Sales management is a set of processes and activities designed both to respond to a request from a prospect or customer, and to manage/monitor the company’s activity . It therefore represents all the activities of a sales department.
These sales processes include a range of tasks such as prospecting, costing, creating and presenting quotations, CRM management, order invoicing, reporting… These actions can be divided into two families:
- Business tasks. Those that have a direct impact on customer satisfaction.
- And “support” tasks. Those that don’t add value for the customer , but are essential to the smooth running of the company.
It should be noted that all these tasks are necessary for the smooth running of the company. However, certain actions are often considered tedious by sales teams (CRM data entry, manual editing of quotations based on costing, searching for information in the company’s existing software, reminders, checks, etc.). Not to mention the teams’ compliance with instructions.
New tools and software are emerging to free teams from repetitive tasks and under-optimization, and guide them through task completion. This enables them to spend more time on selling, and to guide them through the sequence of tasks (according to this study, salespeople spend only 37% of their time selling). At the end of this article, we’ll present you with a case study on the use of these sales process automation platforms.
What is sales management?
Sales management covers all the commercial activities of a company. From steering and “administrative” tasks, to concrete actions to meet customer demand. From strategy to operations, it ensures sales generation, profitability and organizational optimization.
Commercial management activities
Prospect
- Define your sales target,
- Build a database,
- Enrich with data,
- Contact prospects by phone, email, Linkedin…
Processing a quote request
- Qualifying a prospect
- Put a figure on your request,
- Produce a quotation and edit an offer
- Follow up with the customer
- Feeding the CRM
Invoicing the customer
- CRM feeds management software, ERP or billing software
- Issue and send an invoice
- Follow up with the customer
- Track and trace payment
Support activities
Ensuring CRM quality
- Check compliance with CRM rules
- Check input quality
- Cleaning up data entry errors
- Delete irrelevant leads
- Set up automated systems
Training new
- Set up an onboarding program (training and sales methods)
- Tracking the progress of new arrivals
- Ensuring the right level of quality
- Getting to grips with tools and software
Managing sales staff
- Driving the sales pipeline
- Helping salespeople deal with problems
- Crisis management
- HR management for sales staff
Steering activities
Managing sales
- Track sales and revenue trends
- Plan sales operations
- Making forecasts
- Performing analyses
Tracking indicators
- Define performance indicators
- Set up measurement systems
- Collect, process and analyze data
- Communicate analyses to the company
- Implement continuous improvement
Defining strategy
- Define a sales target based on company strategy
- Building a roadmap
- Carrying out transformation projects
- Define offers and prices
How to optimize sales management?
Start by identifying problems not solutions!
There are many possible solutions for improving sales management , but the important thing is to find the right one. To do this, you first need to identify the problems. We recommend that, depending on the time and resources available, you carry out an internal or external assessment or audit of your sales management.
A well-executed audit will enable you toclearly identify operational problems, prioritize them and build an ideal future operation. You wouldn’t build a house without a plan, would you? An audit (even a quick, short one) will enable you to build an efficient sales organization with peace of mind.
Find out more in our article on how to conduct an audit.
Once the problems have been listed, find solutions and tools to test
For example, there are several possible solutions to the problem “I’m not generating enough sales”:
- Solution 1 – Free up salespeople’s time
- Solution 2 – Hire new sales staff
- Solution 3 – Outsource part of the order generation process
- Solution 4 – Advertising
Once you’ve listed the solutions, define your requirements and constraints (e.g. “not to increase the payroll”, “to respect a purchasing budget of 1000 euros per month”…). All these constraints will enable you to prioritize the right solution.
And if, for example, the “Free up salespeople’s time” solution is chosen, you can start to identify software that can reduce and automate the “administrative” tasks of sales teams (such as CRM updates, automated quotations, automated reminders…).
Find out more in our article on task automation
Example of sales management optimization with a Lapala process automation platform
The Lapala platform automates and personalizes 100% of your sales management. Connected to your software, it facilitates data collection, CRM updates, costing generation and quotation creation. In the example shown here, the process includes steps assigned to different actors, and automation for administrative tasks and communication between steps.
The main steps include prospect qualification, opportunity creation, costing, automatic quote generation and validation, CRM update and automatic dispatch of the offer to the customer. Lapala also enables you to create conditions to activate other stages, such as offer validation by a manager based on the amount of the quote.
This automated, customizable process facilitates lead management, data organization and communication between the various stakeholders, improving sales efficiency and performance.
Discover the Lapala platform in 1 minute
What are the sales management tools and indicators?
The aim of automation platforms is to enhance and interconnect companies’ business software. Existing software often has difficulty adapting to specific business processes; it communicates poorly with each other; it requires additional Excel spreadsheets…
Nonetheless, business software is essential for efficient sales management:
- CRMs such as Hubspot, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Attio…
- ERP software such as SAP, Sage, Cegid, Axaunot, Dolibarr, ERPNext… (including order management, billing management, accounting management, supply management…)
- Over-boosted Excel spreadsheets or costing software.
These software packages generally include features for tracking performance indicators, but it is often necessary to combine them to obtain relevant analyses… Platforms such as Lapala help to create interfaces for steering and tracking sales performance indicators.
Examples of indicators: Sales, Average Opportunity Amount, Operating and Gross Margin, Acquisition Cost, Average Request Response Time, Quotation Volume, % Quotation Won…
A word of advice: if you’ve chosen to outsource, be careful!
The question of outsourcing is one of the great reflections of a company’s commercial management. It seems like an easy, effortless way to increase sales… We’re immersed in it on a daily basis, via social networks, training courses and prospecting emails, and we get the impression that everyone is outsourcing and growing thanks to it. What’s more, the introductory price is often reasonable, and the focus is on testing. The truth, however, is often far removed from this façade of communication.
Before you decide to outsource a business activity that’s running out of steam in your company, or a new one. Experiment in-house on your own (on your own or with the help of an expert, or both). Even if the sales prospecting effort isn’t the easiest, this will enable you to understand exactly how to match your know-how with hard prospecting. And no outsourcing company can do this for you!
Now you know everything there is to know about sales management. Now it’s your turn! See you soon for more content!
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