Are Your Employees Sabotaging Sales?

The sales department typically handles prospecting, sales presentations, customer calls and closing the sale. A job in sales is an attractive career for energetic, extroverted self-starters with an entrepreneurial spirit. Since success and earning power depend on  sales numbers and not solely on a fixed salary, sales professionals have the added incentive to perform. More sales mean higher commissions and overall earnings. 

Smart companies realize it’s not just the sales team that makes a sale. All employees are company ambassadors, making an impression on customers that either helps or hurts the sales team’s efforts. In a Forbes article, "Can Your Employees Be Your New Sales Force," Todd Wilms outlines some strategies to use all your employees to serve customers and promote your company’s brand. “Sales is everyone’s responsibility,” says Wilms, a mantra everyone has heard. And it’s true that no matter what the job, every employee contributes either directly or indirectly to product or service quality. That quality translates into customer satisfaction and can affect repeat sales. Harnessing the efforts of all employees to positively promote your brand can dramatically increase your company’s sales power.

This strategy can work both ways. If your employees make a positive impression, that’s good for the brand. However, they can also sabotage sales by poor performance, poor quality and forgetting that sales is a team effort. Whether you’re selling widgets of delivering a service, all employees need to work together at top performance to make the whole-company sales team support the sales professionals and give a positive impression of the brand.

1. Communication. Poor communications can lose a sale and a customer. A hotel event planner may write a pricy contract for a business meeting using lots of meeting space, meals, hotel rooms, breakout sessions and special events. Without communications with the rest of the operations staff, the event planner may have sold something the rest of the employees can’t deliver. Everyone has to communicate throughout the sales process to be sure the team can deliver once the contract is signed and the execution is handed off to someone else.
    
2. Availability. Can production handle the 10,000 piece order you just sealed with a new customer? Can they handle the modifications and deliver on schedule? Salespeople are focused on sales and “making the numbers” that they can overpromise. Also, schedules change, equipment goes down or is taken offline for maintenance. Sales has to work with production to make sure they can deliver a quality product to specifications on-time.
    
3. Information. It happens. The company rolls out the latest and greatest version of its most sought-after widget, but neglects to train the customer service team prior to the launch. The same for changing internal processes or switching procedures. The customer with a small problem gets handed off several times or has to deal with an otherwise competent service representative who, through no fault of his own, doesn’t have a clue. Frustrated customers value time and need answers. Poor customer service will send customers looking for other options.
    
4. Leadership. Numbers 1, 2 and 3 above happen with regularity. This frustrates everyone, affects morale, concentration, performance and respect for leadership. Leaders must be part of the team--directing, coaching, supporting and encouraging all employees. They need to be involved without micro-managing, giving employees sufficient resources and the authority to make decisions.
    

Employees can expand your sales force without adding headcount to the sales department. Making every employee a “brand ambassador” builds employee loyalty while improving the bottom line.

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