Sales Training - Spark Account Activity

Managing account activity of your sales reps is crucial especially if targets are missed on a regular basis. However sales managers must delve deep beyond mere account activity. They should determine how the particular account activity has progressed over time. The managers must find out how the account activity has evolved. What has the sales rep added? Have they in fact changed anything? Chances are if the rep has been doing everything the same way from day one, then his brain has grown accustomed to the repetitive nature of the activity. The rep must change things up a little. The rep needs to reinvigorate the spirits. It's evident most reps hate cold-calling. If however the reps were experts in a particular target market, they could use creative ways to generate multiple lead sources. Knowledge becomes power, a confident sales rep that brings valuable resources to the table will tend to become less discouraged. Rejection and fear affects far too many reps. The best sales reps are experts in their niche, they understand that cold-calling is an essential nature of the beast. Instead of complaining and thinking negatively, they instead find innovative ways to penetrate their defined target market by supplying valuable information to their prospects.

It's perfectly normal to allow daily mundane tasks to become routine. The initial energy and enthusiasm sales reps have at the beginning of a job can sometimes dissipate over a period of time. It becomes necessary for the manager to inject some passion and enthusiasm back. First assess the development of the activity. Allow the rep to provide valuable input. By examining the ways the rep has changed the activity, you can get valuable insight into how their mind works. The goal is to stimulate the mind into searching for innovative and exciting ways to approach the task with more energy. This way you also get the rep bought in. Allowing their participation makes any mandatory verbal warning a two way street. This way the under-performing rep hasn't been saddled by more anxiety and pressure.

The best performing reps continue to learn new things every day. They learn how to improve any account activities on a continuous basis. By constant stimulation of their mind, they are able to maintain their enthusiasm and energy even in their least favored endeavors. Some find a way to make it fun, others search out creative ways to inject passion and drive. It's not the activity per se, it's the way the reps do it. If you have under-performing reps, It would be advised to keep them learning and always on the lookout for stimulating ways to enhance their account activity.