Recent research leaves no doubt that managers can make or break senior living sales. Are your leaders steering or sinking your efforts?
Executives in any field would agree that sales managers play a pivotal role in maintaining and growing a healthy business. They are the ones charged with keeping all the balls in the air while motivating staff toward fulfilling the company's goals. At best, they are strategic thinkers with excellent people and team management skills. But at worst, they can send quality sales staff packing, leaving providers in a lurch. Now senior living executives have the research to back these experiences-a valuable tool not only for staffing purposes but also for developing effective sales strategies.
The study, conducted by the Center for Applied Sales Research (CASR), focuses on senior living sales managers and how their positive contributions and leadership skills can translate into value-added strategies- or thwart even the best laid plans.
Research Methodology
Among the most compelling results of the CASR Sales Management Value-Added Survey are the stories senior living sales staff share, like this one: "My worst sales manager told me all year long that I was doing a great job, spent no time in the field with me, only to slam me with the worst review ever!"
Feedback like this doesn't provide quantitative data, but it does illustrate a negative behavior (i.e., what not to do as a sales manager) and helps identify managerial mistakes that may hinder sales efforts in the senior living market. Overall, research results include verbatim findings as well as responses to specific questions that can help providers develop targeted sales strategies. Note that the survey is still open and that these findings are based on preliminary returns; the CASR will issue a final report later this year.
The survey focuses on answering these questions:
o How can sales managers add value to the selling efforts of their sales people?
o What can they do or not do to make a positive difference?
o What values have shaped sales managers' perspectives and influenced their personal and professional growth?
Survey results are being collected in two parts, using two methods:
Online surveys. The first part of the survey guides respondents through a series of questions asking for their perspectives on how they motivate, lead, coach, inspire, mentor, and add value to sales efforts. It also asks them to detail the qualities of the best and worst sales managers they have worked for, along with particularly good or bad examples of their behavior.
The second part of the online survey examines the values that have affected them throughout their lifetimes, including satisfying and disappointing life experiences as well as interactions with parents, relatives, teachers, and their children. Respondents who complete the online survey then gain access to an anonymous summary of information contributed by all participants.
Telephone interviews. These interviews cover the same questions as the online survey and help supplement and balance the data collected online.
At press time, research findings included responses from at least 25 sales managers, representing five leading senior living providers.
Reading the Results
Research studies like this one are most useful when their results provide practical tips and strategies to improve operations. The following provides a small sampling of responses to a few of the survey questions from sales managers and from interviews with sales people. Questions that ask for specifics more easily yield tips and strategies sales executives can use in their daily operations.
In what ways do you inspire or motivate your sales people?
o Sending notes with words of encouragement. Letting them know their hard work is appreciated. Celebrating their successes.
o Bringing energy, enthusiasm, new ideas, humor, and a sense of "pleasant persistence" to problem-solving interactions.
o Creating sales achievement contests and opportunities for recognition of performance.
o Leading by example. I would not ask them to do anything I would not do.
o Encouraging new approaches, and new ideas to achieve success.
How do you lead your sales people toward success?
o Creating mutually agreed-upon goals and then holding them accountable to them.
o Showing up early and staying late.
o Always taking the ethical approach to situations even when it is difficult.
o Demonstrating a willingness to work side-by-side with them in making calls and closing sales.
What would your sales people say you do as a sales manager to create value for them?
o Mediating with operations to remove sales barriers, mostly with their executive directors.
o Bringing new ideas and a fresh perspective to find innovative ways to close more sales.
o Providing updated information on company- specific as well as health-care and senior living issues.
o Being an effective listener who is responsive to their personal and professional challenges.
Think of the teachers or coaches that influenced you. What ideas or philosophies did they embrace that have shaped your views?
o I had a teacher who insisted that you challenge whatever idea seemed to be the only one. It has helped me realize that there is always another way of looking at something.
o I had a teacher who always insisted that you give more than the minimum answer required. It has led me to become a more inquisitive and complete learner.
o I had a lot of coaches. Some used negative reinforcement and others a positive, encouraging approach. We all responded and played better with the positive coaching.
o Never give up on those who want to be helped to achieve, because some day they will succeed and you will have built great loyalty.
Survey Benefits
Because sales managers who complete the online survey gain access to a summary of what all respondents have contributed, the research provides a built-in opportunity to learn from a specific peer group-sales executives in senior living. As such, respondents so far have consistently commented that the process of completing the survey was of immediate, intrinsic value to them.
This research also marks the first time there has been comprehensive study of the sales efforts specific to the senior living sector. As such, it provides specific insights and strategies to those who want to become more effective sales managers.
Many sales professionals in senior living refer to their work as "applied psychology" because a large part of their jobs is understanding the motivations and desires of their prospects. This research turns the tables and delves into the salesperson's motivations and desires, providing them an insightful tool for doing their jobs better in any circumstance.
The research results further illustrate that, particularly in a people-focused industry, sales managers should seek to model effective management behaviors as well as understand their own motivations as they attempt to bring value to the efforts of others.
This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.
