead of making new sales.
There is a very useful technique in time management - the timing of the working day. Ask your super seller to write down for a week every day what exactly and for how long he did. You will be surprised how much time is wasted. And he, too, will be surprised, and he will fix some things himself even before your intervention. By the way, I recommend that you write down after yourself - it clears the brain perfectly. Because it is one thing to have some idea of how you spent your working day, and quite another to have a document where everything is impartially recorded. The difference will impress you.
So, we have timed the working time of your sales person, and now your task is to understand what part of the routine work you can free him from, so that he also devotes this time to sales.
I will give two examples.
The first is from Dan Kennedy, the American sales guru:
“One of the most successful real estate agents I know - not a broker, but an agent - has three assistants working for him. It is a personal assistant for washing and drying clothes in dry cleaning, car washing, clerical work, buying gifts, restaurants, and booking travel tickets; a sales assistant looking for leads, answering phones, filling out contracts; office assistant, keeping records, posting ads, leading the mailing list. This is right. Everyone should do what he does best. The best salesperson should devote as much of their time as possible to sales.
I also read the second example in some American book: it was about two managers who sold financial products. One of them complained to the other that he had a client - an elderly woman who is very good and buys a lot of things. But it requires special attention. The client lives outside the city, and every time he has to go to her, which takes a lot of time on the road and traffic jams. Other sales suffer as a result. The second manager replied: “I also have such a client, but I did it simply: every time we need to see her for the next transaction, I order her a limousine back and forth, which costs me two hundred dollars, but I save three or four hours of working time and during this time I earn much more. And the client is satisfied: she is given attention and respect.”
Thus, the main message of my message is this: in order to sell more, you need to increase the amount of time that you spend directly on sales.
Maybe you find it inappropriate to hire an assistant for your salesperson to solve everyday issues - this is your business. My task is to give you food for thought: perhaps you will have your own version of how to organize the process in order to free up time for the best sellers.
If you sell yourself, then you probably need such an assistant. Or maybe the seller just needs to be freed from working trifles: writing reports, preparing some papers, searching for clients, etc. Maybe he spends some of his time fulfilling the requests of other employees. For example, in the company of one of my clients there was an accountant who was very fond of delegating his duties to everyone around him, including sales department employees who, at the request of this accountant, spent precious minutes and hours calling the accounts department of clients, clarifying some details and clarifying questions about documents. When the director found out about this, he was furious, and the accountant, of course, got what he deserved. But the managers themselves did not dare to refuse the accountant's requests and dutifully carried out his instructions, taking time away from their own sales.
If an employee is a great salesperson, he should only sell. And the more time he spends on sales, the more sales you will have.
But it is also necessary to work with the sellers themselves in this regard in order to instill in them at least minimal time management skills. Talk about time sinks, about the need to say “no” when colleagues distract from work, etc., so that during the working day no one and nothing takes the seller’s time for things that do not lead to financial results.
And, of course, you need to ensure that during the sales process, your employees do not waste their time explaining and negotiating with people who do not make decisions, because this time can be spent more efficiently.
But this is already a question at the intersection of time management and sales techniques.

Chapter 3
Sales funnel

So, we settled on the fact that we need 8-10 bricks per person per month at this stage. Therefore, we need to understand how many contacts with the client each seller must make in order to bring at least eight bricks - paid transactions by the end of the month.
This is where the concept of a sales funnel comes to the rescue. It seems to be a well-known term, but practice shows that for many sales managers the story of a funnel is a kind of revelation. Let's briefly consider what it is.
The sales funnel is the ratio of the number of closed deals to the number of initial contacts with customers.
That is, to put it simply, you made 100 calls to 100 potential customers. Of these, 10 people agreed to the meeting, of these ten, five showed interest in your offer, and of these five, three bought what you sell from you. Here it is, in fact, a funnel. There are 100 contacts in the wide neck, and 3 sales in the exit in the narrow neck. Your ratio is 3 to 100. This is neither good nor bad. For each business and even for each sales manager, this ratio is different. There is no general figure that would be a model.
There is a general rule: the funnel always narrows. The output is always less than the input.

Therefore, in order to get 8 sales, you need to make 267 calls. This is a very important figure that we need to work with. We know what to start from, what to demand from managers, etc.
When planning a certain volume of sales, you need to be aware that if you have an average transaction value of 10,000 rubles and you want to collect a million a month, then you need to conclude 100 transactions. If you have a ratio of 5 to 100 in your sales funnel, then you need 2,000 initial contacts to close 100 deals. And here the question is: is there such a number of potential customers in the database? Is there a sufficient number of sellers in the company (after all, each seller can have only a certain number of these same contacts per month)? Well, and so on. Thus, starting from your sales funnel, you can plan all the work.
The next important aspect of the sales funnel is the average duration of the sales process: how long does it take on average from the first call to the client to the conclusion of the transaction. This also allows for more efficient planning. Let's take, for example, a month: accordingly, if you planned to raise a million in September, then this work should begin no later than the first of August, then the first deals will be concluded by the first of September.
Thus, if you have all the information about your sales funnel, you can control the situation at any time and adjust the actions of managers, make relatively accurate forecasts and identify places where your urgent intervention is needed.
But you must understand that after you have measured your ratio in your sales funnel, you have another tool to increase sales. Today your ratio is 5 to 100. But this does not mean at all that this is your limit. You must constantly strive for the unattainable in order to take more and more new heights.
And what is unattainable in our case is the ratio of 1 to 1: one contact - one transaction. This, of course, is fantastic, but you simply have to sort out all aspects of the sale and understand how to increase your ratio to at least 10 to 100.
This must be done constantly. And the main tool in this business is dealing with objections and rejections, because sales are lost on rejections, but rejections are different, and the job of a good seller is to distinguish a true rejection from a false one and transform a false rejection into an agreement and a deal. And here it is necessary to be actively involved in this process. Monitor failures. To analyze all these cases at meetings of sellers, internal trainings and jointly look for solutions.
By talking about the sales funnel to newbies in the learning process, you clearly illustrate the thesis that their job is 80-90 percent work with failures. This must be done without fail. Because many, coming into sales, have the illusion that all people are potential buyers and if they just call and open their eyes to your wonderful product, they will immediately rush to buy it in large quantities. When this does not happen in practice, novice sellers give up, and the stage of early burnout begins. They begin to think that they just got in touch with a bad company whose product no one needs, and they quit en masse.
Your task is to warn them in advance that rejections are normal, that they should not be feared, that they should not give up, that this is the essence of the work of the seller - to wade through rejections to close deals. That in every hundred buyers there are always three who will buy, and you just need to find these three. And when they learn how to do this, it will be easier for them to understand how not only to find three consonants, but also to recruit three or four more of those who disagree.
Conclusion: determine your ratio in the sales funnel and start working closely with it. Plan all actions based on your ratio, and think for yourself how to improve it. And you can improve it in several ways - for example, by improving the sales technique of your salespeople and honing your product knowledge.

Chapter 4
Product knowledge

Many sales executives don't take the seriousness of the question of how well salespeople know the product into consideration. And this is the cause of many losses in sales. Believe me: sellers for the most part are the same proletariat as a turner at a factory or a mechanic in a housing department. I do not want to offend anyone, there is also an elite that is not inferior in their personal qualities to some company executives, but many sales managers are ordinary employees with not always high pay, and not all of them are ready to move properly in order to develop and improve their skills. Most people live on the principle of "going on somehow, and okay."
Therefore, if you want to increase sales, then you simply need to introduce tight control over how sales are actually carried out in your company. Not the way you imagine it. Namely, how they are actually implemented.
I'll give you a specific example.
Some time ago, during another business trip to a small Russian city, my colleagues and I went to have a bite to eat at a local restaurant. Not the last institution in the city, claiming a certain place in the market. As we looked at the menu, I watched who was sitting around and what they were talking about. Two tables away from us, apparently, the owner of the establishment was sitting and talking with the manager about what and how to improve in the restaurant's assortment in order to increase sales. The topic is interesting to me, and I listened carefully. They discussed new dishes, new ingredients and cooking methods, beautiful names for them. The owner tried to come up with different chips and non-standard moves, which could not but arouse my respect.
The waiter came up to us to take our order. And then the show began. The menu really had interesting and varied names that attracted attention. But not a single question about what this or that dish consists of and how exactly it is prepared (fried in a pan or on a grill, which, you see, is far from the same thing and is important when deciding on an order), the waiter could not answer. He blushed, puffed, scratched his head and promised to clarify in the kitchen. We ended up ordering something simple (dumplings, I think) that could be decided without negotiating with the kitchen through a negotiator like our waiter.
Of course, our dish was much cheaper than the fancy options that we originally planned to order. Of course, the institution did not receive the money that we were really ready to pay for more expensive dishes.
And the owner of the restaurant sits and puzzles: how to increase sales? why, with such a cool menu, does he have a bad trade?
Bottom line: no matter how great a product your company sells, no matter what marketing moves your marketers invent to beautifully package and present the product, if your salespeople do not know the product they are selling, there will be no sales.
A seller who floats in the product, mooing or saying that he needs to clarify something, will not be bought. There is always the opportunity to call back to another company and find a manager who will sort everything out.
It is not enough to force them to "learn materiel", as Chichvarkin said. It is necessary to regularly check all employees who communicate with customers for knowledge of this very equipment: conduct certification and recertification, write tickets, as in an institute, and arrange exams. Only in this way it is possible to ensure that the seller will be “in the know” and will be able to competently answer all the questions of the client.
The seller must not only know everything about the product thoroughly, but also be able to anticipate certain tricky questions of the client regarding the operation of the product and have reasoned answers to them. Because a seller who is “out of touch” may accidentally sell a product, but a knowledgeable seller is more likely to sell it, and also sell accessories and service in addition, and the client will not only return to him later, but also recommend to friends.

Are you in sales and want to earn more? Just read this book. It provides a wide range of easy-to-use tools to improve sales performance. Timur Aslanov shares his findings, best practices and methods of managing the sales department, accumulated - and tested! – for almost twenty years of work in sales.

Chapter from the book:

Sales staff motivation

Sales are made by people. No matter what brilliant product you offer to the market, the final bridge between you and the client will always be the seller. The extent to which the seller is really determined to sell and achieve success directly depends on the final sales volume and your well-being. In addition to knowledge of the product and possession of sales techniques, the seller must also have a desire to sell. It's infuriating, but there's no getting away from it: he must want, and your task is to ensure that he wants with all his might. And it infuriates because we are all reasonable people, and if, for example, a company has introduced a system of direct commissions and the manager receives a good percentage from each transaction, then, it would seem, sell as much as possible, and everyone will be happy - both the company and the manager. Everyone will receive high income Isn't that what we're all here for? But in practice, everything is not so simple at all. And we'll talk about it now.

When auditing your sales system, you should look at how you are motivating your sales force. I'll give you some of my thoughts on how this should work, so that I may give you some ideas on this.

Let's start, as usual, with definitions.

Motivation, as the guides say, is a way to increase the productivity or productivity of an employee or a team of employees. The task of motivation is to stimulate employees to achieve the goals set by the company. At the same time, it is necessary to create such a system of motivation in order to take into account both the interests of the company and the interests of the employee.

People voluntarily always do only what they themselves want to do. Making them want to do what you want is the art of motivation.

What problems can arise in companies with low staff motivation?

– Low results of labor (small sales, failure to fulfill sales plans).

– Low level of discipline.

- High conflict.

- High turnover.

– Negligent attitude to their duties other than sales (submitting reports, maintaining a database, answering calls, etc.).

- Poor controllability.

– Low professional level of employees (no one teaches product information, does not know the presentation, does not master the basic sales techniques, etc.).

– Low staff loyalty, negative conversations in the team.

- Low morale in the team (hence again the lack of sales, since everything is interconnected), etc.

Therefore, without motivation, nowhere, and you need to figure out in detail how to make sure that everyone is happy.

To structure our conversation, let's look at what motivation is.

Motivation happens:

1) individual and collective;

2) positive (bonuses) and negative (penalties);

3) tangible and intangible.

We will look at all these aspects and start, of course, with material motivation because everything material is closer to us, sellers.

material motivation

Material motivation of personnel is carried out by means of payment of remuneration in the form of monetary or in-kind payment.

Monetary payment is all monetary and cash-equivalent (credit cards, checks, etc.) forms of payment.

Payment in kind - goods and services that can be used instead of money (giving a TV employee the latest model for the conclusion big deal, membership to a fitness club, etc.).

Monetary payments include:

- salary;

– percentage (commission from the amount of the transaction);

- bonus (cash payment based on the results of the implementation of any specific task or performance indicators - for example, the number of new customers a seller has or sales of certain items in a product line);

- a bonus is actually the same as a bonus, but it can also be paid on the occasion of a holiday, birthday, etc. (I consider such payments ineffective, because they are not tied directly to merit: if all women are paid bonuses on March 8, they do not stimulate to work better);

- allowance - an incentive payment for qualification or experience.

Now more.

Salary. Feet feed the wolf. To put the seller on a bare salary - to deprive him of the point of fussing and running around. But today it is impossible to be completely without a salary: everyone wants some kind of guarantees and security. The seller wants to be sure that even if a terrible thing happens and he does not sell anything, then at least he does not die of hunger, he will receive a salary.

Attempts to appeal to his conscience with the words “the seller should receive only from what he earns, since this is the only result of his work, and I don’t need the seller who came to work for a salary” lead to nothing. In words, he agrees, nods, but then says that everything happens in life, force majeure and illness, and he has small children and he does not want to take risks. In addition, most companies in the market still pay salaries to salespeople, and you can always quit and go to such a company. Therefore, you can’t get away from the salary. The main thing is that this salary should be minimal and not provide living wage even the most economical seller. Because if you can live on a salary, then there is always a temptation to feel sorry for yourself, not to run to a client in bad weather or not to make additional calls when you are in a bad mood, realizing that the salary is in your pocket anyway and you can stretch it until the next month. You should deprive the seller of such a chance.

The salary is a kind of symbolic payment, a symbol of his security, but nothing more.

On the other hand, for you, the salary is a tool for managing the seller. Once you receive a salary, be kind to follow certain rules adopted by the company: work schedule, documentation, reporting, etc. Because a person who receives only a percentage of the transaction will never waste time fulfilling any obligations that do not lead directly to the sale, and will not draw up a report once again, coming up with a hundred excuses. And you can’t punish him, because you can’t deprive him of a percentage of the sale - he honestly earned this money. Deprivation of interest demotivates both him and the others.

Therefore, the salary is a kind of compromise between the company and the seller. It should be 10 percent of the total amount of money earned by the sales manager. Maximum 15. The rest is a percentage, or commission.

Commissions are paid from the amount of the concluded transaction. This is the most effective tool material motivation: done - get it. Like a hunter: how much he shot, so much he ate. This encourages the employee to maximum number transactions and bringing the maximum amount of money to the company.

Everyone defines commission differently. Somewhere they pay a fixed percentage, somewhere the percentage is floating. I am a supporter of the floating interest school.

This means that the percentage varies depending on the degree of implementation of the plan by the employee. Firstly, I will definitely introduce a zero zone. This is when, when the plan is fulfilled by 30% or less, the manager does not receive any commission at all. I justify this by the presence of a salary. Well, what kind of seller is he who cannot fulfill even a third of his plans? Let it strive. Let him fight, let him go out of his way, but he will jump the bar. And if such a complete failure and force majeure in the form of a suddenly smoldering volcano - there is a salary that we have reserved for this case.

I give a table for calculating interest at different degrees of fulfillment of the plan.

The percentage change step may be different. The main thing is to understand the principle.

Why such a small breakdown scale and why change the percentage with increasing degree of implementation of the plan? Sales managers are very good at counting money. As strangers, and - in particular - their own. Therefore, wake him up at night in the middle of the month and ask how much money he has earned to date (he has not brought to the company, namely how much he is already due), he will answer without hesitation, without opening his eyes and without regaining consciousness. Sales managers are greedy people. And that's great. Greed in our business is very good quality. (I love the classic greed monologue by Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street.)

It is on the greed of managers that such a scale is designed. Imagine a picture. The month is almost over. The manager completed the plan by 71 percent. He is entitled to 10 percent commission according to our table. With a conditional plan of 500,000 rubles a month, our manager brought 335,000 to the company and expects to receive 33,500 as commission. A good result and a good income, especially if your company is not located in Moscow, but, for example, in Kirov, Ivanovo, Velikiye Luki, etc., where the standard of living is not so high.

But we remember that the manager is greedy. Here he begins to believe that if he manages to sell another 65,000 or a little more by the end of the month, then he will already reach 12 percent of the commission. And he gets 48,000 in his pocket. Which is 14,500 more than in the first case. 65,000 - the amount for sales is not very large, and you can make a breakthrough. And in most cases, he makes this breakthrough.

Imagine for a moment that the change threshold interest rate would be higher. For example, the percentage from 10 would change to 12 when the plan was fulfilled by 90 percent or 100. The manager would already have to convey to the company not 65,000, but 115,000 or 165,000. A different amount and completely different efforts. And in many cases, sales managers just give up and hold out for a month as it will. Too much effort with no guarantee of jumping over the line - they still like to feel sorry for themselves. And if you need to resist very strongly, and the result is not guaranteed, then, most likely, there will be no perseverance.

When the step is small, there is always a temptation to push a little and get more.

I gave an example where commissions to sellers are calculated according to the so-called direct scheme. That is, the amount of money brought in is in direct proportion to the amount of commission. But this is not always and not in all cases effective.

In addition to the actual volume of sales, there are still a lot of factors that play a role in sales: promotion of various positions in the product line, attracting new customers, good customer base development, etc. I think that many people are familiar with the problem when sales staff cannot be forced to promote new products and look for new customers. It is enough for them to stay in a comfortable state with regular customers and familiar products.

This contentment is common enough to be the sales manager's worst enemy. Many executives believe that salespeople who receive a direct percentage of the contracts they make are constantly motivated to increase their own sales. And this is a key mistake.

Yes, such commission payments give the seller a certain incentive, and he begins to strive to sell. But - only until it reaches the level of income that suits him. And then he stops there and begins to rest on his laurels.

There are 5% of employees in any department who are always looking to sell more and are always motivated to grow. But these are people who are driven by the need for achievement. They will strive for higher productivity regardless of the wage system. These vendors are the exception to the rule.

And the rule is that all but new and determined sellers are forced by direct commission plans to maintain the status quo.

This system of commissions creates additional problems. This is a question of so-called manageability. Manageability is a personnel characteristic that determines your confidence that the orders given to the personnel will be carried out.

Of course, we expect controllability from any other employee.

Imagine, for example, a secretary who, when you instruct him to buy you tickets for the next flight to Novosibirsk, because you urgently need to fly to solve a problem at the local branch, nods in agreement, and then completely ignores your order. I'm not sure that after that he will remain in his place.

Or imagine an accountant who was given the task by the CEO to urgently pay for the supply of components for the production of a new product, and he, having taken it under the hood, did not lift a finger as a result. Most likely, the question of his dismissal will arise very quickly.

However, we easily allow sellers to ignore our orders. We have a new product line that we want to promote or an action we expect our sales force to take, such as acquiring new customers. Yet a significant number of our salespeople can nod in the affirmative at a sales meeting and then walk away and do nothing. Because old customers are easier to milk and sometimes they call and ask for an invoice - why bother?

The reason for this, along with a lack of managerial skills, direct commission programs. Pay a person a 100% commission, and he will begin to consider himself independent entrepreneur having own business. Your order for him is an extraneous irritant. His real job is to do what will earn him his lucrative commission payouts.

If you have new company, which should develop rapidly and capture a large share of the market - direct commissions make sense. But in a developed company with a wide product line, not a very wide base of potential customers and in a highly competitive environment, such methods of motivation will no longer be effective enough. There is no longer a task to sell at least something. There are already areas that are strategically important to you. You may have made a commitment to a manufacturer or group of manufacturers. Or there is a product line that you want to promote due to changes in your market. Or you just want to sell more of what brings you high profits.

Either way, chances are you want your salespeople to sell some more and some less. If this is your situation, then direct commissions are counterproductive. This encourages the employee to sell more than anything - what is easier to sell.

Direct commissions are yesterday, like rear-wheel drive. Today it is necessary to look for more and more new tools of material motivation of sellers that would allow them to increase their manageability and make them strive for a constant increase in sales.

One of the tools for solving this problem is a bonus. The bonus should be small in amount, but quite accounting for the seller, then it will fulfill its function and the seller will strive to receive it.

A bonus can be given for the sale of certain products of the assortment line, attracting new customers, lack of receivables (if the company ships goods without prepayment), etc. You can give a bonus for the largest sale of the month, thereby stimulating sellers to conclude transactions for the maximum possible amounts. This is good for sales volume and good for educational purposes: other sellers will see that it is possible to sell the product in such large volumes, and they will also not be afraid of big deals.

The bonus is another fairly effective tool to stimulate employees in sales departments. This is a way to highlight an employee in a team, to show his exclusivity. This gives the staff a sense of self-worth and increases loyalty.

Let's say you have 15 salespeople in your department. Three have been working for more than a year, five for half a year, the rest are brand new.

Enter an allowance of a couple of thousand rubles for those who have been working in the company for more than a year. Money is ridiculous for the company's budget, but very important for employees. Those three who have been working for more than a year will begin to feel elected, they will understand that the company paid attention to them, that the management does not give a damn about them and that they are appreciated.

Those who will soon celebrate a year of work experience with you will also cheer up: a few more months - and they will also enter the circle of the elite. There is an incentive to try, and there is a reason not to look for another job: there is a guaranteed increase in income ahead.

Beginners will appreciate their prospects, and this will also have a good effect on motivation.

There is another way. Announce certification in the company: an exam for knowledge of the product and sales techniques. Write tickets, appoint an examination committee and an exam date. Employees who passed the “excellent” should start receiving a bonus from the next month.

A new exam can be arranged in three months or six months. Then the list of those receiving the allowance can be revised: the current excellent students will also have to confirm their right to payments. And all the rest - to conquer. And before that, today's excellent students will be monthly rewarded with a certain amount.

1) three prizes and three prizes for the top three;

Competitions very well inspire the whole team, and the spirit of competition has a great effect on motivation. Most importantly, the goal must be achievable. It shouldn't be easy, but it should be real. If you set a manager a monthly sales plan of 250,000 rubles, then make a million in three months as a competitive goal. This will require some over-fulfillment of the plan for three months in a row. But quite acceptable. It's real.

There will be two or three winners. But everyone will strive to win, and the overall sales volume in the department will increase significantly.

Here we must take into account one more important nuance: do not make a cash prize in the competition. The prize could be a trip to the Canary Islands, a new plasma TV, gift Certificate for a large amount to a jewelry store - anything, but not money. Just not something that can be exchanged for food or how to pay a loan installment. Because there is a trap here.

As soon as the sales manager who won the competition receives a large amount as a prize, a toggle switch will click in his brain: now I can live for several months without high commissions - I have a reserve, and I will last somehow. Participation in the competition and the need to give all the best somehow exhausted the seller, and he, most likely, decides to take a break. No, he won't take a vacation. This is too honest approach for an employee. He will arrange an Italian strike: he will go to work, make calls, but he will not try and will not sell. He will rest during the time you pay, drink coffee bought by the company, download movies, chat on forums - whatever.

If the reward is a brand new laptop, then it is unlikely to be exchanged for sausages in the nearest grocery store and will not be accepted as a mortgage payment to the bank. Employees will be very happy with the gift, but the issue of earning money for a living will still be very acute.

In one of the companies in which I worked, we came up with the following scheme: we held a competition among employees, in which the prize was a car. They raffled off the seventh Zhiguli model: it was not very expensive for the company, and the managers were shocked - a whole car could be won for free. The competition lasted six months, and it was necessary to show very tangible results. When one of the managers won this prize, the car was bought on credit, which was issued to this manager, and we solemnly handed over the keys to him. All payments on the loan were made by the company, but the manager was now tied to the company for the entire duration of the loan: in the event of dismissal, he would have to pay all the installments himself. Thus, the problems of both motivation and loyalty were solved - after all, in the event of poor sales, a manager could be fired at the initiative of the company. In this case, credit would also remain a problem for the manager. The scheme is a little Jesuitical, but quite effective, given that it would be no less insulting, having given the seller a brand new car, to receive a letter of resignation from him in a couple of months, because the neighboring company has a couple of thousand more salaries.

Collective motivation

In addition to tools aimed at stimulating the individual interests of salespeople, you can use collective motivation when a goal is set for the whole team and if the goal is achieved, the whole team receives a reward.

How might it look? When you make a monthly sales plan for your department, you set them individually for the usual plans. And set the plan for the department thirty percent higher. Each manager receives his commission based on an individual plan. But if the department as a whole fulfills an increased plan, it receives a bonus - say, 10,000 rubles. Without the right to distribute money between employees of the department. This award goes to a corporate event that is held in the department: a joint trip to the bowling alley, a game of paintball, a boat ride or a barbecue - whatever your heart desires.

This unites the team, gives rise to mutual assistance and team spirit. When everyone is interested in the overall result, no one will pass by someone else's client who cannot be served on time, no one will refuse to help a newcomer, etc. Everyone will be interested in the overall success.

It would seem, well, what is it worth to chip in and go to a boarding house for the weekend to have fun? But this is not at all like going with the money of the company, which, moreover, also got a certain amount of work, and did not fall from the sky. And there is something to note about this.

Here is a summary of my considerations on material motivation. This topic, like most topics of this conversation, draws on a separate book. It is difficult to fit all the accumulated material and experience into the framework of one chapter. But I think that I managed to give some information for reflection. It's time to move on to the next subsection - non-material motivation.

Non-material motivation

Every leader dreams that his employees want to work, strive for new professional heights and try to achieve ever better results in their work. Today, many people have realized the need to pay great attention to staff motivation, but not all managers know and understand how to organize this work in their company.

The situation with the material motivation of salespeople is even more or less tolerable: there are probably no companies left in which salespeople sit on a bare salary; everyone has long understood that the legs feed the wolf, and if the seller’s income does not depend directly on the results of his work, then sales will not be high.

But if everything could be solved with money, it would be too easy. Sales department employees are living people with their own problems, complexes, desires and ambitions. And the head of the sales department is simply obliged to take this into account and use it for the benefit of the company. This is all non-material motivation.

This topic is especially relevant because in crisis and post-crisis times, not all companies are ready to allocate additional funds for financial incentives employees, but many things can be done even without these funds.

So, let's talk about the non-material motivation of sales staff in more detail.

First, let's define terms. What do we mean by non-material motivation?

Non-material motivation is everything that an employee receives from the company not in the form of cash payments (salaries, bonuses, allowances and bonuses); everything that the company does for the employee, taking care of him. Non-material motivation should increase the employee's loyalty and the results of his activities. That is, once again briefly: this is all that the company gives to the employee, except for money.

We all go to work to earn money. But not only for this. Each of us has other needs that we would like to satisfy in our work. For some, this is a need for a good team and a pleasant working climate, for some it is important to be valued and set as an example, someone wants to be formally recognized for their success, etc. That is, you can earn money in this company, in another, in a third - this is not unique to your company. But not everything is defined by money.

And what exactly is your company attractive for an employee in comparison with other similar companies? Why should an employee make efforts to earn money and want to be useful in your company?

This is where the question of non-material motivation arises.

The company should strive to meet the needs of employees, then employees will strive to meet the needs of the company. And in order to meet the needs of employees, they must first be identified. They are different for everyone, for some part of the employees they are the same, for some they are not, but the task of each head of the sales department is to know the needs of their salespeople.

Needs are identified through monitoring.

The simplest form of monitoring is questionnaires. On your own or with the help of an HR specialist (if your company has one), draw up a detailed questionnaire that you invite employees to fill out. If you think that employees will not want to answer honestly, for fear that this will somehow affect your opinion of them, you can offer to complete the questionnaire anonymously. This will also give a lot, although you, as a leader, need to know what exactly is important for each individual employee.

Here are some examples of questions that can be included in the questionnaire.

1. What is most important to you in your work? (Rank: 1 is the most important, 10 is the least important):

– good, friendly team;

– good guide;

- the work itself;

- the opportunity to advance to a higher position;

– my results of work are valued in the company;

- decent salary;

– the stability of the organization;

- autonomy, independence in work;

- the direction of the organization;

- working conditions.

2. Indicate which working conditions do not satisfy you? (Choose and underline up to 3 factors):

- unsatisfactory wage;

– system of punishments and rules;

- lack of promotion

– activity control system;

– methods of management in general;

– lack of training;

- absence corporate events that increase cohesion and corporate spirit;

- inconvenient mode of operation;

- lack of social benefits (material assistance, loans, medical insurance, food, vacation, etc.);

– other (write what exactly) __________

I'll try to just go over the main points now.

Consider what factors affect the motivation of employees. First of all, this is the behavior of the head of the sales department. For any employee, it is very important to evaluate his personality and his activities - first of all, by the manager. How you value an employee is as important to most of them as their pay. And they draw conclusions about how you evaluate them, not only from your words, but also from gestures, facial expressions, intonations, etc. Be very careful: sometimes gestures and facial expressions diverge from words and can betray you if you are telling a lie.

Your personal attitude is generally very important for employees. If you come to the office in good mood, walked with a confident gait with a proudly raised head, sincerely and kindly greeted everyone, people feel that everything is fine in the company, and are charged with productive work. These are little things, but very important little things. Especially in a volatile market situation. Employees catch the slightest change in your face to determine if everything is in order, or to find confirmation of their fears.

Need a good Feedback. Clearly explain to employees what you are satisfied or dissatisfied with in their work. Justify all your statements. Believe me, it is very important for your staff to understand what is good, what is bad and why. If criticism is directed to the address, fair and reasoned, it will reach the addressee more likely and will not cause strong rejection.

Next important point motivation - clarity of goals and objectives. All employees working for you must understand what the goals are for the company, for the department and for them in particular; what is their role in achieving common goals, what are the criteria for assessing progress towards them. Goals should not only be defined and named - they should be clear to employees.

If suddenly in the course of work there is a change of priorities or goals, this should be immediately conveyed to the staff, because nothing is more demotivating than the feeling that you are a cog and you were not considered to be warned about something significant.

It is very important that you make sure that your employees really understand what you want from them, that your orders and tasks that you set are correctly heard and perceived, otherwise conflicts that greatly harm motivation cannot be avoided. And, of course, a very important motivating factor is a positive friendly atmosphere within the company and within the team you manage.

The next point of our program is benefits. This is a great motivational tool that does not require additional costs.

Example one. A person who has achieved certain results in work - for example, having brought in the most money, say, last week - may be able to take a half day off for himself or work an hour less all week. This is not important for everyone, but for many it can be a very pleasant reward. Let the salesperson who outperformed everyone go home early for a week so that he can solve his everyday problems - and he will be pleased, and you will get a significant return from him later. And the rest, seeing this, will also want to and will strive to show the result higher than before. And do not worry about the lost working hour - they will find how to make up for it in the remaining time.

The second example is flexible working hours. You can encourage the best seller not by reducing working hours, but by providing him with a flexible work schedule for a certain period of time. All people have family and everyday problems, and not everyone manages to solve them outside of working hours. The opportunity to reallocate time to address such issues will be welcomed by many, and the company will not lose anything.

This also includes options such as providing best seller not a half day off, but allowing him to work at home one day a week. It can also be a very important motivating factor for the entire department. It's about about one day for one employee who was the best last week (you may define other parameters - it's up to you), that is, this will not lead to a violation of discipline in the department or to the fact that this person will stop selling. Sometimes people, having escaped from constant control, work not less, but even more and more efficiently.

And the third example is solving everyday problems of your staff. For example, I read about one American company, where there is a special employee who helps employees of this company solve everyday problems: fix plumbing, electrical wiring, a leaking roof, etc. This kills two birds with one stone: it reduces the time the employee is absent from the workplace (he will still be asked to take time off to deal with these problems on his own, and, most likely, will spend more time and mental strength on this) and helps people get rid of everyday problems. This allowed the company to significantly reduce staff turnover and increase staff loyalty. How much will such a specialist cost your company? But how much gratitude you can get from employees for helping them get rid of everyday difficulties and free up time!

This is also non-material motivation. You don’t give employees extra money – money has to be earned. But you take care of them, and for many this is much more important. After all, the principle of non-material motivation is not necessarily that you do not spend money, namely that, in addition to financial incentives you create comfortable working conditions for your staff, for which they will hold on to the company and try to show good results.

The next step is gratitude. Recognition is important to everyone. Everyone is pleased to receive high praise for the results of their work, especially public evaluation. This can be expressed in different ways:

1) in documentary form: gratitude on letterhead, certificate, certificate, declaration of gratitude in a corporate publication;

2) verbally: highlighting an employee or declaring verbal thanks at a department meeting, or general meeting labor collective;

3) providing opportunities for professional growth and advanced training - the opportunity to participate in a conference or travel to a seminar;

4) prizes in the form of pennants and cups for the best seller of the month, a challenge flag, etc. Prizes and cups are inexpensive, but highly valued - this is a status symbol;

5) public congratulations to the employee on his birthday on behalf of the company. 5) corporate holidays(company birthday, New Year, March 8, etc.);

6) improvement of working conditions: good computers, indoor air conditioners, quality furniture, etc.

All this works to improve the quality of life of an employee in the organization and, accordingly, leads to an increase in loyalty. For most people, oddly enough, in addition to how much money you pay them, it is very important what chair and table they sit on, whether they have an old or new computer, whether there is some freebie like free food or, at worst, free coffee, and so on.

Keep this in mind. These seem to be trifles, but large cash receipts depend on them, and it is not always right to save on this even in difficult times.

What is this book about
Do you manage the sales department in the company?
Of course, your CEO wants you to sell more. And more. But you seem to be doing everything possible for this already ...
Or maybe you yourself are the head of the company and are trying in vain to somehow motivate those who are responsible for sales?
Read this book!
You will find out what is stopping you from achieving more best results sales and what sales increase tools you actually have! Timur Aslanov consistently examines all aspects of the work of the sales department and shows what and how can be improved, revised or supplemented - in order to sell more.
All methods of increasing sales - from time management to financial motivation - under this cover!
Why we decided to publish this book
Because motivating the sales force is as important as it is difficult.
Because the author and many others have already successfully tried these methods.
Who is this book for?
For everyone involved in sales -...

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Timur Aslanov - Arithmetic of sales. Vendor Management Guide

Chapter 1 Sales is math

Chapter 2 Time management in sales

Chapter 3 Sales funnel

Chapter 4 Product knowledge

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Chapter 1
Sales is math

Chapter 2
Time management in sales

Chapter 3
Sales funnel

Chapter 4
Product knowledge