It’s not easy being in sales at the best of times. The competition is, after all, extremely extensive and tough. However, if you have a product or service that’s good enough, then you’ll find that success is within reach. Providing, of course, that you have a sales team that’s capable of delivering the goods. Of all the departments, the sales department is probably the one that’s most difficult to get right. However, it’s arguably the most important, too! What all this shows is that it’s imperative to take the time to put together a team that can bring success. But how? We take a look at a few tried and tested methods below.
Hire Winners
It’s important to hire correctly for all the positions within your company, but it’s extra important when it comes to the sales team. While you’ll provide training and support (more on that later), fundamentally, your salespeople will need to be self-starters who are motivated to succeed at all costs. Indeed, while most of the time you’ll hire based on a person’s resume, when it comes to sales, it’s about their experience and their attitude, arguably in equal measure. A person can overcome a lack of experience in sales if they have a winning attitude and they’re desperate to succeed.
Having a Winning Formula
You’ll need to provide your employees with the framework that can lead to success. You can hire the greatest team of staff in the world, but if the foundations of the company aren’t watertight, and there’s no clear pathway to success, then there’ll only be so much that your team can do. So make sure you develop a system that maximizes sales productivity and which realistically will bring customers on board. A benefit of developing such a system is that it becomes easy to train new employees on the formula. You’ll have a tried and tested method that’ll lead to more sales!
Ongoing Training and Support
If you’re hired correctly, then your staff is going to be talented, but they won’t know everything. It’s best to think of a new employee as a seed of potential; if you can water them correctly, then they’ll develop into a flower. And of course, you can’t just train your employee once and hope that they’ll work well forever. You’ll need to provide ongoing training. One useful tip is to periodically review an employee’s strengths and weaknesses, and then provide training that’ll help to tighten up their weak points.
Set Targets
It’s really important to keep motivation and enthusiasm high when it comes to sales. If there’s no target, then complacency can set in. So make sure you’re setting goals for your team to reach. They should be realistic and attainable. You’ll find that having a target is a great way to squeeze out a little extra bit of effort from the team. Of course, the targets should be incentive based — will they get a bonus or another benefit if they manage to smash through their target?
