Sales organisations have been urged to clearly define their strategies when recruiting sales workers to ensure productivity and efficiency. 

According to sales expert and trainer, Mawuli Ocloo, many sales organisations are not sure of the specific number of workers to employ and end up recruiting more than necessary with the ideology that the workers will fall out with time.

“This is one challenge a lot of sales agencies are facing. They don’t know how many sales people they need…say as many as possible and the idea is let them come.

"After a month, we’ll churn out maybe five, after month two, we’ll churn out another five, after month three, survival of the fittest. Those who are fit will stay, it’s an ad-hoc we don’t know.”

He outlined further that it is important sales organisations prioritise the size of their sales force to ensure productivity and effectiveness.

“So, it’s important also for businesses to as it were calculating the number of sales workers; how many they need. Otherwise what they do is, management of the sales becomes a problem, you may attract sales people who are not effective or who are not even fit for sales; and worse of all, you’ll end up with no productivity.”

Setting the pace for MasterClass’ September’s edition, Mr. Ocloo emphasised that the foundation upon which a sales organisation can be built is a clear strategy.

Using the business-to-business environment scenario, he made some recommendations these organisations could consider as they prioritise their customers before employing sales workers.

“Your strategy must be clear which means, you must be clear about your target markets, your ideal customer profile and to the extent that you define clearly the kind of people that your sales people should be talking to.

“If you’re selling in a B2B (Business-to-Business) environment, who are the decision makers? You need to identify the various decision makers, the influencers, the subject matter expects etc. Even if there’s a B2B consumer, you must be clear as to who takes the decision and who influences.”

The sales expert also indicated that the distribution models sales organisations use play a pivotal role in the final decision of the customer.

“So your distribution model is very important, is it going to be field sales? If it is field sales, are you going to sell directly to the customer or you are going to use distributors? That is a question that ought to be answered.

“If so, are you going to build key account routes that will connect with companies that you want to be selling to? Note that it is very important.”