Sales and Revenue Operations
Sales Strategies
If you are managing a sales team, your job depends on whether or not your reps hit their number.
But what if your team is made up of just average performers?
How do you move those in the middle-of-the-pack to the top?
Or, what if you’ve hired a bunch of new reps?How do you ensure they’re ramped quickly and efficiently?
Before you can answer any of those questions, you need to take a few steps backward. In order to reach quota attainment, each and every sales team needs to follow a sales process, implement structure around goals, and monitor their performance. We’ll cover how to effectively accomplish each of these in our 3-step guide. Let’s start with the basics…Establishing a Winning Sales Process
Every sales team has a sales process, but does it actually enable them to reach quota attainment? Rarely. Your sales process is the heart of your revenue machine. It’s what takes your big picture, sales strategy and empowers your team to make accurate forecasting decisions that will ultimately lead you to your quota goals. At the end of the day, there’s no wrong or right way to hit your number (if you do know what works, go ahead and skip to the next blog in our series). But understanding your market and your company’s internal dynamics will help you reach a solid decision. An easy way to hit the ground running is improving your sales process by observing top performers. On average, star performers usually make up approximately 10-20% of a sales team. Another 60% are middle-of-the-pack, and the last 20% are poor performers. For account executives, this is determined by the pipeline created, the number of deals closed, the amount of revenue brought in, and the overall sales cycle length. As a manager, look back at the last 5 or 10 deals that closed and ask yourself the following:- What were the major steps in the process?
- What did touchpoints with the customer look like?
- How well do they build trust with the prospect or customer at the beginning of the appointment?
- How well do they balance the dual functions of talking versus listening?
- What was said during the conversations between reps and prospects?
- How well do they formulate and ask business-focused questions?
- How well does your salesperson comprehend the buyer’s needs and priorities?
- How well do they present your products and services as targeted solutions versus pitching a list of features?
- How long did the entire process take, and how much time elapsed between each step?