Core Sales Competencies

My career development since June 2008 has been fantastic through Lloyds. What’s really good is that I am learning things that are over and above my usual day-to-day role, like management skills that will enable me to move into a management role in the future. Last week, I have had an opportunity to get involved in an internal research on sales and marketing, to develop opportunities for us to be even better. Our branch teams are already made up of customer service specialists and Personal Bankers who enjoy building great relationships with customers, doing what they ask – and more, and in doing so achieve challenging performance targets. Hence this study was about the ways to bring and implement new ideas to build the success of the team. Improving Core Sales Competencies How can sales organizations use the various survey knowledge and analysis to improve their sales performance? Clearly, a number of factors can affect sales effectiveness; however, sales executives that refine their efforts across incentive compensation management, sales execution and sales talent stand to benefit the most. Incentive compensation management: The 2011 Lloyds Banking Group survey findings reflected that sales leaders at LBG are making progress in incentive compensation management. The average compensation of sales managers and representatives in 2011 increased over last year as well. Commensurate with the salary increase, sales executives indicated that they expected more out of their sales representatives by increasing annual sales targets. These findings indicate that LBG are getting more aggressive in their sales outlook, and looking to extract the best possible effort from the highest performers in the sales workforce. Sales representatives showed they are up to the challenge. One gauge from the survey is the major increase in the percentage of sales representatives that met their annual sales goals. In 2010, 53.3 percent met or exceeded quota and 46.7 percent were under. In 2011, the percentage jumped to 61.5 meeting or exceeding the goal, while only 38.5 percent failed to reach the target. By raising targets and counseling out low performers, the overall performance levels of large enterprises have shown an eight percentage point growth. Sales execution excellence: As LBG look for new ways to drive excellence into the sales function, sales leaders are focusing on making improvements to the effectiveness of their sales cycle processes. In 2011, 63.4 percent of sales executives specified that the way in which their organizations prioritize accounts to focus selling efforts met or exceeded expectations. However, once those accounts were handed to sales representatives, the ability to execute dropped across a number of key indicators, suggesting that the sales process is generally still reactive and transactional. The 2011 results show the majority of sales leaders (53.8 percent) indicated that they needed to do a better job of researching prospects prior to sales calls, while 47.1 percent acknowledged the need to improve the development of sales strategies to penetrate accounts for key prospects. To identify and prioritize opportunities more successfully, organizations can use customer segmentation and map solutions to customers.