A robust sales team can catapult your revenue past your projections while a weak sales team can cause you to lose all those lucrative contracts. We’ve gathered a few tips to make it easier for you to create that robust and winning sales team. Let’s begin the journey from scratch.
1. Develop a Successful Interview Process: From initial screening to candidate presentations and reference checks, follow a clear interview process for each candidate. Ensure they possess sales skills like curiosity, drive, flexibility, and integrity in addition to judging the candidate on EQ (Emotional Intelligence) parameters, and make sure the company has the requisite infrastructure and fool-proof plan for the new hires.
2. Offer the Right Salary: Often, the drive to save money proves fatal to the success plans of a company. Remember, if you need a high-quality sales team and do not wish to compromise on their skill level, you should also be ready to pay them well so they stay longer with you and help you grow. Once you select your A-players, train them well.
3. Train Your SDRs: Until your sales development representatives (SDRs) have a lot of experience on their hands, you need to train them on business acumen. Their demeanor should reflect professionalism and they should have a clear workflow to follow. Organize mock sessions to help SDRs understand the workflow and the way they are expected to interact with the clients.
4. Organize Role-plays and Mock Interactions: This helps sales reps to fully comprehend their roles and practice well before they actually speak to the real customers. This gives them an edge over other untrained and inexperienced reps and helps them polish their skills beforehand. During this process, the sales leaders should be quick to spot the weaknesses and help SDRs improve their skills.
5. Recognize Weak Spots and Help to Improve: Every person you hire adds something new to the organization but there may be some weaknesses or a lack of skills holding reps back from exploiting their full potential. This crucial factor can make or break a deal and the trainers/leaders should be able to figure it out and help. Once the SDRs are fully trained, they must be granted the requisite autonomy to own their role and treat it as their own business, and unless there is a need, leaders should not interfere. However, make sure SDRs are fully aware of the company expectations and the available communication channels in case they need help.
6. Establish Clear Communication Channels and Metrics: If your workforce is unsure of the expectations or systems around sales, it creates uncertainty, chaos, and failure. Sales numbers, sales cycle length and company goals should be clearly communicated. So, be specific of the expectations in statistical terms with relevant and measurable metrics, and structured communication channels, and make the right kind of tools available.
7. Make the Right Tools and Data Available: If you are cutting corners or are reluctant to spend on the right sales tools and dataset required, the end result could be lost employees and lower sales. The right investment in sales tools and a clean dataset are prerequisites for a successful team. Additionally, be prepared to add new tools in your arsenal based on suggestions from your team, or help your team if there’s a need. In any case, sales leaders should be well-versed with the entire sales process, latest tools and changing scenarios.
8. Lead By Example: Sales leaders should be able to perform the same job better than their SDRs in order to guide them and justify their role as a leader. If sales leaders cannot resolve queries satisfactorily or are unaware of the latest market developments, they may not be able to command respect for authority and may cause a general discontent among the workforce. So, entrust leadership to someone who can lead by example. Leaders should also be aware of a little more about their employees than what they portray in the office hours.
9. Know Your Employees In and Out of Office: As a sales leader, it’s easy to get swayed by what’s happening now, this week or this month, and forget all about employee development and long-term plans that help reduce attrition and build loyalty. So, take time to get to know more about your sales team, what inspires them, and what they aspire to do in future. Ask them to fill out an annual ‘Personal Development Plan’ and understand how it will help them and your business grow, and encourage a collaborative culture.
10. Encourage a Collaborative Team Culture: Motivate your team to work together and share best practices. They can learn from their mutual experiences, support each other’s efforts and share leads, laying a foundation for a robust team. This collaborative culture can help new hires to interact and learn the tricks of the trade from the veterans and swiftly step up the organization’s hierarchical track. Last, but not least, reward your teams regularly and aptly.
11. Reward Employees: Offering incentives and rewarding team members based on their merit is a healthy practice for the growth of the company and for the sales teams. The company should offer transparency and let meritorious employees grow with clear commission plans and other incentives on top of their base salaries. This keeps up the enthusiasm and the drive to achieve more.
These tips can help improve your company’s bottom line and future growth. Remember, a robust sales team can make all the difference between stagnation and success. So, build a winning sales team and begin your ride to success!!