In sales it is always a good idea to look to hone your skills and work at eliminating bad habits. In an article posted on www.recruiter.co.uk, John R Treace explains what he calls, “5 common afflictions of sales teams.”

In his article he sites these afflictions as a cause of dropping morale and a dip in sales performance. Although some of these afflictions can be minor and not cause noticeable damage, they can escalate to severely damage your company’s profits.

He sites the following afflictions:

1. Wasting sales representatives’ time
2. Poor sales meetings
3. Poor strategy
4. Capping or reducing income
5. Favouritism

Wasting your sales reps’ time

Delegating non-sales tasks to your sales teams means they are spending less time selling. If possible try to delegate tasks such as managing product recalls and filling out reports to other people outside of the sales team. This will maximise the productivity of your sales people.

Unnecessary sales meetings

The sole purpose of a sales meeting should be to increase sales. If you are having routine meetings just for the sake of it, you will be wasting your sales teams’ time. A good sales rep will know when time is being wasted and this will not inspire confidence in management. So make sure that meetings are clearly purposeful.

Bad strategy

It does not take a rocket scientist to realise that a poorly planned marketing or sales strategy will have a negative impact on sales. Invest in experts to come up with good sound strategy. Putting on special promotions as an attempt to place a band-aid on poor performance due to a lacklustre strategy is not a sustainable solution. This being said, special promotions can be an effective tool to boost sales when done in the right way.

Capping or reducing sales team income

Managers resentful of their sales team’s earnings may be tempted to try to cap their earnings in various ways. This is very dangerous as it damages morale and can cause good sales people to jump ship. If it is absolutely necessary to reduce commission or other income sources, this should be done in a sensitive manner.

Favouritism

It almost goes without saying that special treatment of individuals will cause unsettlement within the team, and ultimately breed resentment. You need to work towards building a cohesive team spirit as a manager, and by showing favouritism you are damaging the team.

Sales teams that are managed well will perform better, so it is worth making sure that your management strategy and techniques are up to scratch.

Image by Howard Lake.

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These days you need to have a multi-pronged approach to sales. Companies not making use of all platforms for sales will inevitably lose out to competitors who are more on the ball.

A strong web presence, complete with mobile versions of the business website, along with well developed apps on Android and iPhone are required to maximise sales potential. It is not enough to have these platforms in isolation though, as they should be smoothly interlinked in the sales strategy of your company.

It is essential that users can enjoy intuitive, quick and easy browsing and buying, whether on PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android smart phone or other tablets.

The London digital agency, Head, together with Oxford Economics, found in their study that a lack of proper web presence is costing business.

Paul-Hervis Heath, head of design at Head London, said, “Too many retailers are behind the digital curve. They usually have a mobile website, and even an app, but too often these services are not joined up. By not giving customers the information they need on the platform of their choice, they are less likely to complete purchases.”

The study pointed out the importance of excellent customer service, coupled with easy routes to completing purchases and easy access to information.

Sales are the main way of driving business growth in many cases, so it is imperative that businesses invest in growing their online sales abilities.

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