The only managers who demand call are suspicious types who don’t trust their sales teams and want a record of weekly activities. And if that’s true, then sadly these managers have the wrong people and, the wrong attitude towards their people. “Too often call reports are demanded simply because someone wants to check up to see that salespeople are doing their job, and that’s the wrong reason (and the wrong tool)”, says Peter Finkelstein of DaiSho Marketing.

A more effective and useful tool than a call report is a Weekly Activity Plan and Forecast.

It is astounding how many managers can’t see the uselessness of the traditional call report. More so if these managers came from the field, where they probably did the same thing and recorded a lot of column fodder, “just to keep the boss happy”. Even if these call reports are accurate so what? Now someone knows that the salesperson faced a difficult prospect, failed to close a deal, lost on price etc. But that’s in the past and there is little that can be done about it – even less that sales managers can learn.

Instead of getting salespeople to record what happened in the past week, get salespeople to forecast what sales and sales activities they will be chasing in the week ahead. The forecast and plan should include who they are going to call on and what they are going to sell. That way sales managers can see, in advance, what support or resources the salesperson may need and be proactive in their support of the sales effort. Weekly Sales Forecasts also provide good indicators of sales performance and productivity.

In weekly sales meetings discussions about sales performance should be based on individual performance against a salesperson’s own weekly forecast. These benchmarks have several key benefits…

• Salespeople can call for support, coaching or resources before they try to make a difficult sale, rather than report the reasons why they didn’t get the deal
• Salespeople learn to plan their activities and become more productive, more focused and more successful
• Sales target achievement is more easily forecast by management when they know what is going to happen, so accuracy is improved
• Sales trends – collective and individual are viewed against a benchmark (i.e. the weekly forecast) which turns the sales operation from a reactive sales force, to a focused, proactive sales team