Most media sales organizations can get a 5 to 20% increase in revenue with a rarely used but very basic sales management coaching idea.

As organizations have become more flat, most media sales organizations do not have enough sales managers to properly supervise each advertising sales rep.  Managers are also busy selling and taking on other non-supervisory functions.

In a well-managed sales department, the sales manager needs to have a personal, face to face meeting with each sales person weekly.  This is not high tech so many sales managers skip this basic supervisory step.  The meeting covers past and future activities, discusses big dollar presentations and allows the rep to get personal coaching.  The manager needs to keep detailed notes on the session and use these notes as part of next week’s meeting for follow up on specific items discussed.

This personal meeting allows the manager to quickly assess what is going on with the rep.  If the rep is performing poorly, the meeting lets the manager and the individual focus on specific performance issues.  If this is a high performance rep, the meeting is used to turbo charge the rep with discussions about new presentations, high dollar ideas and other issues that help the rep do even better.

Sports teams have known for years that good coaching helps win more games.  Media organizations need to use weekly meetings with each rep to improve coaching and performance.

This is one of the best ways to create a winning sales department.  Most neglect this but it helps a sales department excel.