Sales drive company growth. In fact, a sales team is a group of front-liners who are in constant contact with customers to increase revenue for your company. Building a sales team is not simple. You can’t just hire and expect reps to perform. In order to fuel long-term growth, you need to build and scale your sales organization strategically with intention.
The Why And How Of Building A Sales Team
Sales rep has to be inventive, manage and perform. The successful companies hiring reps take into consideration the following:
- The people: They have to be diverse, motivating, inspiring, and passionate individuals
- The process: They have to have the right talent mix
- The organization: They need to communicate, work together, and embrace change
- Understand the culture: Understand what you’re about, the values that are important to your organisation, and the reason you are at where you’re at.
- Understand the leader (or should I say ‘cortex’) : Developing the right leadership team will be instrumental to your success.
Hiring High Performers
The human factor of an organisation is important to sales team growth. If you want a team that consistently delivers great results, hire people who are super motivated, are smart, high-performing and forward thinking. Sales will require a lot of patience. Your reps need to be “eye on the prize” and deliver great results for the business. Hiring high performers doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, and a lot of patience. You need to be willing to spend the time and do the legwork to find the right people. There are a lot of variables when hiring for a sales team.
To develop high performers into long-term employees that will make an impact, make onboarding successful. The first thing you need to do when hiring is make the company culture everyone’s priority. Start off with an impressive onboarding process that includes key coaching steps for improving your recruiting process, knowledge exchange between managers and employees, sales learning, training and more.
Training and Retaining Your Team
Sales reps are the face of your business to customers. They are the people that customers interact with and a sales rep’s performance directly impacts how customers feel about your brand. As a sales manager or manager, you want to encourage your team members to be as successful as possible. They are key people to the long-term growth of your business.
You have to understand your business before you hire. You have to have the specific experience that your company needs. If you don’t, you will over-hire and struggle to keep your sales reps engaged. Before you even start hiring, think about your business. Ask yourself the right questions.
Measuring Your Sales Performance
You need metrics that will allow you to objectively measure and understand the impact of your sales organisation on your business. This is what will give you the depth and insight you need to build your sales organisation. Inevitably, there is a need for better alignment and alignment is a strategic and tactical process that you need to look at when it comes to improving the performance of your sales team. At Bizible, we measure the effect the sales team has on the company and our growth. Here are the metrics that are currently helping us to enhance the performance of our sales organisation: Organic search referrals: Bizible estimates a healthy sales team makes 5,000 to 15,000 lead generation visits a month. This translates to roughly $4,000 to $20,000 a month in organic revenue.
Rewarding Reps Fairly
Many sales organisations reward their sales team based on compensation instead of performance. By rewarding reps based on compensation, you are only incenting them to go out and make sales. People need to know that if they go out and sell, they will get paid and that includes compensation, bonuses, or extra job opportunities. However, you also need to be careful as to not get too tied to sales quotas that are artificial and ultimately unachievable. Compensation is one method of rewarding performance.
Conclusion
In today’s digital era, the expertise, customer base, and market knowledge of an industry will make or break any company. The expert insight provided by effective sales teams is one of the most critical components in driving growth, innovation and competitive advantage for any business. With the right sales strategy and market research, you can build a sales organization that is expert in solving customer’s business problems, maximizing your customer’s loyalty, and driving higher value for your company.
