For each business owner engaged in commercial activity, the sales team is the priority. There are several situations when organizing the active marketing is unconditionally needed for the business. In particular, you need to create an effective and established system of sales in the following cases:
- There is an urgent necessity in the sales department;
- There are limited time resources for the education and training of your own marketing managers;
- The owner is not able to invest heavily in the organization of the sales team;
- There is an urgent need for sales in the corporate sector;
- You have difficulty in finding fully qualified managers in the labor market.
If you have at least one of the above situations, you should think about reforming your marketing division. Further, we will give an example of how to structure the most effective sales team model.
The three-level model of the sales department: Stages of building
One solution to the emerging requirement of organizing the sales department is our three-level model. We propose the step by step procedure below to help you to create the active sales team with minimal time spent.
First, let's find out what such a marketing model represents.
The need for an active sales department is due to the need to continually increase sales volumes, and therefore earn higher profit. In the most common existing models, the department most often consists of several employees, led by the head of team. However, best practice shows that this traditional system is often faced with difficulties and challenges, including:
- Professional sales persons stop their commitment to actively working with customers and do not make cold calls;
- Experienced staff is not interested in training young specialists;
- Managers grow in professionalism, which increases the risk of them going to competitors (and taking the collected customer base with them);
- Young employees only communicate with existing clients, leading to unsatisfactory results and, as a consequence, a continuous outflow of personnel.
If the existing business system does not include an effectively working team, then it is necessary to put a lot of personal effort as well as time and financial resources into its formation. However, even the organization of an active marketing department will not guarantee that sales will significantly increase.
The three-level model of the sales team will allow you to organize the effective work of the department within several months at minimum costs.
Features of the three-level model of the sales department
The main feature of this model is the various stages of interaction with the customer. In fact, the interaction with a potential customer takes place on three different levels:
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The department of initial generation of customers interest is formed to attract potential customers. Managers of the team are engaged only in "cold" contacts. The core mission of the department is to identify consumers’ interests and select potential customers. It is worth noting that at this level the efficiency of the division is enhanced if generating client flow also includes a marketing plan (advertising, presentations, etc.).
This structural unit has several benefits. Working in the department of customer generation does not require profound technical and marketing knowledge from staff. For example, for telephone contacts, employees can use readymade scripts. Additionally, the lower qualifications required from the staff means comparatively lower wages.
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The sales department is the unit directly engaged in active sales. When the flow of customers, processed on the first level, is ready to commit to certain actions (to make a booking or a deal), it's time for the professional salespersons. Their task is to overcome the possible objections of a customer and bring him to the closing of the transaction.
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The department of existing clients deals with regular customers who have already made their first purchase. All further work and cooperation with this category of customer will be carried out in this department. This can include continual feedback, involvement in incentive programs, repeated transactions, etc. As a rule, employees of this team also don’t have to plunge into the technical and commercial component of sales. Rather, they can work on the foundation of standard instructions and corporate regulations.
The three-level model of building a sales division gives you the ability to organize effective work swiftly and with minimal cost. Now let’s consider each stage of interaction with the client independently.
Stage 1. Formation of the Department of Potential Customer Generation
This step is the key, which means that you need to act as quickly as possible. To correctly form the department of potential customer generation, follow these steps:
- Prepare the flow of candidates for making "cold" contacts. To be able to do it, you need to define the proper job position (telephone operator, call-center specialist, etc.) and assign a minimum fixed salary. For motivation, you can use bonuses as a result of implementation of the plan. Do not be afraid of setting a minimum wage; for an active person, this job is the opportunity to gain experience and improve their professional skills.
- It is necessary to develop standard templates (scripts) for interacting with potential customers. It is important that employees not only learn the template of a dialogue in as many detail as possible, but also to repeatedly analyze the patterns and make suitable modifications.
- Organize a clear system for reporting on calls made. Statistics should be collected daily by each employee – this is the only way you can keep track of the factual effectiveness of the work of the department’s employees.
When setting up this team together, it is important to take several features into account. First of all, it is necessary to organize a steady stream of employees for the position. The number of employees may depend on the specifics of your business (but you should have no less than three employees in this division). Employees in this department should know that at the first sign of interest from a potential customer, such clients must be immediately transferred to the sales division or the division working with regular customers. This pattern allows effective management of the work flow.
Further on, you can begin processing the generated client base. Employees begin making "cold" contacts with potential clients. These can be telephone calls or sending commercial proposals by mail, including email.
Stage 2. Organizing Active Sales Department
It's time to take care of the setup of the active sales department – where to start? After the formation of the department of prospective customers generation, you will be able to select employees who have more skills in attracting customers. These employees are the resource you can use to increase the active sales.
Such employees may be less engaged in "cold" contacts and devote more time to the execution of the initial transactions and the subsequent transfer to the department for regular clients. This way, you do not tie an existing customer base to the marketing managers, and they simultaneously improve their professional skills in sales.
Stage 3. Formation of the Department of Regular Customers
Despite the fact that this is the third stage in the system, you can start its formation from the beginning. Most likely, your business model already includes employees that actively interact with customers and have applicable experience. Almost all the customers who have communicated with managers at previous stages will be transferred here. That is why it is necessary to focus on truly experienced salespersons for this department.
You do not need to put key employees in a separate structural unit; you can simply handle such a separation administratively and explain it to the staff as an established fact. At this stage it is also necessary to develop and implement complete scenarios and patterns of interaction with the clients. This will allow you to systematize the entire process of customer interaction and optimize related costs.
At the last stage, you should appoint managers of the relevant divisions and organize and regulate the entire system of sales via corporate documents.
If you have more than three active sales department employees, one of them may be appointed as the head of the division.
To implement the functions of the managers of the departments, it is necessary to develop a reporting system for work efficiency of employees. In addition to increasing efficient management, such reporting allows the business owner to conduct the right amount of control over the entire company's sales system.
Efficiency and automation of the entire process largely depends on how detailed the corporate documents (regulating every stage of interaction with the client) are, and how carefully they are designed. By taking into account all the peculiarities and specifics of your business, you can easily build an independent, efficient and ready-to-scale sales system.
On the tips and practical implementation elements of such sales department as well as on all other possible matters and difficulties you may fact when working which clients – Atton Institute Dubai is the solution for all the above. See details on our web site under “key benefits” and other sections of the page.
Visit the section of sales courses to learn more.