Do you really have a sales team?

Does your sales team sell?

Daft question? Not really – ask yourself do they actually sell or do you have a team of reactive representation?

Many companies do not reach anything like their capacity or full potential because they do not have proactive people marketing and promoting their products and services and their sales teams do not know how to sell. The non sales teams are the order takers from established clients that are giving you the work anyway or the customer service types that sort out any admin or delivery problems on existing business. They fail to generate new business.

So how can you turn this around?

Firstly you need people with a positive “can do” attitude and an optimistic outlook. Negativity never wins sales. Success does breed success so motive your people. A happy team which is encouraged in a positive environment is more likely to perform well. Key words are praise, reward, appreciation, thanks and team work.

Secondly look at the framework for you sales teams. Develop a strategy (plan) of what you want to achieve and how you are going to achieve it and what the expected contribution is from the sales team. Be inclusive, discuss it, formulate it with them and welcome contributions. They need to “own” the plan if they are going to believe it possible.

Ensure they have the relevant skills. Provide training and coaching to improve and develop their abilities. Conduct competency reviews to identify strengths and weaknesses. Visit clients with them to assess their sales techniques.

Encourage them to develop their own budgets and individual business plans. Work with them to show them how they can achieve their targets. Give them bite size goals on a weekly / monthly basis. By getting them to work through their own budgets they can realize what is achievable and set targets to win new business or increase existing customer spend.

Provide support with regular sales meetings, providing leads, marketing plans and regular team and individual performance reviews. Review existing customer performance and identify new customers and new markets to explore for additional business. Have a workable CRM system. Make sure individuals have a schedule (some are linked to the CRM) so their future follow ups are diarised and they can plan future visits.

Establish effective lines of communication to and from the sales teams with other departments like marketing, estimating, customer service, etc.

Set KPIs to track how well you are doing and to highlight where things are not going to plan and need attention or corrective action.

So a well organised, structured plan, good modus operandi, training, coaching and mentoring, good communication and monitoring and reviewing performance should produce good sales results.

Selling is rewarding if you have a professional approach.

By Carole Rayner