All my manager seems to care about is how many sales calls I have made today! Any tips on how I can get him to realize some of the sales cycles take a lot of behind the scenes work?
<b>I am sure we would all agree that quality and quantity aren’t the same thing. One well planned sales call with a qualified prospect may be worth 10 or more cold calls. On the other hand, most sales managers would tell you that salespeople generally don’t spend enough time in front of clients.
You may want to review how you manage your territory. Do you have a pipeline tool where you track opportunities? Do you have enough opportunity to make or exceed your sales goal? Do you have specific plans for how to move these opportunities forward? How are you classifying and prioritizing your accounts? Allocating your sales calls?
Review your territory plan with your manager and make sure that you are both on the same page. Then ask some questions to help uncover the need behind his or her request:
Concern over your progress towards goal
Not convinced of the quality of your leads
Not in alignment with his/her view of the sales process
Concerned that you are not managing time wisely
Feels like your sales cycles are too long
Have this conversation ASAP, but come prepared to discuss these concerns in light of a formal territory plan