As a Sales VP, it can be nigh impossible to look over the shoulders of each of your sales reps to ensure that they are not only performing their job responsibilities but also doing so as efficiently and effectively as they can. Running your team by the numbers and looking at monthly or quarterly sales reports can help bridge this gap between management oversight and rep activities, but that infrequency can be unbeneficial – after all, diagnosing a problem at the end of a quarter might be too late to enact significant improvements.
This is why Sales VPs need regular insight into how their team is doing. A Nightly Status Email delivered right to his or her inbox every night can provide the brief and succinct summary that Sales VPs need to keep their finger on the pulse of their sales team, acting as checks and balances. Such an email should feature a host of prospecting and sales metrics, covering a wide range of both input- and output-based activities.
Tracking prospecting activities – calls, connects, meetings scheduled, emails sent, etc – can separate your top performers from mediocre ones. Comparing sales and prospecting results to historical trends will let you know if your team is on the right trajectory. Activities and results can be effectively benchmarked against goals.
Without a nightly or regular sales email update, Sales VPs aren’t able to gain a full picture of their sales teams. Here are 3 killer benefits of having a nightly status email.
Full Transparency
With a nightly status email that reports on the activities of every single sales rep, there’s no hiding. A struggling rep can’t simply chalk up one bad week or month and hope that the sales manager doesn’t notice until the rep has been able to shore up his efforts at a later date. That lack of transparency can be crippling for any sales team – it breeds an environment of distrust and disingenuousness.
On the other hand, crystal-clear transparency promotes a culture of trust. Every rep has nothing to hide regarding their own numbers or performances and thus, are likely to be producing effectively and doing their jobs. Additionally, this transparency can better build collaboration and teamwork, where reps will know if their teammates are struggling and can help lift them up.
Increased Motivation
Sales reps are naturally competitive species. Having a strong desire to be the best in anything they do is indicative that they are cut from the right cloth to succeed in a sales position. While managers need to ensure that competition within their team doesn’t turn vitriolic or nasty, that competition, when harnessed properly, can be a tremendous motivator and drive the entire team to greater heights.
The stats featured in a nightly status email can feed into this healthy competition, simply by acting as a leaderboard display of how everyone is doing. If Bill sees that Jessica is outpacing his call efforts significantly, that might be the kick in the rear he needs to step his game up. There’s nothing quite like healthy competition among your sales reps to produce organic improvements across the entire team.
Visibility of Goals
One of the biggest responsibilities for Sales VPs is setting aggressive yet attainable goals for their sales reps. However, if a goal is set but is never monitored, does anyone care? What if a rep has consistently fallen short of his or her goals for several months in a row but due to managerial oversight, has so far escaped the consequences of doing so?
The nightly status email can display results benchmarked against goals in order to track not only how successful the team is in hitting these goals, but if the goals are realistic in the first place. If your nightly status email shows the team as a whole regularly falling short of hitting those goals, perhaps you should reevaluate your standards.
However, if a vast majority of the team is consistently hitting its goals, leaving only a few stragglers behind, that lets you know who your top performers are and who needs additional sales coaching help or maybe even some discipline.
And therein lies the value of receiving a nightly status email that accurately tracks the sales activities and results of every member of your sales team. The information presented in these emails can serve as a great motivator while helping you identify the struggling reps from the best ones. Are you receiving nightly status emails? Share the metrics you want in your nightly emails in the comments section below.
