Business ManagementCDI WirelessSales Management

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]By Mark Landiak

July 22, 2015 – How often do you take the opportunity to convene with your sales team and reflect?

The sales process itself (let alone in wireless) can be a grueling one. It requires a constant awareness on the part of the associate with an ongoing focus on the customer. It’s important that as a wireless sales manager, you take the time to pull each of your sales reps aside and work closely to assess their growth, acknowledge their success, and address their challenges. There is no better opportunity to do that than in the weekly sales meeting. The weekly sales meeting gives you (the manager) the opportunity to do each of these things and create a culture of accountability for your team so that everyone can move forward in a more productive and profitable manner.

Effective coaching of a wireless sales team involves driving improvements in proficiency and performance. Proficiency is the ability to do a job with excellence. As a sales manager, this means being meticulous in the assessment of every business practice and habitual behavior your associates are developing during the customer service process. The language you use in engaging your associates to coach best practices is important. Simply starting a sentence with “I noticed that…”gives you as a manager the opportunity to offer the associate an opportunity to reflect on their experience and position it as a coaching moment. Your wireless sales meetings (if ran properly and productively) will and should be full of these.

Here are eight (8) tips for running a productive wireless sales meeting:

  1. Consider the makeup of your team. As a wireless sales manager, it’s important that you understand each of your sales associates’ background in wireless and what stage each of them currently occupies in their development. Who are your rookies? Who are your experienced associates? Who are your high-sellers? Who are your under-performers? Who knows handsets? Who knows connected devices? Once you know each associate’s strengths and weaknesses, you can begin to coach them in a way that fills in the holes and helps them grow with your store.
  2. Create a consistent weekly meeting time. Your ability to follow-through and create a culture of accountability amongst your wireless sales team is pivotal to driving productivity and profitability. The easiest way to do this is to schedule a meeting time to specifically discuss sales progress and (above all) stick to that time each week (no exceptions!). Commit to it!
  3. Use the meeting to focus on sales. Sales meetings are for sales discussion. They are a time to discuss the metrics that inform your wireless business (i.e. – new activations, accessories sold, etc.), but also to discuss the sales behaviors that inform those metrics. Keep the conversation on point.
  4. Take questions in advance. In conjunction with scheduling a fixed sales meeting time each week, implement a deadline for associates to submit their questions that can be address during that meeting. This will help in preparation and prevent downtime during the meeting itself.
  5. Review success stories. Success stories are coaching moments in themselves because they provide a blueprint for how sales is done right. Highlight both the story and the associate during the meeting to improve morale and educate your wireless sales team.
  6. Share your observations. Along with keeping the conversation on point, a wireless sales manager should keep the conversation structured and flowing in a way that uses sales stories to extract value. Share what you see and consider your language. For example, ask one of your reps to share their thoughts on how they handled a particular sale of a handset earlier in the week.
  7. Provide honest, relevant feedback. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to help someone improve in the areas where they really need it (and where you can both identify). Use your wireless sales meeting time to have conversations with every member of your wireless sales team on such things as challenges with accessory bundling, upselling, or meeting their forecasted goals. This will help to create a culture where each team member understands their role and expectations. It’s important to note: not all feedback is bad! Consider how you deliver feedback and do so in a way that will promote high associate morale. Which leads us to the final step…
  8. End the meeting on a high note. Before you venture back out onto the wireless sales battlefield, be sure everyone is upbeat, motivated, and on the same page. Happy selling!
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