Management Training Tips:
Sales Management - Eight Ways to Engage Employees and Power-Up Performance During a Recession
Roxanne Emmerich
If you've seen the movie Jerry Maguire, you'll remember the scene
where Tom Cruise asks Cuba Gooding, Jr., "What can I do for you?"
Gooding says, "Show me the money."
Many employers think that's the key to sales management. But any
company that THINKS you have to pour money on employees to get them
engaged will write off sales management efforts during tough
economic times. "We just can't afford to do it right now," they say.
In fact, you can't afford NOT to pay attention to management,
especially during a recession when sales are soft. Sales management
scores regularly account for up to 50 percent of the variance in
customer service scores. A disengaged employee can cost you 30 TIMES
as much in safety-related incidents. And disengaged employees are
over 85 percent more likely to leave.
Sales management comes not from dollars but from more personal
factors.
Eight Ways to Keep Your Employees Engaged for the Long Term
1. Listen to your employees. Most people want to work for an
employer who cares enough to listen. The best way to know what your
employees need and expect is to ask them—and
to listen carefully to their answers.
2. Provide clear, consistent expectations. Vague policies and
unclear expectations can make employees feel irritated, unsafe and
even paranoid. This leads to your employees becoming disengaged.
They click into survival mode instead of focusing on how to help the
company succeed.
3. Give employees a sense of importance. This has a greater
impact on loyalty and customer service than all other factors
COMBINED.
4. Develop opportunities for advancement. The chance to work your
way up the ladder is a tremendous incentive for productivity,
bonding, and sales management.
5. Create good relationships with others in the workplace. If you
have a toxic relationship with your employees, you can forget about
asking them to put their shoulder to the wheel for the company.
6. Offer regular feedback. If you want to keep your employees
moving forward, give them the occasional rudder report. And don't
forget positive feedback, which should ideally outnumber the
negative by about 5 to 1.
7. Celebrate and reward for successes. Set realistic targets,
then reward and celebrate when they are reached. And don't wait for
the end of a big project to celebrate. Pick landmarks along the way
and go nuts when you hit them.
8. Move from "the company" to "our company." The heart and soul
of sales management is ownership. As long as your employees feel
they are working to help YOU make YOUR company succeed, engagement
will be low. Once you get them to see themselves as partners in the
endeavor—making decisions, staying
informed, sharing in the company's ups and downs—everything
changes. engagement soars.
Just imagine a workplace in which employees feel important and
listened to, in which expectations are clear and feedback
consistent, in which relationships and shared ownership are
cultivated, advancement is available, and success is celebrated.
Now stop imagining it and CREATE it!
http://business-management.bestmanagementarticles.com/a-33185-eight-ways-to-engage-employees-and-power-up-performance-during-a-recession.aspx
Subject: Sales Management
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