Is your sales team falling short of expectations? Is there a lack of drive for them to perform?
Turns out, less than a third of sales reps are motivated and engaged at any given time. Only 24% of salespeople exceeded their quota last year. Meanwhile, it takes 10 months or more for a new sales rep to be fully productive and start closing substantial deals.
Clearly, leading a successful sales team is harder than you think. As sales managers, there’s a lot of things you need to do, but putting time and effort into improving your sales team should be a priority. Today, we will explore how you can manage and guide your sales team to perform better together.
Read more: Sales Enablement for SaaS: The Complete Guide to Inbound Sales
Read more: 6 Critical Hacks to Increase Sales in a Tough Economy
1. Establish a Good Company Culture
Good company culture has always been vital in boosting morale and improving productivity. With millennials now making the largest part of the workforce, establishing an attractive work culture has increased in importance. This cohort tends to look for meaning and value in their work.
Thus as sales leaders, it's in your best interests to find out what your company culture is like and how to create a meaningful and positive work environment. Align your team’s goal and corporate values to what attracts the young and driven professionals of today.
2. Set High but Realistic Goals
Setting a high sales target can have many benefits. When the challenge is balanced with your team’s potential and abilities, it can bring success and raise their confidence. A good sales target is one that brings satisfaction when achieved without making it too frustrating for them. One way to establish sales targets and KPIs is by looking at each individual’s current performance, and raise it up realistically to what they’re willing to commit to.
This way, you can keep goals high enough to have the team stay motivated but not too high that it causes frustration and unhealthy competition.
3. Promote Openness & Transparency
In a transparent company, everyone has all the necessary information for them to execute their tasks. There is little politics, gossip, and covert operations that can create unhealthy work relationships between team members. The best organisation in terms of transparency is one that is aware of each team member's objectives and challenges.
This type of transparent team encourages honesty, openness for feedback and commitment to solve problems. Sales team leaders should promote open communication, willingness to learn, and a high level of camaraderie among teammates. All of this creates a positive work environment that can motivate your sales team
4. Provide One-on-One Coaching
Regular coaching is essential for your sales team to become more productive, confident, and skilled. In fact, companies that provide quality coaching can reach 7% greater annual revenue growth. Sales managers should spend time talking to each sales rep and understand what roadblocks they’re facing and provide meaningful feedback.
This type of personal communication can also create a safe space for your team to learn and improve. As a result, they will be more confident to close better deals and secure clients with the right skills.
5. Give Detailed Feedback
More often than not, whether it’s during one-on-one or town hall meetings, managers tend to give vague feedback that ends up impractical to the team. As leaders who want their team to improve, it’s important to be clear on what you need them to do. Provide examples or cases and align on what the problem is, what methods best and why it works.
A clear feedback also leaves little room for personal attacks and judgements, something that can demoralise an individual. And when the sales rep is doing great, make the effort to also give detailed feedback on why he or she is doing good work. This way, they can recreate success while being emulated by other team members.
6. Inspire Continuous Learning
Continuous learning is the practice and mindset of being constantly hungry for knowledge and knowing that there is no end point to complete mastery. One of the ways to keep motivation high for your sales team is encouraging them to share their learning curves and successes. This lets the team know that everyone, including yourself, has something to learn from each other.
Some management teams also provide assistance to courses, lessons, seminars and knowledge materials that their team needed or requested. This type of learning not only helps the team to be better equipped with specialised skills, but also helps individual growth and give meaning to their careers.
Read more: 5 Key Traits of a Successful SaaS Sales Representative
Conclusion
Your sales employees are the organisation's most important component. Without them, your organisation would not be able to succeed. It is now high time for you to motivate and guide your team despite the current economic climate with excellent leadership and management skills. A motivated and enthusiastic sales team will bring immense results to your KPI.
A great way to track performance of your sales team is by utilising effective sales software. Find out how technology-fueled sales software like HubSpot can help you organise and coordinate sales teams better.
