Commercial activity and marketing have become the axis of the business planning of a security company today, that is why the importance of having a qualified commercial direct.
By Adhir Uzcátegui*
In a market where demand has fallen due to competitors that come from other industries such as computing, communications, Direct TV, etc., the management of the commercial director is key.
It is necessary to be able to do more with less. It's about optimizing management. In this sense, the commercial director faces the following challenges:
* Set reasonable sales targets. Given the current context of great competition and low demand it is not realistic to set very high sales objectives, we must focus on the competition not stealing customers, that is, we must make an effort to retain the first customer who is the existing one. As for attracting new customers, you have to assess the recruitment effort you can make within your possibilities.
* Manage adapting the budget to the objectives.
* Establish a correct pricing policy so as not to lose customers or margin. In this sense it is very important to offer added value to the customer, value that in most cases is provided by the sales force that has passed, increasingly, to become a security consultant in a person who gives concrete solutions to specific problems.
In short, the commercial director is a manager of resources and people, being the management that plays crucial for the life of the company because without customers there is no company. But it is the management of people, of your sales team, the main and most complex task that the commercial director faces.
The sales team has to be a team fully involved with the culture of the company because it is in direct contact with the client and, in addition, it is the one who will transmit the image of it.
Our sales team is the face of our security company and therefore the reflection of the soul of it. You have to be decisive, but you also have to be enthusiastic, you have to feel motivated by your work. This is where the commercial director comes in, who has to have a well-formed team or provide the necessary training to be able to be decisive and, in addition, has to keep the team motivated. This is the most important and most complicated point, motivation.
Motivation is what moves us to do something, it is voluntary and predisposed action. The complex thing is to find that engine that is usually particular to each one, each one has its own motivations because each one also has its own objectives.
But, we must not lose sight of the fact that these objectives to which I refer are not only professional but also personal, so the economic incentive by itself will never be enough, it is difficult to find an economic ceiling with which someone feels satisfied.
The organization has to offer something more, it has to make its members feel really part of it, make them participants in the successes and failures (from which you can always get something positive because at least they teach you where you should not step on it again), listening and evaluating their proposals, even their perceptions, they are in continuous contact with the client and with the external reality of the company, they are the window to the outside world for the security company.
With the team involved and motivated, we have a more flexible team open to change. But motivation has its dark side which is demotivation. To fight against it we will count as an ally with the powerful knight: don dinero.
Before I commented that economically no one has a roof, we always want more, my proposal is to establish ranks not by positions but by tasks and responsibilities assumed and, since they are a sales team a variable.
The goal is to avoid comparative grievances and unhealthy competition within the sales team itself. If the problem is that you already have a sales force that you do not want to get rid of because you have it motivated, you know the company, etc., but at the same time you are paying a salary of past times that now supposes an effort to maintain, you have to innovate and establish new tasks that can generate added value to the company so that neither of the two parties loses.
These are, in fact, some brushstrokes that each commercial director will have to adapt to the practical reality of his company and his team.
Happy sales!
* If you wish you can write to the author of this article at email: [email protected]
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