Manage your sales staff
Joint Sales Calls

This is one in a series of articles on approaches to enhancing sales management performance. The articles include coaching, appraising, motivating, managing hiring, territory management and many others.

Having the sales manager along for a sales call is not always easy. Likewise for you, the sales manager, the client/prospect visit is fraught with potential problems.

Joint sales calls make sense in three distinct circumstances:

1. The sales call is of critical importance and the salesperson has requested your assistance
2. The salesperson is new and needs help in terms of product knowledge and or technique
3. The joint call is a regular part of the sales manager's approach to evaluating performance and or keeping in touch with the marketplace.

Here are some tips for making joint sales calls more effective.

1. Plan the call:
   • Discuss the goals of the call
   • Review the nature and history of the account and 
   • Understand the personalities involved
2. Before the call:
   • Identify who will be responsible for handling the bulk of the call
   • Make guidelines on when you as sales manager should speak up
3. During the call:
   • The rep should address topics he or she can handle
   • You should concentrate on bigger-picture issues or should just keep quiet
4. After you speak up: 
   • Immediately hand control of the call back to the rep
   • Look at the rep to signal that control has passed back from you.
5. Once the call is concluded:
   • Debrief right away preferably within 5 minutes of the call concluding:
     • On whether the goals of the call were accomplished
     • Critique the rep's performance.
     • What could have been done differently? 
     • What's the next step for the account?
   • Ask the rep for feedback on your performance:
     • Shut up and listen
     • The key here is to lead by example be open to learning