Situation description: in February 2019, we received a request of help from an infrastructure company which installed gas equipment in housing estates. At that time, the company faced the problem of non-fulfillment of the sales plan in a certain territory. With low sales, the company was threatened with losing the contract with its customer – a supplier of natural gas. The sales department of the company consisted of 18 sales project-sales specialists (including senior sales specialists) and 1 head of the sales department. On a monthly basis, sales specialists had individual sales plans, sales plans were set based on the results of the previous month and the employee’s potential assessment (the potential was assessed subjectively by the head of the sales department). The employees of the sales department had a motivation system, the main and only criterion of which was the number of connected subscribers. The company also had a certain problem that the sales specialists were fulfilling the monthly sales plan in the last 10 days of the month, and this resulted in an uneven receipt of orders from customer. The installation department was resting for 20 days of the month, and for 10 days of the month it was working days and nights. Some of the sales specialists fulfilled the plans during the last few months, the other part of the sales specialists did not fulfill the sales plan during the same period. The sales specialists did not have “their” individual territory, only a common one. They worked chaotically, without a daily plan for visiting potential customers. The sales department also did not have a single and individual database of potential customers in any given territory. Most sales specialists have not been trained in customer service skills.
What was done in the framework of HR consulting:
- Assessment of the personnel of the entire sales department. Some employees had low qualifications, motivation and efficiency, according to the results of the personnel assessment, these employees were recommended for replacement. It turned out that senior sales specialists had average performance and weak leadership skills. Employees who had good leadership and sales skills and discipline were recommended for senior sales managers (line managers).
- The personnel selection procedure has been created; it contained the main requirements, responsibilities, working channels for finding employees (based on the analysis made), the stages of employee selection described in detail. The head of the sales department was trained in the procedure of recruiting sales department employees.
- A system of training for beginners (a system of personnel adaptation) and a mentoring system have been created. Based on the conducted personnel assessment, mentors were selected – employees who had the ability and motivation for this.
- The system of personnel motivation and sales personnel management in general has been improved:
- territory management was implemented: employees received equal individual territories and sales plans in accordance with their territory;
- operational planning at the individual level was introduced – employees planned visits for a week and provided plans to the head of the sales department;
- implemented a system for monitoring visits of potential customers (supervisions and daily reports, feedback on them, sanctions and bonuses based on the results);
- implemented coaching “in the field” from the sales manager;
- introduced a new KPI-based motivation system for sales specialists and senior sales specialists;
- methods of intangible incentives of sales specialists were widely used: competitions, gifts, incentive trips, public recognitions, etc.;
- created new standards for working with customers (speech scripts, customer-friendly sales procedures; sales scenarios, etc.);
- An internal training system was created. The first training of employees in sales skills and work with customers was carried out according to the new developed standards of corporate sales.
Project results:
- complete database of potential customers living in this territory has been created;
- new motivation system solved the problem of uneven receipt of orders;
- sales increased from 300 connections in February to 600 connections in July;
- the contract with the General Partner was retained and extended for a year.
P.S. Based on our experience, we recommend that you outsource the creation of an effective motivation system for the sales department to third-party consultants in cases where the manager is not a “sales specialist”: often managers are “financiers” or “production workers” and have little experience in sales. We also recommend such personnel consulting, when the manager faces a large-scale task of optimizing the sales department in a short period of time, and he or she just physically does not have time to implement it. In our experience, it also happened that there was a new manager, and it was difficult for him to build a sales department, since there were still no supporters and a team within the collective body to implement the organizational changes he had planned.