How smart is your sales team?

How smart is your sales team?

Smart salespeople aren’t necessarily those who got the best grades at school. Rather, savvy sales superstars are those who are adaptable to change, responsive to new technologies, resilient, and know and believe in their product.

It’s not all about the individual, either. While individual standout salespeople are great to have on board, it’s even better to have a strong, cohesive team who work together and motivate each other to reach target. So how smart is your sales team? And what can you do to encourage better sales results?

Do you have a sales playbook?

Your sales team can only be as smart as you allow them to be. If you don’t provide them with the tools and training required to achieve and surpass target, you can’t expect them to excel.

Start by addressing your sales playbook. This document is key to your overall success, both in sales and as a business. A good playbook defines your sales process and methodology, mapping your customers’ buying processes and outlining how salespeople can target and engage with customers at every step of the sales funnel. It should include customer descriptions, an analysis of the buying process, a clear description of your value proposition and the critical steps salespeople should take to move customers along the funnel. Competitive analysis and a review of objections – and how to counter them – are also useful.

If you don’t have a sales playbook, this should be your first step in helping to up-skill and educate your sales team to make them as smart as possible. Not giving your team a playbook during their onboarding process can not only lead to people not knowing what they’re doing, but it can also create conflicting processes and methodologies as salespeople make up their own rules. Keep things consistent by creating one master document.

Is your team’s admin up to date?

Administrative tasks can be a bugbear to many sales people, who typically spend only a third of their day talking to prospects – with the rest spent on tasks like writing emails, researching and entering data. However, admin is an important part of the overall sales function, particularly for smart sales team who want to analyse their performance and learn from it. Detailing conversations, scheduling follow-up calls and noting where customers are at in the sales process can make or break whether a team reaches their target or not, so it’s key that all of your sales people stay on top of these administrative tasks. If admin is slowing your team down, consider implementing new technologies which can help to streamline and automate some processes. As artificial intelligence and machine learning move ahead at rapid pace, there are all new ways of using your CRM to accelerate the sales process and keep your sales team smart and switched on.

Are your salespeople aware of KPIs?

Key performance indicators (KPIs) track the performance of your salespeople against specific goals. As a sales manager, it’s up to you to choose the KPIs most relevant to your product, service, industry and business goals, and indeed to communicate these effectively to your sales team. Commonly used sales KPIs include new leads, client acquisition rates and employee satisfaction, but there are many different indicators that can help to demonstrate how your team is doing. What’s important is that these KPIs are clearly defined and outlined and all salespeople are aware of them. Team members should know what their KPIs are and how they are measured, as well as feeling empowered to provide feedback on these measures. The more involved salespeople are in setting KPIs, the more likely they are to hit them.

Is your team continuously learning?

When you’re asking how smart your sales team is, you need to consider the level of training and development you’re offering them. Even the best salespeople can lose motivation – and expertise – if they are not kept engaged and challenged by ongoing education in the workplace. With 90% of people saying they’re less likely to look for a new job if their current employer offers training and development, it’s clear that this is something that benefits sales people as much as it does your business. Sales is competitive and changes quickly, with new techniques and technologies meaning that salespeople who don’t keep up are left behind. Keep your sales team sharp by offering regular training sessions.

Let BMS help you

Let us help you hire, retain and train the smartest salespeople on the market. We meet our candidates face to face before sending them to clients, which guarantees that you will meet the absolute best talent. Find out how we can help you with your sales recruitment.