BDU’s CEO Lisa Peskin recently spoke to a group of Vistage members on the topic of “Sales Superstars: Getting the Most out of Your Sales Team.” One of the main takeaways from her talk was that as a sales leader you have a one line job description: to maximize the potential and performance of your sales associates.

How do you successfully manage a sales team and lead them to not only achieve but exceed their goals? Lisa’s presentation addressed key areas that all great sales leaders should focus on to make sure they’re doing the best job leading their team to get the most from their efforts.

As we near the end of the year and the start of a new one, now is the perfect time to evaluate your approach to managing your sales team. Here are five things Lisa says you should make sure you’re doing right now:

1. 1. Look at the five “rights.” Do you have the right # of the right people doing the right # of the right activities right?
   2. “Triage” your direct reports. Determine what three areas, if improved upon, will have the biggest impact on your associates’ performances.
   3. Make sure proper training and development is in place. Help your associates close the gap and get to the next level of their individual sales successes.
   4. Assist your associates with putting together their 30-60-90 day game plan. Help them determine activities and goals for each 30-day marker.
   5. Set clear activity and result expectations. It’s important that you have a way to “inspect what you expect,” or to measure their progress against goals.

Get BDUtensils: Don’t forget that BDU has a full library of tools that can help you successfully manage your sales team, including our Curbside Critique for in-the-field evaluation and our Sales Team Analysis for collecting key information about your team for triaging. Download these BDUtensils, and more, for free.

Get BDU assistance: Need additional assistance managing your sales associates? BDU has a group of experienced coaches that can mentor and help develop your team. Contact us for more information about our services, including outsourced sales management and customizable private sales trainings for every member of your organization.