Barry Trailer, co-founder of CSO Insights: “Our research shows the average B2B sale involves 4.5 buying influences and, more than likely, each of them touches base with at least one other person for buy-in, approval, etc. “
Question for Bank Sales Managers: Do your bankers have major pieces of business today that hinge on 1 or 2 personal relationships?
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Joel Klein, former New York City Schools Chancellor: “Once they are hired, teachers in Finland are required to devote two hours a week to professional development throughout their careers.”
Question for Bank Sales Managers: How many hours a week are you devoting to improving the skills of your bankers?
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Daniel Birke, David Sprengel, Jochen Ulrich and Michael Viertier:“Top performing sales organizations have the same percentage of sales staff in sales management roles—around 8%–as lower-performing companies. However, they have about 30% more sales staff in support roles. While this may seem counterintuitive, this approach frees up sales reps from more administrative tasks…to devote more of their time to customers. The result is that front line sales reps are three times more productive than their peers.”
Question for Bank Sales Managers: What are you doing to improve the administrative support for your bankers?
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Dan Perry, Sales Benchmark International: “87% of Sales Managers tell me they want to spend more time with their ‘A’ players Yet Sales Manager selling time is hovering around 48%. SMs don’t have the time to spend with their ‘A’ reps (or any reps like they should). In comparison, World Class selling time is around 77% for SMs. And part of this time must be spent with those ‘A’ players.”
Question for Bank Sales Managers: Are you spending enough time with your top performers?
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Terence Roche, Cornerstone Advisors: “An astounding 97% of recruiters recently surveyed said LinkedIn is the most common in-house recruiting platform. Everybody at our meeting said they use it almost daily.”
Question for Bank Sales Managers: How are you using LinkedIn in recruiting? (Bonus question: How are your bankers using LinkedIn to improve their results in prospecting?)
Looking for more resources on sales management? Check out these blog posts:
4 Weekly Tasks for Sales Managers (video)
6 Questions for Bank Sales Leaders about Process
20 Questions Bank Sales Leaders Should Ask Themselves
