When running a department or an office, it is easy to get caught up in the work of daily business. 

There is just so much to do. Even the normal employees usually have a full working week, let alone the managers and decision makers. 

Add on top the level of routine we all experience, the same people, same challenges and the dreading feeling of not moving forward. 

And given you encounter some bad phases, it is hard to turn things around.

At this point, companies usually hire expensive consultants. And most of the time they rightfully do so. But how do you know it works? Sometimes even the best ones fail.

But one thing can help you in identifying major problems in your department – even before bringing in consultants (well, and they might recommend it themselves). 

Let me show you. 

The Thought Experiment

Imagine you are starting from zero.

Your department doesn’t yet exist. Heck, even the company doesn’t exist.

Now think – how would you set up your Salespeople? How would they be structured, what should they care about, how would they be supported by the right people, processes and tools?

Chances are, that when you are from a big and long existing company, that it looks quite a bit different from where you are right now. 

My experience from working at and consulting these companies is that their Salespeople 

• Do to many activities that don’t have to do anything with Sales
• They dedicate too much time to existing contacts and too little time to new contacts
• Salespeople cost so much money that quotas are set so high or incentives are reduced a lot to keep costs in control
• There is not enough overall customer contact – relating to not enough Inside Sales

Now also imagine, you are in a market where the competitor is a lot stronger than you. This will add on your view and help you get a little loose from your usual thinking ways. 

Again, How would you structure your Sales team? How would you attack the market and the competition? 

Quite possibly the competition is actually using these tactics against you.

What Can You Do Right Now? 

Now if you answer these questions for yourself, you will get a lot of clarity about your department. You will find deficiencies in the setup of the team, the processes and you might identify some new needs that can be covered by an innovative tool and the market. 

For example say you identify the need for more customer contact, Inside Sales and you could beat your competition by having more motivated Sales People.

Your actions could be to restructure your department and invest into a gamification tool, that sets goals for a minimum number of customer calls and rewards the best callers every e.g. month with a certain incentive. 

Whatever your answers might be – replicate this process for yourself and identify your needs. 

And when you find them, take appropriate action. 

Feel free to share the actions you put down with me. I would love to have a discussion about this. 

Until then have a good time, and a creative brainstorming about your department or business. 

Best, Philipp