Setting Up A Structure To Raise A Super Sales Team

In basic terms when we talk about setting up a structure for your sales team, we’re referring to the activities, coordination and supervision aimed at achieving and sustaining organisational sales goals.

1. Leadership: Who is leading the sales team? Has the person grown up the ranks or was appointed without the necessary sales experience? The base line for any one to lead your sales team should be sales competence.

Leadership is both a skill and an attitude. With sales competence being the foundation, we then need to hire or appoint the team lead first based on attitude then secondly we look for leadership competence (skill). This is because leadership competence in terms of casting the vision, team organisation and so forth can be taught (hence the need to invest in training). We should therefore ensure we have someone leading the team with the right attitude or character in terms of Integrity, patience or whatever core values the organisations has. The team will always ‘smell’ like the leader so this is to me the most important step in setting up the sales team.

2. Tracking & Reporting system

Whatever gets measured gets done. There should be a daily sales tracking and reporting  mechanism. Selling is not a game of luck even though there could be some luck in it. Selling is simply scientific so we shouldn’t mystify it. There is a minimum amount of activities daily that should take place for sales numbers to look good at the end of the month. Find these activities and ensure everyone follows through. It could be a certain number of emails, phone calls or visits; it just must be measured with numbers at first. Make sure at the beginning of the month they come up with a prospect list which becomes like a thread to guide them and monitor activities for the month.

3. Frequent reviews or assessments

If you review the sales team’s performance quarterly, by the middle of the year the business could have gone bankrupt. However, if it is often e.g. monthly, a lot of adjustments could be made before things get out of control. The fundamental truth is, there are things that could be holding salespeople back from performing. Your role during these reviews isn’t just to look at the numbers but to look for what could be holding them back so it can be fixed. This could mean changing the leader of the team, boosting investments in marketing for more leads, giving them the right sales training e.t.c.

4. Rewards

Napoleon Bonaparte who was a French military leader in the 1800s said, “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of coloured ribbon.” Different things motivate people so depending on the size of your sales team you may need to employ different ways to keep them motivated. The importance of such rewards is to reinforce great performance and it should be done quickly. This could be commission of sales made, public recognition, gifts or even a pat on the back. The key is to find what keeps them motivated and to keep doing it immediately after targets are met because the results of the reward is the activation of Dopamine in the brain which causes us to crave for more rewards which will ultimately mean increased performance.

5. Training & Personal growth plan

A lot of business owners think like,” what if we train them and they leave?” Well, what if you train them and they stay? Then they will be paid salaries monthly with no results. A plan for intensive and shorts trainings spread out all through the year keeps them well equipped to handle the emotional, psychological and practical challenges they will face when selling. The strength of a sales team will be in the strength of their morning meetings so there should be morning motivation meetings daily in person or via any other means. This is important because the more followers hear from their leaders the more they become like their leaders, the more they understand the vision, sense the urgency of the goal at hand and are likely to be inspired by what they hear their colleagues did the day before. Role playing should also be done daily to ensure the team perfects their skills in prospecting, rapport building, listening, objection handling and sales closing techniques.

6. Product knowledge

It is so surprising that a lot of salespeople don’t understand their product. When I worked in an organization selling financial services years ago, it was amazing how I could meet some really high targets in record time. It was possible because I knew the product we were told to sell far more then my colleagues. Every feature of a product should be understood in depth. The product designers don’t create features for nothing, each one solves a problem and needs to be clearly understood with no assumptions. This is why as a sales consulting company; we encourage our corporate clients to have a means of assessing product knowledge depth e.g. Some would have their salespeople write a written assessment on the product daily for 30 days, just to ensure product knowledge is second nature to them

7. Marketing budget and plan

Marketing and selling are not the same thing. Marketing increases your brand awareness while sales converts that awareness to leads then to money in the bank. A significant budget should go into driving the organization’s brand both offline and online because this makes the work easier for the salespeople.

8. Operational resources

Here we’re talking about logistics in terms of pool cars, computers, internet access, recharge cards, clothings and other things to help your salespeople represent the brand properly. You want to also ensure there are caps on all these to control organisational costs. This could be done by having the team go out in pairs, having call logs for the salespeople to fill indicating where they are going and who they will be visiting. Then when they return updating the feedback on the log.

9. Back end support

Feedback should be gotten continually from the sales team on how the back end operational support could be slowing down their sales. Sales is the revenue generating part of any organization so all other parts should realize this and constantly come up with ways to make their work seamless so that transactions can move through quickly.

10. Data storage

Invest in CRM applications (or for a start, basic excel spread sheets) to track daily activities, store prospects data and ensure business continuity in case staff leave the organization. The CRM will ensure every lead the salespeople get are stored and easily retrieved on demand.  Accurate data storage would also help make cross selling and up selling for increased business revenue easy because at a glance you will see those who have specific products and could get more. Relationship management will also be enhanced as customers have the salespeople celebrate them on their anniversaries, birthdays or other special days. Business decisions could also be made on how to reward loyal customers, encouraging them to do more.

With these in place irrespective of the industry or economy, organisational sales goals will be met. Contact us to help you set up a structure for your sales team or to strengthen the existing structures.