How do you communicate with other departments to retain sales?

When I was working with UK Coach John Calipari, he shared with me a "mantra" that he works hard to build into the fabric and culture of his teams; "When you play for a team, 10 other guys play for you. When you play for your self, you end up playing alone." While successful sales professionals are typically "alpha's" and have healthy ego's, successful cultures and teams have strong spirits of collaboration. When the team wins, everyone benefits. Constantly praising other departments and applauding their key contributions to the company winning, fosters unity and removes silos. The people who sign the checks, know sales drives revenue, but a confident professional that lays ego aside for the bigger team never goes unrewarded.

Build a relationship, a friendship and fellow sales Comrade. You take care of them; they will take care of you. Battle beside them in the trenches and tackle objectives and goals together. Be one well-oiled machine! Ones who sale together, stay together!

Sales is not one department’s responsibility. It is a mission and a mindset that needs to incorporated into every level of the organization from CEO through new hires and interns, since it alone fuels the growth and prosperity of each company and their customers.

In working with the same customer/industry for nearly 20 years, it's been easy to assume I know our customer. Truth is, the customer changes - demographics, needs, pain points, desires, usage, etc. Staying in constant communication with our product, social, marketing, and customer success teams helps me equip my sales team with current customer understanding. Initiating collaboration between sales, marketing, product, and customer success, and then trusting the results of that collaboration, is key to understanding our customer, and serving them with solutions that are both meaningful and functional.

In 20+ years of sales I’ve learned that taking care of you internal customers is just important as your external customers. Be a raving supporter of both and help them look good to their peers. Success must be mutually beneficial to all parties involved. The key to a long successful journey is to be humble, be confident, be respectful, and be yourself.

Sales professionals have a bit of a reputation when it comes to collaboration. Being easy to work with internally and communicating well with others is one the more underrated sales skills. It will often help you stand out to your accounts, as you can now assist in being a clear channel of communication to needed departments on their behalf in the sales process.

The term lockstep, comes to mind, whenever I try to drill into the word, align. Lockstep connotes reinforcement, efficiency, effectiveness and team work. TRUE success in realizing goals and expectations can only happen when all parties drop barriers, uphold principled communication and open-minded collaboration. The blurred lines between customer, provider, competitor, advocate and sometimes, the regulator, limit trust. Organisations are battling with targets and deadlines, and high human capital flight rates, abd therefore must quickly transition from departmental silos to positioning each unit as a reliable link in their value chain, through governance, competency development, automation and enterprise-wide change management.

Identify Key Stakeholders: Determine which departments or individuals are most relevant to sales retention, such as customer support, marketing, product development, and finance. Set Clear Objectives: Define specific goals for sales retention and communicate them to the relevant departments. Ensure everyone understands the importance of retaining customers. Open Lines of Communication: Establish regular channels for communication between departments. This could include meetings, email updates, or collaboration tools.

Share Customer Insights: Provide feedback and insights from sales and customer interactions to other departments. Customer feedback is valuable for improving products and services. Data Sharing: Share data related to customer behavior, purchasing patterns, and churn rates to help other departments make informed decisions.

In sales and management, internal collaboration is pivotal. Networking, cross-functional meetings, and sharing insights foster teamwork. Identifying areas for improvement, emphasizing collective success, and proactive feedback refine strategies. This benefits sales and the organization by encouraging innovation and problem-solving across departments.

Documentation plays a key role here. From plans, to feedback to work orders to change approval, RCAs, data analytics, etc. It is critical to create drive adoption and monitor processes and systems for this so all parties have access to up-to-date information on customer, opportunities, projects, issues, and of course returns.

This is a key area, sharing feedback straight from the customer. However, before we start it’s important other departments get a sense of who the customer is. For new wins & important customers, sales teams I have led or been apart of created customer walls, with logos aimed at internal departments being able to know who they talk to. We offered customers the chance to visit our offices, interact with & present to teams who were part of the journey & business enablers. This ensured our internal teams to understand the culture of the customers they were supporting, what there values are and how they align to ours. Untimely this led to a much better overall relationship and more positive feedback, to keep internal teams motivates.

In sales, it is important to give credit to the whole team and everyone involved. The factory floor, the customer service, etc. It is about small ”thank you” every now and then to make sure everyone feels involved for getting and delivering the sale. Equally important is to be constructive with losses and claims - discuss about them openly, but always find learnings for the next time.

Celebrate Successes: Recognize and celebrate wins and improvements in sales retention. This can boost morale and encourage continued collaboration.

One level of success is catalyst for another and recognition/reward is a great motivator. That said, I totally agree regular meetings, reports, surveys, win/loss analysis provide a wealth of insights and learning points for future engagements.

Mentoring, coaching and regular training and exposure through, conferences, seminars, webinars also contribute to improved competence and efficiency of the members of the value stream. Organizations must make these mandatory for growth and progression. I mentioned rewards above. Incentives, financial(commissions) and non-financial must be fully established, as a strong motivator for SDRs and BDRs. Leveraging partnerships is also key to expanding market reach.

Collaborate on Solutions: Encourage cross-functional teams to work together to address customer concerns and find solutions to retain sales. This might involve joint projects or initiatives. Training and Awareness: Ensure that all departments are aware of the customer-centric approach and provide training if necessary. Every employee should understand their role in retaining sales. Feedback Loop: Establish a feedback loop so that information flows both ways. Other departments should be able to provide feedback and insights to the sales team as well. Measure and Monitor: Implement KPIs and metrics to track sales retention efforts. Regularly assess the effectiveness of your strategies and adjust as needed.