One of the line items that most managers and businesses seem to ignore are the opportunity costs of their employee’s time. Opportunity costs are defined by the fact if your employees spend their time on one task then the task they don’t complete is the opportunity cost.
Managers need to review procedures and practices to keep their operation streamlined. Offices that are overwhelmed by paperwork need to review what actually vital information is needed. If your staff is bogged down with repetitive and excessive documentation then that needs to be reevaluated.
Sales is one area that businesses seem to push for excessive paperwork from their staff. Offices have call logs to monitor how many calls and who was contacted. Next a call log documents who was called, when and a summary of the conversation. On top of this many sales staffs have to prepare daily, weekly or monthly reports to summarize for their bosses the same information that can be found on the call logs. Other reports that come up involve listing hot leads you have or are going to approach and where you are as far as contacting and identifying the decision maker.
All of this information is important especially for management to keep track of their sales staff. Without a strong sales force you can’t expect your business to grow especially in this economic climate. This information can help management identify staff that is having issues or needs extra support to close the sale. But the multiple reports can also eat up your sales peoples’ time that could be better spent going after new business.
Managers need to keep the lines of communication open with the sales team to go over procedures and come up with a system that gives management updates on their time but doesn’t hinder them from being able to close more sales.
Do you agree that the sales staff needs to have guidelines but still have the freedom to get the work done or have tips on how to do this?
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