the payment collection is becoming more and more important in enterprise sales management. For enterprises, whether the payment can be recovered smoothly determines whether the interests of enterprises can be truly realized. Therefore, recovering loans in the shortest possible time has become a basic principle of modern enterprise sales management.
however, under the social background of modern economic transition, whether the payment collection task of enterprise sales management can be successfully completed does not depend entirely on the enterprise itself, but the key lies in whether customers can cooperate actively and effectively. Obviously, for most customers, the funds are not always in a state of surplus. More importantly, the moral credit of enterprises is deteriorating day by day, and some enterprises are even proud of their arrears and default. In this case, in order to avoid falling into the strange circle of passive operation due to poor payment, enterprise sales management must strengthen the payment work and improve the skills of payment work.
1. Four attitudes towards payment collection
In general, sales and payment collection should be two equally important concepts. However, in actual implementation, it is often difficult to unify them organically. Sometimes, the sales department emphasizes sales; Sometimes, the sales department puts special emphasis on the amount of money returned. These two different attitudes will bring about changes in sales policies in different periods. Although this situation may be rooted in the constraints of external factors, it is a basic problem of enterprise sales management concept to find it from the sales department itself. In other words, the sales department is likely to lack a comprehensive consideration and a consistent strategy in sales and payment collection.
let's study the following sales and payment matrix. The matrix takes "the importance of sales" and "the importance of payment" as vertical and horizontal coordinates respectively, and according to this, the enterprise sales management concept (or behavior orientation) is divided into four types < P > 1. At some time, the enterprise may be influenced by the environment or system, or it may be limited by the ability of the sales supervisor, which makes it difficult to pay enough attention to sales and payment. This kind of behavior orientation is obviously not enough, but enterprises must carefully analyze the reasons and find the appropriate way to solve the problem.
2. Sales-oriented. This means that in the specific sales policy or enterprise sales management, we attach importance to the promotion of sales and despise the payment collection work, especially when enterprises try their best to expand market share. In the face of fierce competition, some enterprises even take delaying the time limit for payment and lowering the payment requirements as a means of promotion, which will inevitably have an impact on future payment work.
3. payment-oriented. At some point, enterprises are likely to have to take the payment collection as the first priority because of excessive foreign debts or financial difficulties. As a result, it is easy to lead to a sharp decline in sales.
4. Strategic orientation. This is a more rational attitude, that is, in the sales management of enterprises, sales and payment are regarded as equally important and considered as a whole. Obviously. This orientation is conducive to enterprises to formulate a relatively stable long-term strategy.
among the above four attitudes, the strategic orientation should be regarded as the best choice, and it is also the basic attitude that enterprises should establish in the payment collection work. However, the implementation of strategic orientation requires that the head of the sales department must have superb enterprise sales management art. In fact, for most enterprises, it is often easy to wander between sales-oriented and payment-oriented. There are many reasons for this situation, but the instability of sales work caused by it is indeed worthy of reflection by every enterprise. Therefore, no matter how difficult it is to implement strategic orientation, it is necessary for the head of the sales department to study the possibility of its operation in order to achieve the healthy development of the enterprise.
second, the key link of payment management
to improve the quality of payment work, the fundamental problem is to strengthen management, mainly to handle the following key links:
1. objectification of payment work
objectification is the basis of payment management. To correctly implement the target, first of all, enterprises are required to determine the payment target in different periods according to the sales situation, and write it into the sales plan of enterprises in each period. The sales plans of some enterprises usually only specify the sales volume and market share, but ignore the arrangement of payment collection tasks, which is obviously not conducive to the development of sales work.
the goal of payment collection not only means the establishment of the enterprise's payment collection goal, but also the most critical step is to scientifically decompose the overall payment collection goal of the enterprise and finally implement it in detail to each salesman. For enterprises, the decomposition of payment target should be carried out at two levels: first, the decomposition of payment items. Usually classified according to whether the products are normal or not, such as dividing the foreign debts into normal debts of products, abnormal debts, debts that have been removed from inventory, etc. According to this classification, the key accounts receivable and non-key accounts receivable are listed and distinguished in management. The purpose of repayment can also be decomposed in terms of time. For example, for the normal external debt of products, we can also distinguish the preceding paragraph of 1993, the payment of 1994, the payment of 1995 and the payment of 1996, and formulate different repayment policies accordingly.
second, the classified and decomposed payment items should be reasonably distributed according to the market division and contract signing, and implemented on each salesperson. This work is very important, and it is also a prerequisite to ensure the normal development of the payment collection business. This requires that the sales department should not only assign the payment collection task to the subordinate departments in the implementation of target management, but also instruct the subordinate departments to decompose and implement it item by item according to the sales situation. Only in this way, the goal of the payment collection work has practical significance.
2. incentive for payment collection
incentive for payment collection includes two basic aspects: reward and punishment. These two aspects are necessary for the smooth development of the payment collection work, but the reward should be given priority to. In order to correctly implement the principle of incentive, the sales department must make differentiated arrangements according to the differences of objects.
first, the incentive for sales staff. At present, some enterprises' incentives for sales staff are mainly evaluated according to two standards: "advance payment" and "time limit for payment recovery". However, enterprises should further reflect on some provisions on payment recovery in order to make them reasonable. Because the sales work is facing a complicated situation, in order to maintain a certain flexibility, it is necessary for enterprises to make some special provisions on the issue of payment back, such as the reward of full payment in advance, the correlation between advance payment and balance, and the arrears caused by non-sales reasons; Special customers' payment questions, etc., need to be explained in detail.
the second is the incentive for department heads. In most cases, the supervision and implementation of the payment collection work mainly depends on the heads of departments at all levels, so it should be reflected in the reward and punishment measures. Of course, enterprises can determine different reward and punishment standards according to the different nature or quantity of the payment. For example, the reward amount for the old model is larger, while the reward amount for the new model can be relatively smaller.
the third is to encourage customers. The quality of payment collection does not depend entirely on the internal management of the enterprise, but is also closely related to the cooperative attitude of customers. In order to stimulate the enthusiasm of customers to pay, we can make concessions on the total price, and also provide special concessions in spare parts supply, engineering installation and after-sales service.
3. Evaluation and guidance
Evaluation and guidance on the payment collection work is the basic link to ensure whether the payment collection task can be realized, which actually means that enterprises should strengthen supervision and control on the payment collection work. First of all, the leaders of the sales department should establish the strategic orientation of sales work, regard the payment collection as the basic link of sales work, especially those receivables listed in the key payment collection items, and should instruct the relevant departments to intensify their work. Secondly, as the head of the grass-roots department, we should also make a comprehensive consideration of the collection work of this department, and be good at guiding the sales staff to do a good job of collection according to the nature and characteristics of each extra debt. If necessary, it is also required to go to the front line of the payment collection work in person and cooperate with the sales staff to complete the difficult dunning task.
Third, create favorable conditions for the realization of payment
To do a good job in payment collection, we should not only strengthen the enterprise sales management of payment collection, but also be good at creating favorable conditions for the realization of payment collection, that is, improve the payment collection environment through our own efforts, so as to promote the development of payment collection. Creating favorable conditions for the realization of payment collection is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
1. Improving the quality of sales and service
Practice has proved that many payment collection problems faced by enterprises are closely related to their sales and service levels. Unstable product performance, poor quality, or backward after-sales service will all lead to customer dissatisfaction, thus making it difficult to realize the task of payment collection. Enterprises must strive to change this situation. The key is to put the basic concept of modern marketing into all aspects of sales work and completely abandon the influence of traditional sales concepts. In the specific sales work, we should strive to provide customers with first-class products, first-class services, fair trade and honesty. Only in this way can we win the respect of customers and lay a good foundation for the payment collection work.
2. Pay attention to customer credit investigation.
Market transactions are not without risks. In order to minimize the risks of transactions, it is necessary for salespeople to evaluate the credit standing of customers first. There is a kind of customer in the market who pretends to be rich although his purchasing ability is very limited. If the salesperson who supplies him is not careful, he will fall into the trap of buying and selling. In the end, he will face an embarrassing situation of "asking for money without it." On the one hand, the implementation of credit evaluation for customers can consciously avoid some customers with poor credit, on the other hand, it is also convenient to set a "credit limit" for some customers, thus ensuring the safe recovery of payment.
3. Strengthen the training of payment skills
Payment is a highly technical job, and even some experienced salespeople will inevitably show some degree of timidity in the payment work. In order to promote the collection work, enterprises should strengthen the training of sales staff's collection skills. The first is the cultivation of confidence in repayment. Let every salesperson understand that the payment is a legitimate business activity, and there is no need to feel sorry for it. Secondly, we should cultivate various dunning skills, such as emotional dunning, convenience dunning, will dunning, relationship dunning and so on. Of course, when choosing various dunning methods, we should be good at combining time, place and environmental conditions and make flexible arrangements.
4. institutionalization of payment collection
in order to ensure the normal development of payment collection, enterprise sales management should strive to institutionalize payment collection. The so-called institutionalization of payment collection work means that enterprises should make clear provisions on all aspects of payment collection work, such as target setting, incentive system, evaluation and guidance, payment collection skills training, and payment collection work coordination, so as to make payment collection work rule-based. Obviously, the institutionalization of payment collection work is a reliable guarantee for creating a good payment collection climate.