Many Sales Managers, because their employees are not experienced enough, get caught up in the story of implementation, always having to spend a lot of time talking and instructing employees on how to handle each situation.
So, Sales Managers cannot focus on building relationships with important customers, have to handle the team alone, and revenue cannot grow as quickly as expected. On the human resources side, they also easily lose motivation when they see that they are still not making progress, not achieving KPIs.
So how to build an effective and professional sales team? Please refer to the content shared in the following article
1. Identify the sales team that is suitable for the business
Depending on the business model as well as the nature of the service and the products/goods to be sold, businesses can build a suitable sales team.
Managers need to base on the target market they are aiming for as well as the growth trajectory and current situation of the business to choose the right sales.
Specifically, managers need to consider:
– Do you sell internally, on-site or both.
– Determine the necessary background and experience
– Determine the number of sales staff that the business needs.
– At the same time, managers also need to decide on the process and solution for recruiting sales staff.
Once the human resource needs have been correctly identified, the business can plan to recruit customer care staff and sales staff.
2. Understand your background and personal aspirations
You should know: not all colleagues have the same advantages, qualifications, and experience as you. Never compete to do all the work of others.
This means that as a sales manager, you must know how to resolve conflicts, know how to motivate, encourage, reward in a timely manner, and know how to grasp the aspirations of each salesperson in your team.
3. Recruiting competent personnel
The initial members of the sales team play an extremely important role. They are the first core members, contributing to the building and development of a strong sales team for the business.
Managers need to choose candidates with capacity, experience and sharp sales skills.
Competent sales people can close deals with a 45% higher success rate than less capable sales people who only close deals at a 15% rate.
During the process of recruiting and interviewing new sales staff, managers need to know what they are looking for and what they expect from their employees.
Competent sales people are the core members who will help you develop your team in the future. They know how to persuade others, have high communication, behavioral, negotiation and cooperation skills, thereby improving sales efficiency and satisfying customers.
Managers can recruit “mixed colors” with personnel with different working styles and thinking styles in their teams.
4. Design a lean, high-performance sales process
Sales management is one of the indispensable steps in the sales process at companies and businesses. This process includes repetitive steps based on the principle of pipeline or sales funnel.
In the process of building a sales team, managers need to establish a sales process that best suits their team.
In this process, each member of the team will take on a different task and job such as:
– Market research
– Finding potential customers
– Approaching customers
– Persuading
– Closing deals.
…
To expand sales scale, managers must ensure that their sales staff bring consistent experiences to customers.
Through an optimized sales process that is repeated over time, the sales team can achieve the results as set out. The sales process will be perfected over time. However, it is best for managers to outline the pipeline or sales funnel from the beginning.
5. Practical training in sales skills
Any training program that is not based on practice is useless, just like no training will become a big disaster. Compare the 2 training methods below:
Method 1: Only teach theory, motivate with empty words.
Method 2: Communicate theory combined with practice, meet customers, exchange, and sell directly.
As a sales manager, you should listen, guide, advise, adjust the growth level, work progress of the sales staff in your team, help them improve their weak ability to persuade customers, inflexible behavior, and poor sales results.
6. Set KPIs to measure effectiveness
Setting KPIs for employees is one of the methods to help your sales team achieve success.
Through KPI indicators from the beginning, employees will know what they need to do, how hard they have to try, and what the final results they need to achieve are.All sales teams at small-medium or large-sized businesses in the world have KPIs set for each month, quarter, year, etc.KPI assessment helps measure the performance of sales staff as well as measure sales growth and the effectiveness of sales strategy goals.
Through KPIs, managers can measure the effectiveness of customer outreach, sales budget as well as the rate of new customers, customer churn rate, closing rate, etc. of each sales staff, thereby evaluating the overall business performance of the business.
7. Integrate sales management software and call center system
Integrating and using sales management software helps employees reduce the burden of selling and also reach more potential customers.
Using CRM software with integrated call center like ITY is providing helps sales save working time and follow up with potential customers. In addition, managers can listen to call recordings, view statistical reports and track KPIs of each employee
This is considered a suitable, effective, visionary and strategic sales solution for businesses when building a sales team today.
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8. Arouse working spirit
People who work in marketing and sales are often dynamic, independent and enthusiastic. Their enthusiasm, if exploited well, will bring about satisfactory results. Here are 3 ways to promote enthusiasm:
Method 1: Every day, regularly focus on talking about work.
Method 2: Every week, discuss problems at work.
Method 3: Every month, meet to plan future work.
9. Training and motivating employees
In the process of building a sales team, managers need to focus on training and motivating employees. This is considered the key to improving professional capacity as well as technical skills, thereby improving sales performance.
Through rewards or games, managers can encourage their employees to achieve better closing rates and sales. Department heads should propose reward strategies for employees with the best sales, or let two groups compete to see who closes more deals.
10. Practice role playing
Role-playing is essential even if your salespeople don’t enjoy it. Tell them that the most successful salespeople role-play all the time, they practice role-playing with themselves, with their managers, and even with their peers. Here are three ways to practice role-playing:
Method 1: Never tell your salespeople they’re stupid. Always give gentle corrections like, “That’s great, but how can we fix this?”
Method 2: Model or even role-play some of your salespeople. When you do, show your confidence in the role-playing and be open to feedback from your salespeople about any shortcomings in your role-playing.
Method 3: Ask your salespeople to role-play situations by writing down their objections and questions. Arrange these pieces of paper so that no one knows in advance what role they will be playing, then practice the role-playing.
11. Treat employees friendly
If you treat your salespeople only in a business relationship, only as profit makers, you will not be able to gain their loyalty and maintain your team.
If you show friendliness in life, your salespeople will build and develop a sense of community, expand communication, thus, your team will thrive.
12. Strengthen talent retention solutions
To have a strong sales team, businesses need to pay attention to solutions to retain talent. Normally, recruiting and training new employees often costs from $5,000 – $7,500.
Instead of spending money and time, managers need to strengthen solutions to retain sales in their team. Specifically, businesses can apply capacity-building training courses, have optimal salary and bonus policies, have clear development policies and promotion paths.
