Business Management | BizSieve.com

5 Tips For Sales Manager To Increase Productivity

Working as a sales manager can be a very rewarding and lucrative career, but unless you know how to get the best out of your people, you may not last long in this industry. Here are a a few tips for sales managers to increase the productivity of their staff.

1. Embrace Technology

If you want to get the most out of your staff, you should embrace technological advancements. For example, you could get everyone a specific work app that allows them to collaborate on projects together. With type of work app, your employees will be able to work smarter, and get more work done.

2. Manage Customer Relationships

When you want to increase productivity, it is important to manage your customer relationships more effectively. By using a mobile CRM solution, you’ll be able to provide better service to your customers, while making fewer mistakes. When you use a CRM for mobile application, it will allow your sales reps to get information about their customers on the fly. A good CRM for mobile app can ensure that your employees close more sales, and get more repeat business. There are many mobile CRM apps out there, so be sure to choose the best one for your business.

3. Don’t Micromanage

One of the biggest problems that sales managers have is that they micromanage everything in their department. If you want your staff to be productive, don’t be looking over their shoulder at every moment. You’ll be able to get a lot more out of your staff if you trust them to do their jobs.

4. Provide Incentives

One of the best ways to boost productivity is to provide incentives to your sales staff. For example, give some kind of a financial bonus to the top salesman during a particular period. If you provide incentives, your sales staff will work harder to try to meet your goals.

5. Recognize Top Performers

Although money and other bonuses do provide some motivation, you can’t always motivate people with money. Recognition is also very important to the average person. When someone does a good job on your team, be sure to recognize them for it. By doing this, your employees will tend to work harder and more productive overall.

By employing some of these methods, you may be able to take your sales team to new heights. This will go a long way toward promoting your own success as a sales manager.

About the Author: Steve is a sales expert and enjoys sharing his expertise. He recently wrote about how mobile CRM can help increase a sales team productivty. For more information please visit doubledutch.me

Knowing When it May Be Beneficial for Small Businesses to Outsource Work

Whilst it may appear as if your small business is saving money, handling multiple responsibilities in-house can be both time-consuming and extremely expensive. Granted, you’ve likely decided that the key to business success lies in developing good behaviour. As such, you may see your ability to assume multiple roles and responsibilities as an inherent strength. However, what do you do when those tasks become too much to handle? What do you do when some tasks become too costly to manage in-house? After all, you’re responsible for business development. Doesn’t it just make sense that you focus your efforts elsewhere, instead of rationalising your decision to go it alone? When faced with such a decision, it is important to understand the innumerable benefits of outsourcing. Regardless of whether it includes outsourcing IT, marketing or payroll, there are a number of immediate benefits to choosing an outside firm to handle these day-to-day tasks.

Free Up Valuable Resources: One of the first benefits of outsourcing is how it immediately frees up valuable internal resources. Whether that includes removing timely obstacles for yourself, or your employees, your business is bound to reduce its costs by outsourcing certain redundant and repetitive business functions. You’ll not only reduce your overhead, but you’ll be able to hand over these responsibilities knowing they’ll be managed properly. After all, you’re in the proverbial “driver’s seat.” You are now able to dictate terms of service with your chosen outsourcing firm.

Protect Business Knowledge and Know-How: Your business knowledge is an asset, one that can be stolen, used against you or simply copied. Whilst you may view your employees as loyal and committed to the cause, the reality is that information theft is a going concern for all enterprises. Outsourcing IT reduces the growing concern of theft by protecting confidential and critical data. You’ll be able to upgrade your service capabilities, protect your vital data, and provide remote desktop management to both internal and external customers. Whether that includes providing 24/7 support, or revamping your website with improved online order fulfilment capabilities, outsourcing IT is a cost saving solution that just makes sense.

Reduced Tax Burden: It’s amazing just how many enterprises must cover late, incorrect and incomplete tax filings. Whilst PAYE rules are clearly defined, small businesses still face yearly fines for not properly filling out their returns. However, your small business can immediately eliminate these fines by using an outsourcing firm. In fact, most firms will provide a guarantee that any fees will be reimbursed.

Don’t rationalise your decision to keep these aforementioned business functions in-house. There is an immediate savings to using outside firms, ones who assume full responsibility for a given business function. Reduce your costs and focus on growing your business. In the end, that will not only save you money, but make it easier to grow your enterprise.

Robert Dean has worked in the document shredding business for several years and believes in the importance of data security. He currently works for The Shredding Alliance.

Getting Started: Hiring Your First Employee

You have started your own business recently and it has begun to pick up speed now. As the associated jobs grow more challenging and numerous, it is time for you to hire your first employees to share the burden. But things can go wrong drastically if you do not hire the right person with the right skills. Here are a few points to keep in mind before you hire your very first employee.

Outline the Job Description

Invest enough time in outlining the job description of your future employee based on the tasks that you need the most help with in running your business. Club the tasks that require similar skills to carry out and determine if short term training can equip a new employee to take on some more. This will help you shortlist applicants who have the kind of skills that will prove most useful to you. This job description can also be used to give the candidate a clear picture of the expectations that he/ she will need to fulfill.

employee hiring tips — Image: David Castillo Dominici

Use Referrals to Locate Good Employees

Advertising for the position is perhaps the only way to get the maximum number of applications for the post. However, giving first preference for referrals from friends or industry colleagues is a smart idea.

Also keep in mind that the candidates who are accustomed to working for a smaller concern are more likely to be flexible about taking on new roles or demonstrating initiative with the job. If such candidates come with referrals from trusted colleagues, they should definitely be given due weightage. Those who have experience with a multinational are more likely to work well when they have well established rules and processes to follow.

Background Checks

Once you have identified a few likely candidates, it is time to carry out the background checks. Never overlook this step because a talk with a previous employer can reveal a lot about your future employee’s work ethics, capabilities as well as weaknesses.

If you have asked for three or four references, take the time to check with each and every one of them. Remember that your time is well invested if the information you uncover helps you make a judicious choice of your first employees. Carry out a credit check too, if necessary, especially if the candidate will be handling jobs where financial transactions will be taking place on a regular basis.

Gain an Idea of Pay Scales

Before you start calling in your shortlisted candidates for an interview, it is important that you have a clear picture of what the industry standard is in terms of pay scales for the position you need to fill. Compare notes with peers or look through employment sites to get a good idea of what others are paying candidates for similar job descriptions. Allow yourself the flexibility to offer an enhanced paycheck to exceptional candidates.

Coming Face to Face

The interview is the time when you and your future employee come face to face for the very first time. Remember that your ’employee’ is forming his opinion of you and your business at this time too. Maintain a friendly yet completely professional approach all through so that he gets an idea of the kind of environment he can expect to work in if selected.

Ensure that your questions to him are designed so that you can gauge his industry knowledge, enthusiasm, respect for the employer, ethical values, commitment and passion for his work. It is impossible for you to accurately measure all of these at one go but you can always call shortlisted candidates for second interview too.

About the Author: Penny is an expert associated with Recruiterbox, an online applicant tracking system that helps companies manage their hiring in one place. Many companies previously using email and excel, reduced their hiring hassles by moving to Recruiterbox. Learn more about creative hiring practices and other interesting stories on the Recruiterbox blog.

Using the Downed Economy to Find Quality Contractors for Your Business

In a struggling economy, it becomes more important than ever for companies to make smart staffing choices that will be cost-efficient and practical. For some businesses, this means carefully balancing how many employees you maintain and how much work they’re expected to complete. Overworked employees have reduced productivity, while hiring too many people can negatively impact your bottom line.

Using Contract Workers to Increase Productivity

In cases where the work requirements exceed your current staffing, hiring temporary workers on contract positions can be a great alternative. Due to the economic downturn, more people have turned to freelancing either as a supplement to their current jobs or as a replacement for jobs that have been lost. This means that skilled workers are available to hire on a temporary basis as your projects demand without needing to pay for full-time employees.

Here are a few reasons why hiring contract workers can help your business:

You don’t need to pay for benefits for contract workers, so you can save long-term costs for maintaining your employees.
You can budget enough to complete certain projects without needing to worry about maintaining employees long-term, saving you substantial money over the course of a year.
Contract workers often have specific areas of expertise and are highly-skilled in those areas, making them a better choice for certain projects than your full-time employees.
Hiring contractors removes some of the stress from your existing employee base, increasing their productivity and improving their morale.
Letting contractors go at the end of a project does not have the same associated loss of morale as laying off full-time workers.

Hiring part-time workers isn’t always the best choice for all companies, but it’s often a smart strategy during high-stress times when your business has a heavy workload or specific needs. If you need high-quality, specialized work during certain times of the year, it’s worth looking into hiring part-time workers to complete these projects.

Considerations When Hiring Contractors

Of course, when hiring freelancers and other temporary workers, it’s important to use the same care and consideration you do whenever hiring any other employee. Indeed, it can be smart to assess your contractors more carefully as there are few guarantees of where else the employee may be working. They may be moonlighting for you while working full-time for a competitor, or they may be using their time with you to gain skills or knowledge for a different position.

For these reasons, it can be a good idea to have contractors sign a non-disclosure agreement. This will help protect your information and prevent the freelancer from spreading any trade secrets he discovers while under your employment.

Of course, the majority of contractors are honest and will not divulge any proprietary information, but it pays to be careful. You can also check with other businesses in your field to see if they have any experience with contractors; they may be able to provide recommendations or warnings about freelancers in your area and line of work.

About the Author: Randy Hutcherson is a freelance blogger, who writes about business management topics. If you are interested in furthering your business career, Randy recommends checking out the school with the best online MBA programs.

Sustainable Leadership

Many organisations know how to make a profit, but there is more to running a business than simply making the cash tills ring. Those at the top of a business need to recognise this, and ensure that a healthy organisation is one that builds on the principles of thinking long-term, effective leadership and communication, and nurturing relationships.

It’s easy to think about what needs to be done now to clinch a deal or grab that next lucrative contract, and many workers have the skills to negotiate this, but effective and sustainable leadership is much more than that. So, where does an organisation start?

Knowledge and awareness

Sustainable leadership can only be achieved if the leader is aware that they need to think in a long-term way. They need to know who the organisation is, what its goals are, where it’s heading and how they want to achieve success. It’s a complex process and involves engaging with managers and other members of staff to gain insight and input into how things are being run. Having the skills to manage and monitor this alone is crucial, and often requires external assistance.

Developing skills

Many managers need to develop and hone their skills to become effective leaders. They need to keep abreast of the latest ways of thinking to maintain market competitiveness. Leadership development training is critical to sustainable success and can give leaders the opportunity to inspire others to go that extra mile in their work and to connect strategy to performance. It can help develop skills to allow leaders to connect people to their organisations, see how they fit in, modify change in behaviour and create shared commitment to achieve specific goals. Leadership development enables leaders to communicate to all members of staff the wider picture of how the organisation operates, aside from the day-to-day operations and how what they do contributes to the organisation as a whole. Thinking long term about the business also helps to foster good internal and external relations, retaining both staff and customers.

Action plans and setting goals

Sustainable leadership can only thrive if a leader outlines plans and goals for the organisation, rather than just letting things happen. Recognising what these plans and goals are takes time and commitment, and is often achieved with the help of executive coaching, where professional assistance can be given to help glean out exactly what these plans and goals might be, and where the company is heading. Often, the use of executive coaching not only improves leadership development skills but also unlocks potential and ideas that may have not come to fore without outside input. Sometimes leaders are so wrapped up in the here and now, that they can’t necessarily see the finer detail and how all these pieces of details fit together like a jigsaw.

Sustainable leadership requires expertise to communicate long-term thinking to all members of staff, dispelling the notion that business success is only about the profit share. Long-term market growth and maintaining competitiveness are all vital ingredients for a sustainable, successful business.

About the Author: This post was written by James Harper on behalf of Performance1 experts in leadership development and executive coaching. Please follow this link to find out more about executive coaching and leadership development.