As a sales manager, there have almost certainly been times where you’ve walked into your office unexpectedly and found your sales team being – let’s say – ‘less than productive’.
Feet up, phone in hand, grabbing a quick burger from the complex – you know what we mean.
So, what happens when you expect a bunch of salespeople to work from home? Even the most motivated and driven salesperson can be easily distracted – and as such, home working becomes a bit of a minefield.
Take a look at our list of five quick wins you can employ when you’re aiming to keep your home-based sales team focused on driving your business forward:
When you’re in a sales office, the place lives and breathes caravans and holiday park culture. Not only do you have targets and deals on whiteboards, but you’ve also got the potential of walk-ins, owner support requests – and all the other stuff that makes a caravan sales office unique.
Now, zap your team into their front-room, and you lose that environment. When you lose the environment, it’s easy to lose the focus on providing a great experience for your potential customers too.
As SMs, it’s easy for us to get caught up in the day-to-day ‘stuff’ of your role – and we all know how invested you have to be to succeed. With this in mind, it’s obvious how easy it can be for sales teams to take their eye off the bigger picture too.
This is where you come in.
You need to make sure you touch base with your SPs as often as you feel is necessary to reinforce the reason they’re getting up, making calls, and getting that marketing material sent out to people.
Try to avoid letting them slip into the mindset of ‘just getting ten calls done’ – and instead, break it down for them – explain what the focus is for the business (even through these difficult times) and talk to them about the part they play, today, in keeping everything moving in the right direction.
There are some SPs that can be left to their own devices – providing their own motivation and giving themselves a pat on the back when they make a good call, schedule an appointment, ping some pictures over to a possible part-ex customer – and so on.
But let’s be honest, we all know salespeople can be needy. No disrespect meant – we all are. There’s nothing better than a call from a director or park owner to let us know we’re doing well.
Don’t forget; you have that power in your hands. So use it smartly.
Talk to your salespeople, be at the end of a message, let them know they can video call if they need a bit of a perk up – or if they need a bit of a refocus.
When we’re forced to work from home or run skeleton teams on parks, it’s hard to get the kind of camaraderie that keeps a sales office buzzing. You’ll never be able to recreate it perfectly on a Zoom call – but a virtual pat on the back or motivational chat is better than not hearing from you all day.
Weekly sales meetings are an essential part of keeping your department moving in the right direction. They provide timely feedback about the week gone – and they mean you’re up to speed with how every deal or hot prospect is shaping up. In turn, you can realistically feed this information upwards.
So, make sure you do them – even when teams are working from home. Fix a time, make sure everyone’s agreed on an agenda, and make sure everyone attends.
Sure, there are potentially going to be interruptions from kids, dogs, partners, and the doorbell – but who cares? This is the new reality for a sales meeting – so don’t get frustrated. Roll with it, and you’ll make sure you’ve got a team that at least have a solid chunk of structure from which their week can grow.
Remember we talked about constant feedback? Well – take the word ‘constant’ figuratively. Being on a salesperson’s back all the time is going to get claustrophobic – and frankly, it’s going to put you in a bad mood.
Working from home comes with its challenges. Like we’ve said – there will be kids school lessons to do – and the dog will need walking – if you expect your team to be constantly prospecting, you’re going to be disappointed.
The team need to know you’re there – but if you’re constantly calling, you’re going to suddenly find that they can’t take your call because they were magically on a 45-minute call with someone who wouldn’t leave their name. They will avoid you, and morale will drop.
When it comes to feedback, focus on the good stuff at first – and try not to micromanage the small stuff. Go with a 95% carrot and 5% stick approach.
You’ll hear people talk about how great working from home is – endless coffee breaks, a 10-second commute, Just-Eat bringing lunch to your door – and so on.
The thing is, this stuff’s fine, as long as it’s scheduled. If it’s not, it’s amazing how quickly you can end up slumped at your dining table, working in your pyjamas, having forgotten to brush your teeth. This stuff impacts the way people feel and how productive they are.
So, why not provide a bit of schedule scaffolding for the day? It doesn’t have to be much (see the previous tip) – and make sure it’s the good stuff. Tell your team you expect them to take breaks at certain times – or let people know it’s fine for them to fit in their workout, a run, a kid’s maths lesson, or whatever else they might feel they need to sneak under the radar.
When you give a bit on these things, you’ll get motivated work back in exchange.
