In the simplest terms, managing a sales team consists of hiring talented sales people, giving them the information about the product they’re selling, giving them the tools they need to sell, and watching the customers filter in. However, there’s a lot more that goes into running a successful sales team than that.
Managing sales takes a lot of hard work on the part of the sales manager in order to see their team hit the goals set for them and continue to grow the business. In the following blog, we will detail how to run a successful sales team and keep your business growing.
How to run a successful sales team
It takes planning, strategy, dedication and execution to run a successful sales team. You will need to provide your reps with more than just the tools to sell. Expecting to hire the right people and hope they figure out how to sell effectively and efficiently won’t get you very far. It takes participation on your part to ensure your team is bringing in customers and maintaining all important business and customer relationships.
Have deliverable goals
Expectations and accountability are important aspects to any position in a company. Without knowing what they’re aiming for, how can a team measure its success?
You should be providing your sales team with goals that are both detailed and attainable. Your team shouldn’t be left guessing on what they’re expected to achieve. This means having your expectations for your team readily available and properly communicated to them.
Perhaps the most important aspect of setting goals for your team is making them both challenging enough to push the envelope but also realizing these goals need to be realistic. This means putting in the legwork to figure out the numbers your team will be able to hit and what will promote business growth.
You should be looking into and researching things like the business you’re in, pricing of similar products, realizing how long you’ve been in the game when compared to your competitors, your client base, and how many leads you produce in a given time period.
Looking back at numbers of previous quarters will also help you develop the proper goals for your team. As a rule, if a few members of your team aren’t meeting the goals, chances are the responsibility falls on those individuals. However, if a majority of your team are consistently missing the goals you’ve set, your goals may need to be altered as they are probably not realistic.
Continue training and development
We mentioned that simply having the tools in place isn’t enough to breed success within your sales team. You want your team to be constantly learning how to better utilize these tools. This means that training and development sessions should be used to empower your team to perform better and more efficiently with what they’re given.
Give your team access to consistent training on things like product information, prospecting, time management, strategizing, role-playing, and effective communication so that they can constantly be learning and adapting. Continuous learning should be a part of your business’s culture.
Communicate regularly
Communication is one of the most important parts to any aspect of a successful business. When it pertains to sales and managing a sales team, proper communication can directly affect how your team performs for your business. Your team needs a constant flow of information covering product changes, industry trends, company news, etc.
Keeping a good communication flow with your sales team will keep each individual in the loop and on the same page as everyone else. This will cut down on mistakes made due to misinformation while also keeping your team engaged in their goals and expectations. Effective communication also helps to eliminate any wasted time trying to dig up information or correcting mistakes that were made by a misinformed team member.
Understand & clarify customer needs
Making sure your sales team has a full understanding of customer needs puts your business in a position to give the customer what they need, when they need it. In order to gather this information to communicate to your team you should be utilizing things like focus groups, researching keywords in your industry, and being present on social media to identify what your customers are looking for.
By understanding all of this, you can create the content needed to provide your sales team with the most effective tools to sell. By having these tools in place and encouraging your team to be in touch with their individual customer needs, you can anticipate future needs.
Encourage quality sales conversations
The sales world has changed over recent years in terms of where customers are getting their information. Chances are, when your sales team members have their first conversation with a customer, that customer will have already done some basic research on the product. This means that your team needs to be immediately and sustainably relevant to that prospect, because if they aren’t, the prospect will disengage – quickly.
By encouraging your team to be properly prepared for what the customer needs before going into a call will greatly improve sales conversations. Have your team do the research on what typical customers are looking for in terms of information by the time they are in contact with your team. Having a goal in place before a call is made, and having information ready for customers that align with that goal, is going to inevitably improve the quality of your team’s sales conversations.
SalesTalk Technologies: Successful sales teams, successful sales
SalesTalk Technologies gives your business the tools they need to ensure you’re able to effectively run your sales team. By streamlining the sales process and providing relevant content to your team, SalesTalk helps you build a successful sales team that will lead to successful sales. Head to our website to request a demo and get your sales team on track to growing your business.