Sales management
Quote of the month
“Here are our four pillars of performance and sales productivity improvement: career development (making clear where sales staff can go and possible positions where they can grow into), performance management (preventing sales staff from being bored), sales effectiveness (tracking activities and competences of sales staff) and branding (creating sufficient awareness).”
Fred Rienstra, Senior marketer SME segment, ABN AMRO Bank, Netherlands
Overall issues
- Motivating the sales force
Motivation stems from recruiting the most effective sales people; introducing better remuneration and reward systems; improved performance tracking; and providing high quality sales training and coaching. - Improving sales strategies
Strong leadership will help to boost the effectiveness of sales strategies. Other key factors include sales performance management systems; driving sales through non-branch channels; the development of ‘sales boost’ programmes; and the use of best practices to generate leads and transform them into sales. - Responding to customer needs
Banks should be allocating sales resources to different customer segments; building customer satisfaction into their sales objectives; and adapting the sales process to meet new customer demands.
Efma study
"Multichannel sales productivity" by Finalta (November 2008)
Lessons from the most recent conference
“Sales management” in Lisbon, 13-14 November 2008 (www.efma.com/sales2008)
Best speaker:
Patrick Watt, Head of sales and distribution at Bank of Ireland, Ireland
Best presentations:
- “Sales management practices in Europe – Trends and challenges”
Doug Wilson, Director, Finalta, United Kingdom
- “Combining marketing insight with salesforce pragmatism”
Marc Oppenheim, Head of retail banking, LCL, France
- “Booster campaign”
Lisette van Breugel, Senior retail manager, ING, Netherlands
Upcoming event
Efma Conference on "Sales management" in London on Thursday 18 to Friday 19 November 2010 (www.efma.com/sales)
