Arriving at the end of the year Sales Managers take lot of time to analyse past Sales Performances. They do have a lot of tools to perform this Sales Scan such as: yearly sales figures, monthly sales figures, sales figures per team or per individual sales person, market shares, customer growth, the number of lost customers, sales per product or product group, the number of visits realised, the number of visits realised per target group, the number of events, the number of leads, the number of conversions, the investment made during the whole year, the rentability of each one of these actions, the competitor analysis, market data, customer insights, insight about the customer personas etc.  

    I observe that a huge amount of time invested will go to these analyses. Apart from these data there is also a huge need to analyse the Skills Set of their Sales team. This can be done by analysing the field visit reports, the coaching reports, the one-to-one discussions, the quality of the sales action plans, the quality of the feedback received.   

    To obtain objective data about the Sales Skills of your team it would be advisable to perform a Sales Skills Scan. You can do this by dividing the Sales Calls into several parts such as preparation, introduction & rapport building, needs analysis, argumentation, objection handling, closing, follow-up. Afterwards it is essential to specify the crucial Sales Skills per part they need, to be highly effective. Several companies are working in this manner. It offers an objective approach to know where your Sales Force is standing. It brings also consistency in the process when every Sales Manager uses the same way of working.  

    Other companies go the extra mile and use not only their Sales Skills Scan, but they ask the opinion of their customers. The set up a process in which customers are invited to perform role playing session with their Sales Force. After each role play the Sales Rep gets valuable feedback from the customer and from a specialised Sales Coach. The feedback of both the customer and the Sales Coach will be the foundation to set up a clear development plan to face the main skill issues of the team and per individual sales person.  

    If you are interested to know more about this process namely the Sales & Marketing Improvement Process (SMIP) click here. You can perform a small test here to get to know where your Sales Force stands.  

    Wishing you a great and strong start of 2023 the SMIP Benelux Team.  

    Alexander, Jenan-Claude & Brian.