No matter how excellent your sales team may be, there will come a time when the dreaded “sales slump” strikes. Essentially a period where sales just don’t seem to be being made, a sales slump can really happen to anyone – but it’s not the end of the world. In fact, with the right help from you, your sales team could easily break free of their sales slump and get back to what they do best – selling! Here are our top 3 tips.
Tip #1: Revisit your sales roadmap and reset expectations
Anxiety can get the better of all of us sometimes, but salespeople can be particularly prone to it when they feel they can’t hit their targets. When this happens, and they push even harder to sell, the anxiety can paradoxically make their sales performance worse. To help this, try revisiting your annual roadmap and show your sales team that it’s okay to go through a lull in sales – especially if it’s early in the year.
Tip #2: Give your sales team well-defined goals
One issue that can lead to a sales slump is a lack of clear goals. If your team doesn’t know exactly what they should be aiming for, it’s very difficult for them to judge how well they’re doing. This can then progress to a lack of confidence in their own skills – even if they’re excelling at their job! If you can help them to create sales goals, and perhaps do some commission tracking to keep them focused, you’re certain to see better results.
Tip #3: Incentivise in the right way
Once you’ve got sales goals set the way you want them, you also need to consider how to keep your sales team on target. The answer to this is, of course, incentivisation – but how do you go about this? You’ll know your team better than anyone, naturally, but financial incentives in the form of commission are often the most effective solution. By tracking progress on a sales commission dashboard, your team will be able to stay focused and maybe even get some healthy competition going with their teammates!
If you’d like to avoid the dreaded sales slump, it’s a smart idea to invest in sales performance management, which is exactly what Commissionly was created for. If you’d like to learn about our cloud-based sales commission software, simply contact our team anytime.