When it gets tougher to find new business, many sales managers urge their salespeople to spend more time and effort maximizing the business from existing accounts. How good are you at taking this advice yourself?  In your case, it’s not accounts – it's salespeople.  When the economy softens and you’re not in a position to hire new salespeople do you see it as an opportunity to put more time and effort toward developing your existing team members to get better results?

If not, maybe you should.  According to a recent online survey for USA TODAY and CareerBuilder.com by Harris Interactive, hiring projections have weakened for the last half of 2007.  In the last quarter of the year, nearly two-thirds of employers surveyed expected to leave their staff size as is.  If your company falls in that category, you can still take steps toward growth – without adding to your ranks.  The key for sales managers is providing targeted coaching to develop the team you already have. 

There’s an interesting parallel to selling here.  Much like the cost associated with acquiring new customers, training and developing new hires takes a lot of time and resources.  You may find that you’re able to grow more business (with fewer headaches) when you focus on helping each member of your existing team maximize their selling skills and opportunities.

So how can you make it happen?  Let’s start by looking at the 12 Universal Management Truths from The New Science of Selling and Persuasion.  Focusing on and practicing these 12 fundamentals of sales management is a perfect recipe for getting more from your team even when economic projections are less than optimistic.  We’ll look at the first six in this month’s issue:

Truth 1: A sales organization will never be any stronger than the salespeople who are recruited, selected and hired to be a part of it.

Now’s the time to fine tune your recruiting and selection process because how you recruit and who you hire can have far more impact than how many you add to your team.  Your natural response may be, “But I don’t need to hire now…” That’s exactly the point.  When you need to hire is probably the worst time to think about recruiting and selection because the pressure to “get someone” will cloud the better judgment that leads to getting the right person. 

Take the time now to analyze what it takes to be a top performing salesperson in your organization.  Where will you find more of these people in the future?  How will you target, recruit, identify and select them when you do need to hire again?

Truth 2: Invest your time where it counts: with the best performing salespeople and with those who hold the greatest potential for superior performance.

Here’s another piece of advice you may dole out to your team, “spend the bulk of your time with customers that have the most potential for being profitable.”  Do you apply your own advice to managing salespeople or do you let poor performers and the problems they cause monopolize your time?

Set aside uninterrupted time each week to work individually with your middle and top-performing people.  Help them look at their accounts strategically and brainstorm ideas for going after more business in new and existing accounts. Accompany them on sales calls and help them focus on developing their strengths and shoring up their weaker areas. You’re more likely to get a return if you invest your time with your top and middle performers rather than spending it putting out fires with your problem people.

Truth 3: A sales organization cannot be led from behind a desk.

How can you possibly coach and develop your team if you don’t have firsthand knowledge of how each person performs in the field?  If you’re not already doing this, start now.  Make it clear that the idea is for you to help each salesperson improve their results, not to catch them doing something wrong.   

You may also want to explain that it’s important for you to gain a better understanding of your customer base and the challenges your team is facing in the marketplace so you can work on developing selling strategies for the business as a whole.  Even if it’s awkward at first, two heads are better than one. You’ll soon pick up on things your team may be missing and when that translates into more sales, your salespeople will start to see the value as well.

Truth 4: The best sales executives and sales managers are the most skilled at judging talent and placing the right people in the right place.

Sometimes the answer doesn’t lie in trying to shore up everyone’s weak spots.  You may get better results (and more engaged people) if you let them specialize in the areas where they’re strong.  Take a look at each of your rep’s accounts – where does each person’s business tend to cluster?  In a certain industry, around a certain decision-maker type, a particular need or want?  This information reveals a lot about each person’s strengths and where they’re most likely to find more success in the future. 

Maybe you have some people who are better suited for “hunting” and others who have the temperament for “farming.”  It may be more beneficial to divvy up the sales function than to expect everyone to be all things to all people.

Just because you’re not hiring new people from the outside doesn’t mean you can’t do some hiring on the inside.  Are there people you can start grooming for promotions?  Are there customer service people who could become sales reps?  Are there salespeople who are suited to management?  The investment cost of additional training for these people is far lower than the cost and risk associated with hiring unknown quantities and you’ll gain the benefit of greater commitment and lower turnover as well.

Truth 5: You can’t lead where you won’t go any more than you’re able to teach the things you don’t know.

If you want to get more out of your existing team members you can’t expect to get there without greater commitment and increased effort on your part.  Not only will you need to lead the charge, you’ll also have to demonstrate that you’re not asking more of your team than you expect from yourself.  And be careful not to become the manager who spews “great ideas” but dumps the burden of implementing them on others.  Encourage others to take part in the process of strategic planning and make sure you are actively involved in doing the subsequent work involved in bringing ideas to fruition.

Truth 6: Salespeople must be hired with caution, launched with clarity and the underperforming ones replaced with dispatch.

In addition to revamping your hiring and recruiting strategy while you’re not urgently looking to hire, it may also be a great time to think about beefing up your orientation, performance management and probationary programs as well.  Putting these structures in place when you’re not facing the pressure of needing a “warm body” will help ensure that you have a thorough orientation to launch your next batch of new hires toward success rather than throwing them to the wolves. 

You can link the orientation to the probationary period with benchmarks for acquiring skills and knowledge at each stage of the process.  Defining a probationary period and closely monitoring progress during that time allows you to weed out those who aren’t a great fit or aren’t committed to the challenge of learning a new job.  This will save you a world of trouble later on.

As for performance management, this may be a logical starting point if you really do want to work on training and coaching your existing people to greater success.  How often do you do performance reviews?  Are they a dreaded ordeal for everyone involved or do they actually help improve communication and performance? 

Think more broadly than simply scheduling more frequent reviews and revamping the rating form – put yourself in the frame of mind of ongoing employee development.  How can you help each person set and reach high achieving goals on an ongoing basis?  What can you offer in the way of career development so that people can keep growing in their jobs rather than outgrowing them and moving on?  Approach performance management from this angle and you’re more likely to get the results you're after.

Next month, we’ll pick up with the last 6 of these 12 Universal Management Truths from The New Science of Selling and Persuasion.  In the meantime, here’s another idea for maximizing performance from your existing team – hold regular sales meetings and incorporate a short, targeted training session into each one.  Need something easy and turnkey to get you started?  SalesYear is a sales meeting kit that puts 52 “instant” sales meetings right at your fingertips.  It’s sophisticated content in a practical format.