7 Tips to Lead Your Sales Team to Success
A successful business depends on one thing more than any other – the success of its employees. This is especially true in sales. If a sales team is motivated, not only will they be personally rewarded through compensation, but the company will thrive.
The following are the 7 tips to help lead your sales team to success.
Formulate a Killer Strategic Plan
You know that to be able to be successful, you must outline clear and achievable goals. When formulating your goals, keep the following in mind:
- Specify the sales team’s mission and vision
- Pinpoint the top priority of the team
- Create strategies on how the sales team will attack the goals
- Identify the strengths or the strong points of the team
- Determine the team’s weak points and give suggestions on overcoming them
- Communicate the incentive to reach a goal
With a strong plan, there is a level of confidence by the team that the plan will lead to successful results and deviations are easily identified and rectified.
Assess Risks
You do not have to be afraid of the risks around you – risk is normal and a part of life. Because some risk in decision making is a given, you should plan ahead as you work on your strategic plan. Risks could be qualitative or quantitative but as long as you have studied all of it, then you don’t have to hesitate when moving forward. You have prepared for the hurdles that may come your way and have a plan on how to tackle them.
Choose the Right Team
A business can’t generate sales if you don’t have the right team with you. You will need team leaders, inbound sales agents, outbound sales agents and sales coordinators. In order to ensure these parts work well as a whole, you want to choose team members that work well as a team, have similar levels of motivation and share similar values to your company. Once you have picked your team, team building activities are very helpful in building camaraderie and teamwork.
Train Your Subordinates
Your team shouldn’t only be made up of members with many, many years of experience. Remember that newcomers can be an advantage. New blood means new and fresh ideas. However, if you do not invest in the new employee, they will likely not be successful, either because they don’t understand what is needed of them or because they feel like outsiders. As long as new team members are determined and willing to learn, these individuals will be an asset with solid training and mentoring.
Assign Tasks to the Right Team Member
Using the skills of an employee is so important. If a person is put into a position they are uncomfortable with or less knowledgeable in, they will not flourish and the company’s goal will not be achieved. So, assign the right task to the right person. If someone is great in face-to-face sales, then don’t make them your coordinator. It is to be able to multi-task and have knowledge in many skill sets, and am employee may need to be flexible, but the majority of their time should be spent working on tasks in their “wheel-house.”
Motivate Each Other
As a leader you have to find ways to motivate your team. Financial incentives are very good but are not often feasible on an ongoing basis. Consider pizza nights, team outings or a bonus day off from a management level. It’s also important for your team to motivate you and other members. You could implement a compliment jar, Friday shout out program or mystery gift days to build morale through full team engagement.
Prepare a Backup Plan
If possible create a minimum of three backup plans and label it as your Plan A, Plan B, and Plan C. Is it necessary? Yes, it is. Why? It is important because prevention is better than cure. There are what ifs even if we are talking about sales. What if you can’t achieve the goal? Then what’s next? You must think of alternatives. Having these in place are your insurance policy. You may never need them, but if you do, your team will see leadership in times of difficulty – instead of panic – and rise to the occasion.
Sales teams can work as a cohesive unit or be built of individuals looking out for themselves. Your goal as the team leader is to encourage habits that build the cohesive unit. By using encouragement and putting your team members in areas designed to maximize their success, you will reap many gains – including more sales.