Joel Goldstein is the President of Mr. Checkout Distributors.
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If your sales reps are commission-only based, you are undoubtedly interested in just how well they are actually doing when it comes to successfully selling your product. And that is precisely why you may want to re-evaluate the quality of the commission-only sales reps you work with. This brief article will provide you with four insights and strategies you need to fully understand the process—and the importance—of being able to track your commission-only sales reps.
1. Focus on building your brand, and the reps will seek you out themselves.
First and foremost, you may actually be able to skip the process of even needing to track your sales reps if you end up lucking out and finding sales reps who truly believe in your product line and genuinely want to assist you in selling it first and foremost. If you do not have a sales rep who is as passionate about your product as you are, then no one else will be either. Having passion and drive should be at the forefront with regard to even considering hiring a sales rep. Choosing the wrong sales rep will ultimately lead you to see fewer people opting to invest in your product and a decrease in sales overall. It can’t be stressed enough that choosing the right sales rep is crucial to the success and sales of your product.
2. Use creative and meaningful motivation and incentives.
While motivating your sales reps with increases in their commission can certainly be an incredibly smart and useful thing to do, the underlying question of how you can motivate your sales reps with more than just money often arises. There are a ton of great ways that you can motivate your sales reps with more than just an increase in their commission. Small things such as incentives for things like winning a trip or a gift package for the top seller are super easy ways that can really motivate your sales team to strive to do better. When you set a goal for them to achieve that will be rewarded with something they really want, they will be significantly more motivated to aim to do better and increase their sales overall.
When it comes down to feeling the need to track your commission-only sales reps, there are so many things that you should consider. First and foremost, you need to make sure that you have hired trustworthy and reliable sales reps who are sure to be the outspoken, passionate spokesperson for your product when you can’t be there yourself. When you find that person, you are going to want to keep them around, and people often can’t be swayed by money alone. Get creative and start to plan an incentive program that will get your team excited about wanting to boost their sales so that they can earn whatever goal presents itself at the time.
3. Do your research.
Make sure that you do some research and create a sales rep directory of all the reputable sales reps you know of. Consider reaching out to other product producers so that you can get an idea of who is known to be a genuinely good sales rep in your area and reach out to them to see if they are a good fit for your needs. Make contacts, get references and make note of those names in the event that you end up needing them in the future.
Be sure that you also build a territory of sales reps as well. This can help ensure you have all of your bases covered when it comes to branching out to distributors and retailers personally—via the assistance of a reputable sales rep, of course. The larger the area you can reach with the assistance of a really great sales rep, the easier it will be for your product's name and reputation to spread. And this can bring quite a hefty boost to your sales.
4. Invest in a scalable customer relationship management solution.
Finally, you are going to want to opt to invest in a scalable CRM. With the assistance of a scalable CRM, you can quickly, easily and efficiently manage everything from sales, marketing and production to things like billing and customer service. All of your product teams will be able to seamlessly access all of your customer records as well as critical business data, which is all centrally located and stored in one CRM database. Investing in a CRM database is one of the best things that you can do for the benefit and well-being of your business and product or service.
Tracked properly, commission-only sales reps can be a key to your success.
Making the decision to track your commission-only sales reps is one of the smartest things that you can do when it comes to the success of your product and sales as a whole. Tracking your sales is smart, as it provides you with the opportunity to review the sales as well as the methods leading to the success of your commission-based sales reps.
If you note that there is a problem with their sales, you need to make sure that you address it immediately and, if needed, find a more successful sales rep to replace that individual. Be sure to take the time to always review your sales and ensure that the reps you have hired are going to work in the best interest of your business. This will best ensure the success you need to see from your product going forward. The more hands-on you can be, and the most research you put forth, the more successful you will be as well.
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