By Ahmed al-Akber/Manama


You must grow sales by 25% this year. The future of the company depends on it. I wish you all the success. Go get ‘em!”. This is the all-too-common story of the sales rep that receives an instruction from his sales director. After hearing it, he thinks to himself: “How am I going to do that?”
As common as this scene is, it is also understandable. The sales director has been instructed by the CEO that he needs to double the company’s sales turnover within the next four years, so he is under considerable pressure to perform. Likewise the CEO is under pressure from the board and shareholders who have high expectations of the company’s performance.
So the sales director fires off the e-mail to his sales reps with the results he wants. While this form of “managing by results” may seem like the right thing to do, it does not include a plan, and that’s where many businesses with mighty revenue growth aspirations fail. Here’s why:
Results are attained by achieving objectives. Take for example the result handed to the sales reps: “sales revenue growth of 25%”. To achieve that result, objectives must be set that support it. Objectives such as “grow new product sales by 40%” and “expand into two new geographic markets within six months” are examples.
These objectives support the results you wish to achieve, and it’s clear that if the objectives are met, the results will likely follow. This is a plan that helps stimulate action, which is the last missing piece in the puzzle.
To achieve the objectives, some sort of action needs to take place. In other words, the objectives are not going to achieve themselves on their own. Action needs to happen. Someone needs to do something. But what? For the plan to be effective, the activities need to be spelled out.
Take the objective of growing new product sales by 40% as an example. What kind of activities need to be done to achieve that? Perhaps a combination of new product training for the sales reps and activities to build awareness of those new products would be actions that would support that objective.
So results, such as sales revenue growth of 25%, are achieved by accomplishing a series of objectives, and those objectives are reached by carrying out a series of activities. The failure with many firms is in the communication of these objectives and activities.
Management simply communicates the top line, but doesn’t provide much substance as to where to focus to achieve those results.
Sales reps need to be clear on where they should focus so that they are all aligned and not chasing the wrong opportunities.
So as a CEO or someone responsible for a sales team, the next time you are faced with a challenging result that your team needs to achieve, remember to provide clarity not only on the results, but on the plan and how you’re achieving it will lead to the desired results.

♦ Ahmed al-Akber is the managing director of ACK Solutions, a firm that helps companies to improve their marketing and sales results by offering more effective ways attracting customers and significantly better products and services. Ahmed has worked internationally in marketing, sales, and strategic planning at companies such as the Coca-Cola Company, Philip Morris International and Dell. Questions or comments can be sent to Ahmed on ahmed@acksolutions.com