Building an impenetrable sales team

Scaling your business is never just the result of an amazing product. An effective prototype and creative marketing might earn a start-up a few early wins, but scalable sales require much more than that: a team of skilled salespeople - with a competent, motivating, strategic sales leader - who have mastered multiple client segmentation channels in an effective external go-to-market communication strategy.

Daunting right?

It’s not.

It’s really just a case of focusing on the right steps in the right sequence. There are 4 steps for building an impenetrable sales team from ground zero.

1. Find product-market fit.

The first year in business is by far the most tender. According to the latest economic success studies, less than 18 percent of businesses are still doing business 12 months after inception.

Many start-ups attempt to scale up immediately. They assemble a sales team without having established a single customer. But they soon discover that they’ve just got a crowd of talented salespeople trying to sell something that just doesn’t speak to the market they’re aiming at.

That’s why it’s vital that before you think about scaling up, you work to establish product-market fit. How? Acquire a small set of initial customers, about 10 or so, and work to create several months of consistent new customer wins and post-sales success (as determined by engagement and customer feedback) before scaling beyond that.

This order must be of priority as it gives you the opportunity to learn and make significant improvements to the core product in a safer environment. It also ensures that the sales team don’t fail to close deals as a result of factors outside of your control -- that's a sure-fire path to demoralization and unnecessary churn.

2. Prove a direct sales strategy at a small scale.

A start-up’s sales tactics change drastically from the first sale to sales further down the road. Early deals tend to be done via close connections, word of mouth, inbound leads who wander onto the website and/or sustained and intense outbound by the CEO/director. These unusual efforts are unsustainable once you start scaling up, but they do form a model for what works in the early days.

The initial effort of early sales should inspire a scalable model that a sales team can take and make its own. CEOs should be on hand to teach from their experience, but they shouldn't expect that their own hyper targeted approach will work at scale -- it's important to test alternative approaches and learn quickly what works best with your target customers.

3. Craft a hiring strategy that's unique to sales.

If you cast a vast net out into the world of available talent in order to drag in an exceptional salesperson, you’ll be sorely (and expensively) disappointed. In sport – AFL for example - you wouldn’t draft an elite full forward to play in the centre. Sales is similarly a unique skill that demands a unique hiring strategy that seeks out the specific experiences and expertise that will serve your particular product and customer segment.

According to a recent study by LinkedIn, employers are increasingly seeking out specific, advanced selling skills first and then training on product second. The demand for skills such as “executive relationship manager” and “customer relationship expert” has grown and is now three times higher than the standard, more traditional sales skills that most LinkedIn users claim. In fact, only 1.5 percent of Linked In users globally appear to have these newer, more sought-after skills.

Expect this trend to continue as sales becomes increasingly competitive, but don't lose sight of the bigger picture: Ultimately, your sales hiring strategy must cater to the needs of your business. If you have a rapid-fire transactional sales process, your hiring process and ideal candidates (“hunters”) will differ significantly from those in a complex, relationship-driven sales environment (“gatherers”).

4. Prioritise the post-sales experience.

Many early-stage startups are so deep in the weeds of developing and marketing their product that they neglect what happens after a sale has been made. The post-purchase experience can define how a product (and, in some cases, the salesperson) is remembered by a customer. A positive post-sales experience builds on the delight of the initial purchase and enables the customer to extract value from the solution throughout the lifetime of the contract which, in turn, creates further referrals, leverage and opportunities.

According to the Australian Financial Review, 64 percent of customers find their post-sales experience “underwhelming.” This is a word no brand wants to be associated with. But there are tools out there that can help. We need to understand where our customers are seeing the most value and where they might be struggling. It’s important to support customers while they're using your service, as well as learn from them to keep improving your approach.

Growing your sales team before you’ve established these foundations is a bit like putting flour, butter and eggs into the oven and hoping a delicious cake will result. Preparing the ingredients is critical if you want the mixture to rise, taste delicious, and have your guests coming back for seconds. Sales is no different: Give your company the best chance at successful growth by preparing your sales strategy before you start to scale.