If your organization is not hitting its event sales goals consistently, then as the sales manager you’re responsible. How can you diagnose what and where the problem(s) may be?
Here’s a handy checklist to figure it out:
- As a sales manager, are you within 10% (whether higher of lower) of your total annual sales goals for all events?
- Are you within 10% of each individual event’s revenue goals?
- Does each of your sales reps give you – at minimum – a sales forecast for each show on a monthly basis?
- Are those forecasts consistently within 10% of the number they actually bring in?
- Are your sales goals well aligned with your compensation, as well as that of your sales team?
If the answer is ‘no’ to any one of these questions, you have some work to do. The good news is that you can address any of these issues. As one of my mentors has said, your sales reps should know the revenue they are going to bring in, and it’s the sales manager’s job to help them do it.
The issue may be a matter of better aligning the company’s goals with the activities of your sales team. But that can be hard to figure out if you are not actively measuring and managing the situation. Asking and getting answers to the above questions is a start.
Good luck and happy selling!