There are several dynamics that can affect a sales team’s productivity and success. Teams that are properly motivated and compensated, for example, tend to be proportionately more productive. Conversely, poor communication between sales teams and managers can negatively affect a company’s profits.
Several of those issues can be solved by companies ensuring that the right structure and culture is in place when building a sales team. That structure and culture is especially critical for successful highly transactional sales teams. It increases the likelihood that those sales teams and their managers understand expectations, communicate, collaborate and keep on producing.
Every company can follow these few steps to reinforce that structure and culture within its sales teams:
Hire Very Committed Managers
Sales team managers need to be committed to their teams, their company, and their mission. So when you evaluate your sales process, team, structure and culture, you must hire managers that are going to live by those principles and lead by example.
Here are some other things to keep in mind:
- Hire managers that drive metrics and encourage feedback. That information can be used to manage a sales team proactively rather than reactively, anticipating results rather than responding to them.
- Managers should hold everyone accountable, actively tutor and participate, and be in the office before — and leave after — every other member of the team. Sales teams will respond to that dedication and feel motivated to follow the lead.
“Model Day for Success”
I’ve discussed my philosophy on setting up a “Model Day for Success” before, but I think it applies to this topic too. The idea behind that structured day is to establish a salesperson’s idealistic workday, reinforcing good time management habits and providing a framework that each sales team member can follow.
The general principles of the Model Day for Success are to:
- Expect eight hours of productivity from your sales team.
- Design reactive and proactive activities for the team. An example of a reactive activity includes having your team respond to inbound sales leads. A proactive activity, by contrast, refers more to outbound prospecting and target account penetration.
One of the sales manager’s primary responsibilities is to discover ways to motivate the sales team and increase productivity. Campaigns can be an extremely effective way to do that. But in order to be efficient and productive, they need to be supported by structure.
- Define what resources you will need to be successful. Whether it’s emails, scripts, or reference materials, managers need to ensure their sales team is prepared for each campaign.
- Run contests around each campaign. Great sales people and sales team managers are usually competitive and inspired by goals and milestones. By offering a contest for each campaign, you’re dangling a carrot that will undoubtedly motivate the team.
- Evaluate and provide feedback. Managers must think on their feet and use both proactive and reactive processes. Evaluate the success of the campaign rapidly and change what is not working if necessary. As the campaign continues, provide feedback to each team member and let them know how they’re performing .
Having a good company culture with visible aspirations, values and achievable goals goes a long way in developing strong sales teams and sales methodology. With the right structure, you will arm your sales people to achieve success.
