You can generate more accurate forecasts and higher sales productivity with sales development accounting

You’ve identified your target accounts, and you’re now accurately measuring work-in process.   You’re well on your way to helping each salesperson make a reliable sales forecast.  When your salesperson is filling out an Account Data Sheet for each account, you’ve helped each salesperson to categorize and document qualification data.  The further along in the qualification process an account becomes, the better idea the salesperson has about whether he (and your company) will get an order, when he’ll get it, and for how much.

Self motivation is the strongest incentive

Now, identify what the salesperson to wants – or needs – to earn.  From the interview process, you should have a good idea of why and how much each salesperson expects to earn from your company.  Are they looking to your company for basic earnings because they just lost a principle and they have to replace that income?  Do they have one or more children going to college and they have those expenses?  Are they looking ahead to retirement and need to build their investment portfolio?

The question is, what is their sales motivation?  You should know if they can reasonably expect those earnings from the assigned territory.  You’re already making it easier by designating what information they should collect.  For a motivated (and skilled) salesperson, this is all you need to do.  This is more than most of his principals do.

They are making a work-in-process inventory to make it easier to meet their earnings objective.  You can’t get stronger motivation than that – unless you bring up their earnings objectives when their spouse is present.  Thus the reason for a joint interview when hiring.  If this isn’t a new salesperson or rep, you can still get into an earnings expectation conversation with each current salesperson in conjunction with telling them how much you are doing to help them reach their goal.

The forecasts will continually become more accurate as they get experience in using the process.

For assistance in establishing  marketing accounting tools, and implementing Sales Performance Quality Assurance™, ask for Knotes & Comments 104 and 201, or call us, or email us.