In an earlier post we talked about virtual sales management. Here’s another look at the topic – a study appeared by CSO Insights on Managing Sales in a Virtual World.
Sales coaching
A few key facts from the study to lay a foundation …
First, the average sales manager oversees just over six sales people. Second, sales managers spend about 64% of their workweek directly interacting with sales reps. The percentages for how sales managers spend the total time is reported below. [*Time with sales reps]
- Selling time with sales reps – 27%*
- Coaching sales reps (including reviewing proposals and strategies) – 22%*
- Internal meetings and management tasks – 20%
- Planning and forecasting – 15%*
- Other (training, travel) – 20%
However, with sales reps increasingly being remotely located from their managers face-to-face meetings for: coaching, planning, and forecasting sessions take a disproportionate amount of time out of the work week. And selling time is too valuable. – the study reports that on average, sales reps are making only 1.2 calls per day .
The solution? According to the study, it’s virtual sales management (VSM). It notes that “VSM is not about doing things differently, but rather doing the things we already know we have to do differently.” To increase revenue, optimizing sales management performance is key – and the study suggests that VSM can play a key role – using collaboration technology to work with sales teams in coaching, pipeline forecasting, reviewing sales strategies and/or using virtual sales calls to rehearse that critical sales call VSM holds potential for achieving a better balance between efficiency and effectiveness.
Click here to request a summary of the study.
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