Construction of the sales department. How to organize a sales department from scratch

In this article we will look at how to organize a sales department from scratch. There are many important points that determine whether your sales people will move your business up, or vice versa - drag it down.

Why do 90% of small businesses never set up a sales department?
3 Worst Ways to Organize a Sales Department

Where to start building a sales department?

The first thing you need to have on hand are numbers. You need a sales plan before you even start doing any recruiting activities.

The sales plan is how much money you want to earn, how many transactions you need to make in a month for this, and how many sales managers you will need for this.

Business leaders often have the dangerous illusion in their heads that they can start small and that they don’t have to hire a bunch of salespeople right away. Like, at first we will take only one manager, and we ourselves will sell together with him, and this will be enough for us for now. And then, when we get going, we can build a full-fledged department.

In fact, this should never be done. Now I will give you some numbers and you will understand why.

Why is it necessary to hire 4-5 managers?

Firstly, sales managers have the highest turnover in the market. If you hire only one salesperson, then after a week you will have to hire another one. And then another one. As a result, you will spend all your time interviewing and training managers instead of selling.

Secondly, one sales manager cannot give you anything. Today there are such statistics on the effectiveness of a sales manager.

You need to make about 20 cold calls to schedule 2-3 meetings.
In one day, one salesperson can make no more than 3 full meetings
30% of scheduled meetings fail for one reason or another
Only 30% of meetings will result in a deal

And this is all provided that you are selling relatively inexpensive goods or services. If you have something large and expensive, the cycle of one transaction can last for several months. Thus, one sales manager (even if you are lucky to find a smart and hard-working one) will be able to close approximately one deal per week. Most likely this won't bother you.

In addition, he will not take one trade per week. If you have only one sales manager, then he does not feel any competition. There is nothing to be afraid of, because he is the only one. They spent time on it, trained it, and they are afraid of losing it. Accordingly, he feels like the master of the situation.

This is another argument in favor of the fact that you need to immediately organize a real sales department, and not limit yourself to half measures. And if the thought of a real and full-fledged sales department now scares you, then you’re not alone.

Why do 90% of small businesses never set up a sales department?

I have many familiar married couples who have been living without children for 5 - 10 - 15 years. Their health is fine, and even their financial situation is better than many others. But nevertheless, they cannot decide to have children.

And there is only one reason for this, in my opinion: they don’t trust each other, and they don’t trust themselves. Having children is a very big responsibility. Here you should already be 100% confident in your partner and in the reliability of your family. But they don’t have that confidence. Accordingly, they prefer to “sit on suitcases” all their lives. Like, if anything happens, I’ll just leave, and there’ll be no problems.

It's the same with small businesses. Often a business owner lacks confidence that his business is truly reliable. It is especially difficult if he manages everything alone, without partners. In this case, he also acts as a “single mother” if he decides to have employees.

But here's my opinion. A family without children is not a family. A business without employees is not a business. The problem is that sales managers are very “difficult teenagers.” You have to be tough with them. But many leaders are not ready for this. Very often they themselves are not salespeople, but product specialists (manufacturers). And everything related to commerce is alien and incomprehensible to them.

This is where the heap of problems arises when they hired employees for the sales department, assigned them a salary 10 times higher than required, but they still do nothing. And then they also go to competitors along with your client base.

To prevent this from happening, you need to hire at least five (!) sales managers at once. And don’t be afraid that you won’t be able to raise the salary for all five of you at once.

Why shouldn’t you be afraid that you won’t pull it off?

If you already have your own business, then you know that you must officially “register” an employee within a week of starting work. And you must give him the first payment only in a month.

So, by the end of the first week you will have no more than three employees left. And by the end of the first month, you will most likely need to carry out another additional recruitment in order to retain at least three. This is the reality, most managers will never have to pay you.

Therefore, please do not hope that one golden manager will come and make everything right for you right away. Most likely, he will do everything bad for you, and you will have to deal with it for a long time.

Let's look at the options for how and where you can find a sales manager. To get you started, here are the three worst ways to hire sales managers.

3 Worst Ways to Organize a Sales Department

#1 – Look for “good” sellers

Often business owners decide that they will find some particularly good sellers. Like, let us pay them more than the market average, but they will do really high-quality work and bring us a hundred times more money than we spend on them.

Not a bad plan. but unreal. Because “good” sales managers do not exist in nature. In any case, you will have to deal not with “suitable” candidates, but with the least “unsuitable” ones. That is, none of the applicants will be suitable for work in your company. And it will be your task to make a real team out of them.

#2 - Poach managers from competitors

Perhaps the idea of luring sellers from your competitors will come to your mind. In fact, why look for and train someone from scratch if you can just hire ready-made professionals who already know how to do everything. and who know our market? All that remains is to offer them a higher salary.

But this is also a wrong strategy. A true professional, who is doing well at work, will never exchange his golden place for something else. He knows everything there, he already has an established client base from which he feeds well. And you still don’t know what will happen.

If one of your competitor’s sellers agrees to “defect” with you, then most likely it will not be the best professional. And he will probably ditch you in the same way at the first opportunity as he did with his previous employer. We don't need such employees.

#3 – Ask a recruitment agency for help

The next mistake that business owners often make is “delegating” the hiring of employees to various recruitment agencies. Why waste time and nerves yourself if there are specially trained people with knowledge bases who can quickly select ten of the most suitable candidates for us.

But firstly, as we have already said, there are no suitable ones in principle. And secondly, the recruitment agency has its own interests. They want to force you to pay as high an employee salary as possible. Simply because their earnings directly depend on how much you pay the person they found.

Therefore, they will do their best to force you to set your salary higher, and threaten that otherwise they will never be able to find anyone for you, and that people simply will not take such a low-paid job.

And even if you set a high salary, the recruitment agency will only offer you one or two people. And we have already figured out above why you should never hire only one sales person.

Thus, our only option for organizing a sales department is to hire salespeople from scratch, from the free market. That is, we must recruit candidates ourselves, organize a competition, and then train those who remain. Only in this case will you have a real sales team. And this will be the second stage of building a sales department.

The second stage of building a sales department

You can read more about the competition in the article . And after hiring people, we still need to make a team out of them.

Don't forget to download my book. There I show you the fastest way from zero to the first million on the Internet (a summary from personal experience over 10 years =)

See you later!

Yours Dmitry Novoselov

You tried hard, diligently performed your duties, stayed late at the office on weekdays and went to work on weekends. Eventually, the company management noticed this and made you head of the department. Once you move past the initial euphoria of the appointment and the much desired (or unwanted) assignment, you begin to realize that in this difficult task you need to develop leadership and personnel management skills from the very beginning.

The first thing a novice department head needs to get used to is that you cannot do all the work yourself, even if you objectively understand that you can complete all the tasks assigned by management faster and with better quality than your entire department combined. And this cannot be done for two reasons. Firstly, your employees must constantly learn new things and grow professionally, and secondly, they must feel responsible. If you do all the difficult tasks yourself, then they will never begin to grow as professionals, and you may simply “strain yourself.”

The second thing a novice manager will have to learn is to set the task correctly. That is, calmly and clearly explain to the subordinate what exactly, in what form and by what time it needs to be done. At the first stage, you need to talk through every moment, and not expect that employees will understand you perfectly. Each manager has his own style of presenting tasks, and it takes time to achieve mutual understanding in the department.

The third thing a manager will have to learn to do is understand his employees. Each of them has their own temperament, character type, professional and life experience. On the one hand, this makes the manager’s work more difficult, on the other hand, it allows the department to carry out the tasks assigned to the department as efficiently as possible. However, at the initial stage, you need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each: some do the main work more carefully and responsibly, some constantly offer creative ideas, some are distinguished by high speed of work. A task that, in its internal content, meets the needs and interests of the employee himself, significantly increases motivation and productivity.

It is equally important for a novice manager to learn how to properly supervise personnel. Constant “twitching” causes irritation in them, which can gradually develop into an open challenge to authority. When distributing tasks, it is best to stipulate deadlines for the provision of interim reports, indicating both the positive aspects and the difficulties that arose during the completion of the work. This will allow not only to monitor the employee’s activities, but also to better understand the process, which is especially important for those managers who are new to the specifics of this work.

And most importantly, learn to respect your employees, give them a second chance, but at the same time remember that it is important not only to complete the task, but also to create a team that can perform complex tasks again and again.

When starting work in a new position, you must organize everything correctly. We must remember that it is the development of the sales department that is an important component in planning the activities of the entire company. Our article will tell you about all the features of this process and highlight the key points that a manager should pay attention to.

What will it take to create or improve an existing product sales department? This is the following:

Formulation of main goals.
Development of a convenient .
Determination of forms of work with the client base.
Key performance indicators of the sales department.

Objectives and directions

Competent organization of work always begins with setting the right tasks and choosing priority areas. The main structural goal here should be such a distribution of responsibilities so that the team acts as a single whole. We must not allow any employee to pull the blanket over himself, wanting to stand out in front of his superiors. Productivity will increase significantly, and sales will increase along with it, when each employee clearly knows his assigned area of work. When creating a suitable organizational structure, it is worth remembering that sales must be continuous and stable, and the division of labor must be beneficial for the company.

When creating a suitable organizational structure, it is worth remembering that sales must be continuous and stable.

Goals largely depend on the company's sales policy. They may be as follows:

Obtaining constant financial profit.
Satisfying customer demand.
Capturing the desired market share.
Improving the company's image.

Sales Managers

The main link in the sales department, on which everything rests, is the sales manager. This specialist must be qualified, passionate and able to sell. Excellent managers are made from people with psychological education who know how to approach clients. Don’t forget about it, which is carried out on average once every two months. Training is necessary when salespeople do not have a good understanding of product characteristics and current programs.

Usually, when labor is divided, small departments appear. Some employ managers who specialize in negotiations, letters and meetings with clients. Others have employees responsible for cold calling and email. And in the third there are people involved in advertising.

Management Tools

Control is the key to the success of the sales department. It is important to choose a good one so that employees work hard. Incentives act as motivation: material and intangible. Material ones are always more efficient, but not all companies can afford it. Intangible ones are also effective and do not require special costs on the part of the company. This includes certificates, badges, verbal and written thanks, cups, etc.

Control is the key to the success of the sales department.

Errors

Proper formation is the key to success, but novice managers make mistakes at this stage. Let's look at them:

Savings on employees.
Creating competition in the team.
They do not give workers proper rest.

Without sales, a company operating in the trade sector cannot have a future. Therefore, building and opening a modern and effective sales department is half the battle. After this, you can hope for profit and development of the company. In our article, we tried to answer the question of how to create a sales department from scratch, and we hope that our advice will be useful.

Any rapidly growing company, sooner or later, is faced with the fact that one or two managers are not enough to ensure a high level of sales. Then managers think about organizing a sales department. Read our article about how to create a division, the stages of building it from scratch and what functions it will perform.

How to organize a sales department from scratch

Create a sales department from scratch – the task is quite difficult, requiring time, financial costs, certain knowledge and organizational skills.

Of course, the relevant specialists can be “puzzled” by building a sales department – marketers or heads of sales departments with many years of experience who know exactly what “rules” the work of this department in the company is based on.

But is it possible for a manager to “create” a sales department from scratch on his own? Experts answer this question with an unequivocal “Yes!” But the construction of the sales department will be correct, and the work of the division will subsequently – effective, only on the condition that when solving this problem, the manager adheres to the correct strategy, goes through all the stages of creating an effective sales department, and correctly calculates the resources spent.

At the planning stage of creating a sales department from scratch, the manager must complete a number of basic tasks:

Formulate the goals of creating a future sales department;
Think over the structure of the sales department, work out the issue of hiring employees;
Determine the amount of financial resources that the company has at its disposal to create a sales department;
Regulate all processes in the activities of the sales department;
Determine the timing of the creation of a new unit;
Automate the work of the sales department using special services and programs.

But the most important thing in this regard – it's goal setting. That is, the manager should know what his ideal “sales department” should be like?

Here is an approximate list of requirements that are “presented” to a well-functioning sales department:

All sales managers work equally effectively;
The sales plan (for a week, a month, a year) is always fulfilled;
The work of each employee for any period of the sales department can be easily assessed, that is, you can find out how many calls were made, how much the client base has expanded, and a report for each day of work “falls” on the desk of the head of the sales department;
The level of interaction between other employees and departments with the sales department remains at a consistently high level; the success of sales as a whole depends on working “in complex”;
Correct working structure of the sales department. We are talking about both the correct distribution of sales stages between sales managers and interaction with clients, and about the structure within the department itself, in which tasks and functionality are clearly delineated;
Sales of goods or services in the department are carried out stably and continuously.

This is just an approximate list of the main tasks that a manager sets for himself, which can be supplemented. In general, in many areas of business, the sales department is a division consisting of several sales managers, led by one person.

With the program for automating the work of the Business.Ru store, you can easily set plans for your subordinates and track the percentage of their implementation. The motivation system will become transparent and the seller will be able to understand for himself how much he earned and for what.

Stages of building an effective sales department

Having set priorities and determined the main goals for which the sales department is being created, the head of the company or the person in charge can begin the phased implementation of this idea.

Development of the structure of the future sales department

As a rule, the sales department is built on a three-level system – this “model” of the unit’s functioning is the most optimal. These levels are based on the levels of interaction with clients:

First level – the level at which the search for potential clients is carried out. This could be collecting information about city companies based on general databases, or “generating” clients from the site after they register or order a “call back”;
The second level within the three-level sales department organization system – this is the main level at which the “processing” of potential clients is carried out, all of whose data is received by managers from the first level. Make “cold” or “warm” calls to potential buyers;
The third level of the three-level system of the “average” sales department – These are employees who work with regular customers. All customer data is transferred to managers immediately after the first sale.

Experts recognize that the structured work of the sales department at these three levels is optimal, the costs required when building such a system are minimal, and the speed of organizing the work will be maximum.

Determining the size of financial investments

Of course, creating a new division “from scratch” will require additional costs: both one-time and monthly. One-time costs include the costs of organizing employee workplaces, including personal computers, the Internet, and telephony.

Monthly costs include renting the premises in which the sales department will work, wages for each of the department employees, subscription fees for the Internet, and PBX.

According to the most rough estimates, creating a sales department per employee will cost the company between 400 and 500 thousand rubles. Payback of these costs – The issue is controversial and it depends on how effectively each newly hired sales manager will work.

How to build a sales department from scratch? Video

Regulation of all work processes of the sales department

A truly important task in creating a sales department is the regulation of all work processes, that is, the establishment of rules by which the work of the entire department will be carried out. This is necessary so that the sales process is not chaotic, where each sales manager works with clients as he pleases, records are not kept, and the areas of responsibility of each employee are not delimited.

All rules for the work of the sales department must be described in the basic regulations. These include:

Rules for working with new clients;
Rules for working with regular clients;
Rules for maintaining the company's client base;
Clarification of the boundaries of responsibility of each employee of the company, as well as the rules for the collaboration of managers and executives;
Rules for working in CRM programs, creating reports, maintaining statistics, etc.

All these documents should not be “theoretical”, they should be the most useful and practically applicable rules (constantly supplemented), a living and detailed description of the work of each employee at all stages. But, at the same time, all regulations for the work of the sales department should be as clear and concise as possible.

An individual approach to employees will help you find a service to automate the work of a Business.Ru store. Enter a personal daily routine for each employee, check the to-do list of your subordinates and, if necessary, adjust it.

Search for sales managers

This task is truly not easy, since it is difficult to select real professionals to work in the sales department today. Try to look for sales managers with at least minimal experience, and after the employees are hired, train them, conduct trainings, exams, try to get employees to practice more.

Another main task when organizing the work of a sales department “from scratch” – This is the appointment of a department head. They, of course, should also be either a company employee or an externally hired specialist with extensive experience in a similar position.

At the initial stages of creating and forming a sales department, the manager can work with key clients; his tasks will also include the formation of regulations, the creation of sales scripts, automation of the sales department, the formation of a client base, etc.

Automation of the sales department

The next important step in building an effective sales department – this is the automation of business processes and, first of all, we are talking about CRM systems – customer relationship management systems.

Within the framework of these programs, all business processes of the company are supported, including the collection, storage and analysis of all information about the company’s clients, databases, etc. But the most important function that CRM programs perform – This is a system for monitoring the work of sales managers.

All reports in such systems are generated automatically based on the data entered by each employee during the work process. Using a CRM program, the head of the sales department can track the work of each department employee online, know at what stage negotiations with clients are or at what stage – sales.

In addition, the manager receives an analysis of sales and profits and can evaluate the performance of each manager, the implementation of the plan, etc.

Each company can independently select a suitable CRM program or program for automating business processes, especially since today there are a great variety of them – at different prices and with different functionality.

Users have long appreciated the convenience, functionality and simplicity of the online service for automating work.

This service has a built-in CRM system that allows you to manage relationships with clients, conduct productive work with leads, control mutual settlements, and also increase the efficiency of sales managers.

In the online service “Business.Ru”, the entire history of interaction with clients is stored in a special database; employees and the head of the company receive an automatic notification about a change in the status of an order; There are such features as “Tasks”, “Appeals”, “Knowledge Base”, multi-tasking calendar, built-in IP telephony, as well as the ability to send SMS and e-mail through your own email client.

The sales department of any modern company will be able to “possess” all this convenient functionality in a very short time. Anyone can try the online service “Business.ru” and evaluate all its capabilities right now using a free plan, which will be available to the user for two weeks.

Any division of a company consists of different people with all their inherent strengths and weaknesses. We are all different in education, experience and length of service, leadership abilities, organizational abilities, and psychological type. Whether a team will work out or not will depend on the compatibility of the workers with each other. How to competently organize the work of a sales department? The answers are in our article.

Building a sales department– the process is not easy and responsible. The success of the company as a whole and the effectiveness of the team in particular depend on how the manager reacts to the formation of the sales department. Let's take a closer look at the issue of creating sales department in a small business that will be useful.

According to a study by hh.ru, businessmen are in greatest demand on the labor market. This trend is not accidental. It is in the sales department that the most pressing issues are the construction of work processes, lack of personnel and staff motivation. Often in large companies the work is well established, but in small businesses the wheel is reinvented. How to quickly and efficiently organize the work of a commercial service?

Let us immediately note that when building a sales department, neither age nor gender influence teamwork in any way. Managers should be selected based on their learning ability. After all, an employee who delves into work for a long time, several months, “slows down” in negotiations, fills out documentation incorrectly, and will irritate more experienced colleagues or colleagues who grasp everything on the fly.

Best article of the month

If you do everything yourself, employees will not learn how to work. Subordinates will not immediately cope with the tasks that you delegate, but without delegation you are doomed to time trouble.

In this article, we have published a delegation algorithm that will help you free yourself from routine and stop working around the clock. You will learn who can and cannot be entrusted with work, how to correctly assign a task so that it is completed, and how to supervise staff.

As practice shows, when forming a sales department, it is not always possible to immediately find and hire an energetic manager. Therefore, you should not refuse the services of slower employees. If there are 2-3 such people in the sales department (and these will most likely be newcomers), feel free to unite them under the mentorship of a more experienced colleague. This will help quickly adapt the employee.

Depriving employees of bonuses: when to take strict measures

Solution one. “Balancing” the department structure

Of course, the principles of building a sales department primarily depend on the manager and his ability to organize and motivate his subordinates.

This typology of creating a sales department can be controversial and, of course, individual for each company. Nevertheless, determining the type of manager will allow you to approach the selection of employees more seriously in the future. It doesn’t matter who heads the sales department - you or a hired manager. It will be important for both you and him to build a balanced department.

In our company, we conditionally divide the sales service into three groups: “the best,” “performers,” and “newcomers.” Each group performs the same functions: searching and attracting clients, processing orders, tracking documents and payments. The largest group is “newcomers”, the average number of employees is among the “performers”, respectively, “the best” is a small group. If the sales department consists of 20 people, the division is as follows.

The transition from one group to another directly depends on the performance of each employee over a certain period of time and is reflected (adjusted upward) in sales plans. It is advisable to maintain a balance and try to ensure that over time the number of managers in the “best” group does not exceed the “performers”. To do this, at a minimum, it is necessary that all sales vacancies are filled, and, at a maximum, it is necessary to periodically test sellers for compliance with the category and regularly recruit newcomers.

Sales managers: economists and technicians

Sergey Denisov,

commercial director, DPD

Our experience in forming a sales department shows that commercial services, as a rule, are recruited by people with economic or technical education. The former understand the company's business, economic relationships, think globally and see the whole picture, the latter speak the language of numbers, delve into the characteristics of the services provided in detail and scrupulously, and are able to implement the most complex individual projects for clients.

Starting specialist positions are often filled with employees who have no experience in personal negotiations and sales, but really want to develop in this direction. It is considered normal for a manager to hold a starting position for two to three years. Then, improving his qualifications, he is transferred to a higher position: leading manager, key account manager, or even regional director.

There is an opinion that building a sales department and creating an effective team is possible with the involvement of qualified and experienced sales managers from other companies or industries, offering them an attractive compensation package. This is not always the case: an employee, being a “star” in one company, will not necessarily repeat great success in a new place. It is extremely important not only to rely on professionals who have proven themselves in the market, but also to develop your leaders from gifted newcomers. That is, to raise “stars” within the company.

Solution two. We motivate employees

An important part of building a sales service is motivating employees. If you underestimate their work, they may leave the company, in which case you can forget about organizing a balanced department; you will have to solve one problem: how to fill vacancies. At the same time, if you overestimate, then managers will have no incentive to grow and move from group to group.

We use the following financial incentive scheme: managers of any group receive the same fixed percentage of sales, for example 20%. The main difference between the groups is the different “fireproof” amount, the minimum that they will receive in the event of unsatisfactory performance results. Let’s say the salary of “newcomers” is 15 thousand rubles, “performers” is 25 thousand rubles, “the best” is 40 thousand rubles.

In order to rise to a higher level, it is necessary for a certain period, for example, six months, to show the highest sales results in the group, and in order to drop to a lower level, to receive a bare salary, say, for three months in a row.

Non-material motivation can include the provision of voluntary health insurance and corporate events, as well as the technical characteristics of computers (leaders have more modern ones, with a large number of instant messengers and programs), the quality of workplace arrangement, the amount and time of leave, payment for cellular communications, and, ultimately, the availability coffee machines in the office of a particular group.

Non-material incentives can also include a free or flexible work schedule, additional days off, the possibility of promotion, and the absence of a strict dress code. I know a company where special recognition cards are used as non-material rewards, which any employee of the company can sign and give to their colleague or manager, and each department head comes up with a special prize that is given to subordinates for achievements that are important to the company. The prize can be anything, it depends on the imagination of the donor: hand-made postcard, flash drive.

Non-material incentives have been the main way of motivating our company’s employees for many years. As a rule, the first results appear within 7–9 months (time to adapt to the new operating mode) from the moment the method is introduced: the efficiency of workers increases, managers begin to serve a larger number of clients (on average 1.5–2 times). An increase in the number of clients entails a proportional increase in turnover and greater profits.

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The sales manager must be insured by another employee

Svetlana Nezhintseva,

manager and owner, souvenir service “Semitsvet”

In a classic sales department, almost all stages of work are concentrated in the hands of the manager. And the success of the entire company ultimately depends on how competently an employee manages a client. But the client associates the company with its employees; this approach is not always effective: if one manager behaves incorrectly or illiterately, the company may lose a good partner.

Here it is possible to establish a control and reporting system with the involvement of supervisors, senior managers and heads of sales departments. You will waste time, and the reports will not reveal the real state of things. When communicating with a client, it is important how the manager presents himself - his intonation, mood and interjections. Moreover, the corps of controllers also needs control; this will lead to an inflated staff and an increase in costs.

We moved away from the principle of “one deal - one manager” and distributed the stages of communication with clients by function. In addition to the sales manager, two to four more company representatives interact with the client. Each stage of the relationship is prescribed and regulated by speech modules, documents and deadlines. Compliance with business processes reduces the risk of overlaps, errors, and “forgetting” about a particular order or request. All information - from client data to transaction features - is recorded in a simple multi-user database, to which all participants in the business process have access.