There’s no surprise that your sales team is the face of your business. If you’re managing one, then there are high chances you’re burdened with the mammoth responsibility of facing unknown challenges every day.
If you agree with everything you have read so far, you are on the right path. We’ve outlined how sales companies and businesses can run their sales team efficiently for higher revenue and success.
Common sales challenges
You know that your sales team has the relevant experience and skillset required to sell, and yet, their sales results are not as expected. Here’s why.
Most of the challenges that sales reps face stem from the fact that they are unable to decipher the objective of your business. Your sales reps are most likely to overlook these challenges and try to continue selling. Take a look at the few common sales challenges that are bound to affect your sales results.
Lack of a defined timeline for the sales cycle
Inefficient training resulting in poor communication with prospects
No proper feedback or response from the prospect while negotiating
Inability to accept and deal with rejection
Balancing sales and administrative work
No collaboration with the rest of the team
To help you overcome the said challenges, we’ve lined up some excellent strategies and solutions below!
Foolproof tips for successful sales team management
Train them right
Coaching or mentoring is an integral part of the learning process and incentivizing your team with valuable proven strategies and resources is sure to boost sales metrics.
Take some time out to identify the most effective ways to train your team on the product and their interpersonal skills as well. Put together a specially designed toolkit, that will help them become experts. Investing in their training process ensures higher retention of strategies and promotes team collaboration as well!
Set SMART goals
Setting goals for sales is a conscious and major effort. Make sure the goals are realistic and attainable for your team while expanding their abilities. There’re a number of goal-setting frameworks that you can use to chart out goals and KPIs. For instance, SMART is a pretty straightforward goal-setting framework that can come in handy. SMART an acronym for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely.
Specific - Having goals with a tangible target will make your goals achievable.
Measurable - The goals should be under your scrutiny and be measurable at every step of progress or decline.
Attainable - Make sure that your targets are achievable and not beyond the capability of the talent in your company.
Relevant - The goals should be in-sync with the company’s objectives. It should not bifurcate into an irrelevant direction.
Timely - Set time constraints to all the goals. They should meet the expectations within the deadline.
Source: https://www.kazoohr.com/resources/library/how-to-set-smart-goals
Choose a suitable sales model
Establish a sales model early on, to avoid any confusion. We cannot emphasize enough how important it is to clearly add structure and define roles and responsibilities! There are two kinds of sales models, traditionally.
Assembly Line Sales: The assembly line model delegates duties into four sub-teams. The teams are customer success associates, account executives, sales development reps, and the lead gen team. Every team works with the customers and any possible leads. This model is appropriate for big and established businesses that need to divide tasks among many employees.
Island Sales: The island model has a more traditional way. In this model, the sales staff is capable of generating leads and closing deals on their own. This model is usually found in startups.
Each structure has its own set of benefits. The assembly line model allows handing over the lead to different teams with specific duties. On the other hand, the island model allows individual sales representatives who focus on a single customer. Based on your company size and your objectives, go for a model that works for you or combine both to create something that fits your needs.
Ensure clear segmentation of roles and duties
Delegation of duties and roles helps divide the work and the challenges associated with it among many people to reach results with higher efficacy. As a leader, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your sales team will be the defining factor of successful delegation.
“Use the volume-versus-value ratio” -Aaron Ross
Segment your team based on their skill sets and specialties. Here’re the broad categories commonly found in any sales team model:
Inbound lead qualification
Outbound prospecting
Closing new business
Continued customer success/management
Assign your sales reps to individual segments to propel them for success, plus you can divide and conquer as well!
Measure your sales team performance
Building good sales habits comes from experience. However, it helps if you create processes that measure the performance of your sales reps. This will help you have a better grasp of the sales team. Create a process that is oriented on key sales metrics.
Rev-up your sales team with data and technology
Nurture and enrich your sales reps with data by giving them the right set of tools. Make sure you’ve automated manual processes and mundane administrative work. Introducing cloud-based customer relationship management systems like Pipedrive makes collaborations and tracking clients easier. Equip your sales reps with the right tech stack, so they can focus on selling and tracking their customer’s journey.
Make transparency the thumb rule
Build transparency within the team makes them feel valued and empathize with the objectives of your business. Confirming and clarifying the commission structure to the sales team will enable them to understand their performance. Also, if you keep the performance metrics open to all, your sales reps will start competing to get the best performer titles.
Pipedrive has made pipeline management easy and transparent with the deals view! You get a bird’s eye view of how many open deals each sales rep has, deal stages, which deal requires your attention and so much more. This gives your sales reps more control over action items and helps them stay motivated as well!
Promote collaboration
HubSpot Research's survey of salespeople revealed that more than half of them rely on their peers to get tips for improving. 44% looked to their manager, 35% to team training resources, and 24% to the media.
This is enough proof that team collaboration is the key to a well-established sales team. Hold weekly meetings and one-on-ones with your team to discuss their weekly wins, what they worked on, and blockers if any! Your sales reps will feel confident in making decisions for the benefit of the company after talking to you.
Inspire and instill healthy competition
Not every two sales reps are two peas of a pod. They have different outlooks and handle situations differently. Instill healthy competition within your team to motivate them and maximize their capacity and potential. Introduce gamification via your CRM to get your sales reps interested!
Cultivate a culture that helps everyone thrive
Last, but definitely not least, exhibit resilient company culture to bring the best out of your team. Create a positive work environment where everyone feels empowered and valued. Drive your sales reps to success by sharing a common vision, defining expectations, and holding them accountable. Cultivating a positive thriving company culture is definitely not easy, but is something that has a greater impact on your team and their results!
Wrapping up
Sales without a doubt is challenging. But, with the right solution and sales techniques, it can be tackled. There are many tools in the market that not only allow you to create customized sales reports but help in managing your complete sales pipeline effectively. For instance, Pipedrive’s intuitive and easy-to interface, data-driven dashboards, and out-of-the-box native integrations are sure to set your team up for success. Curious to know more? Book a free Pipedrive consultation with us today!