Top Producers & Sales Managers Can Improve Sales Quickly by Delegating

One common sense but often overlooked way to improve sales involves delegating certain activities. Top producers and sales managers often are saddled with a myriad of other responsibilities including: scheduling, database maintenance, budgeting, compliance, and office management. Delegating may sound like common sense, and it is, but if you look around you'll notice that despite its logic, few organizations fully practice it.

Many firms could improve profitability by simply delegating most of these other responsibilities. The results can really be impressive. For instance, if a top producer or producing sales manager is currently generating $500,000 in commissions but spending 30% of their workday engaged in non-sales activities, then freeing up some or all of that time by delegating probably makes financial sense. The time saved through delegating could be applied toward additional sales activities. Using the above example, if 30% more time were applied toward making additional sales; it might translate into a 30%, $150,000 increase in sales commissions.

In the short run delegating can create an additional burden on the person to whom the work is being delegated. However, in the long run, some of the added sales commissions could be used to hire another person, if necessary, to handle the delegated duties on a regular basis. Even if the additional person were to cost say $40,000 - $50,000 in annual salary, the net improvement in commissions would still be $100,000 to $110,000, not too shabby for simply shifting a few responsibilities around. Some organizations will be able to delegate without the need for a new employee, just by distributing the responsibilities among existing administrative staff.

The idea is simple, find a way to take non-sales tasks away from top producers. By doing so, you may be able to quickly improve the bottom line. Even delegating seemingly simple to do tasks like teeing up a new customer or prospect in the database, scanning or copying documents, or faxing new account applications, filing, etc can help free-up a top producer's time. Time that can be better spent improving sales.