Now that christmas is over and the snow’s melted many retailers are counting the costs of a poor trading season. Next, Waterstones and HMV have all announced fewer sales compared to the same time last year and store closures are expected. With families feeling the VAT rises and inflationary pressures sales are unlikely to improve quickly.

Many companies have been telling me that 2011 will be the year where sales will be vital to survival. The tactic to improve sales team results seems to be to increase targets and take the sales team on an away day to “align sales with core functions and client needs for the next twelve months”.

In my experience, away days where management sweeten a bitter pill of increased sales targets and restructured sales territories with “improved and innovative marketing initiatives” don’t increase motivation nor improve the way sales people approach potential customer’s needs and certainly don’t last more than a week, far less twelve months.

If one must have an away day then it needs to be linked with a measured programme of change that covers a long period and where changes in direction can be identified and implemented more easily.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 5th, 2011 at 10:31 am and is filed under Sales relationships.