Every company has sales goals. Whether you’re just setting up your sales funnel or you’ve been in business for a while and looking to drive sales growth, your sales team is going to be the key in improving your sales performance and achieving your short-term and long-term goals.
At Select Funding, we partner with business leaders every day to help them reach their goals and that includes offering advice about building a sales team from the ground up. It can be tricky to find people with the right sales skills and training, particularly those who fit in with your company culture. With that in mind, here is our take on how to build the strongest sales team possible.
When is it Time to Build a Sales Team?
If you’ve just started a company or you’ve been content handling sales until now, you might be wondering when it’s the right time to start building a sales team. Here are some considerations that may help you decide.
Lead Management
If you’ve done a good job with marketing and advertising your business and its products or services, you may have more leads than you can handle. The process of qualifying leads and nurturing them can be time-consuming and it’s critical to your success.
When you reach the point where you can’t do a good job of following up with every lead by making phone calls, sending emails and texts, and converting a lead into a paying customer, it’s a good indication that you’re ready to assemble a sales team to help you.
Customer Acquisition
The second half of the sales process is new customer acquisition and onboarding, which can be a lengthy process requiring precision and efficiency. When you’re the one running the company, it may be virtually impossible to find time to schedule meetings to close deals.
Hiring a sales team can free you up to do other things because they can handle the acquisition and onboarding process for you.
Customer Retention
Customer retention is the name of the game when it comes to sustainable growth. Losing clients can lead to a high churn rate – and nobody wants to lose ground or lose profits.
The right sales team can make a huge difference in customer retention by making new customers feel supported and valued. Some new clients require a lot of hand-holding and your sales team can provide exactly that.
What is the Hierarchy of Sales?
The hierarchy of your sales team will depend, in part, on how large you want your sales team to be. If you choose to hire just one person to start, you won’t need a hierarchy. If you plan on assembling an entire team, you’ll need to have a structure in mind to maximize your sales.
There are five potential levels to consider, but keep in mind that small companies may not require all five levels to build a strong sales team.
- Sales Executive. The person in this position will be in charge of sales at the corporate level and may have a title such as Vice President of Sales or Director of Sales. Their job will be to create a mission for the sales team as a whole and oversee all sales activities.
- Regional Management. Sales regions may be large or small, but in many organizations there’s a need for regional management. Regional sales managers report to the sales executive and oversee sales activities in their assigned region.
- Branch Managers. Branch managers report to regional management and are responsible for sales in their assigned territory. There may be friendly competition between branches and it’s not uncommon for managers to offer incentives to encourage their employees to bring in new customers.
- Team Leader. The primary responsibility of sales team leaders is to encourage and inspire sales associates to meet or exceed their quotas and help the company to grow.
- Sales Associates. Sales associates may sit at the bottom of the hierarchy but their jobs are important. They’re the ones who go out and meet with leads, nurture them, and convince them to buy your products or services. Often, they work on commission to incentivize them to close sales.
If your company doesn’t yet have multiple locations or operate in more than one region, you may not need the regional component in the hierarchy. When that’s the case, you may have a sales manager or team leader who reports to the sales executive.
What Skills Do Your Sales Representatives Need?
The art of selling is something that requires a specific set of skills. When you start to build your sales team, you’ll need to focus on finding sales professionals who have the following capabilities.
- Communication. Your sales representatives are the first people who will encounter your prospective customers, so they need to be able to communicate the benefits of your product.
- Empathy. A good salesperson can easily put themselves in a lead’s shoes to understand what’s troubling them and help them recognize that your product can solve their problem.
- Active listening. There’s no denying the power of a good sales pitch but listening is more important than talking in the world of sales. Your sales reps should know when to be quiet and listen to a prospect.
- Time management. In a successful company, sales reps must have the ability to juggle multiple leads at different levels of your sales funnel. Dropping the ball isn’t an option, so you should look for people who know how to use their time efficiently.
- Growth mindset. A growth mindset is a must for any sales rep. The people on your team should be eager to work hard and do their best with a goal toward self-improvement and helping you reach your goals.
- Curiosity. Some of the best sales reps in the world are also the most curious. They genuinely want to understand prospective customers and take time to ask the important questions.
- Integrity. There’s no understating the importance of integrity in a sales rep. It won’t help you achieve your goals if you hire salespeople who don’t accurately represent your product and do what they say they’ll do.
Prioritizing these skills will help you find people who are genuinely interested in your company and its products and who want to put their sales talent to work to help you achieve your most important business goals.
How Do You Build and Scale a Sales Team?
When you’re ready to build a successful sales team, follow these steps.
Identify Key Skills and Hire for Them
Look at the skills we listed in the previous section and add anything that’s specific to your industry or your company culture. Use your list as a guideline for hiring.
Provide Performance Expectations
Your sales team will excel if you set clear expectations at every level including corporate, regional, branch, and individual goals. Make sure each sales representative knows what excellence looks like.
Standardize Your Sales Processes
Every business has its own requirements when it comes to nurturing leads, onboarding new clients, and keeping existing clients happy. Every step of your process should be documented and optimized to make sure that every prospect and client has the same positive experience.
Equip Your Team with Necessary Tools
You can equip your new sales team for success by providing them with everything they need to perform to your expectations. Their toolkit should include proper sales training and coaching, documentation, software, supplies, and ongoing reviews.
Monitor Your Sales Metrics
Sales metrics and KPIs can do a lot to build a winning sales team. Every member of the team should be aware of which metrics you’re monitoring and what they mean. You may want to measure individual metrics as well as those that apply company-wide.
Provide Regular Feedback
Sales reps may be confident and articulate but that doesn’t mean they work in a vacuum or that their confidence can’t be impacted by outside forces. One of the ways to keep morale high is to provide your team with regular, constructive feedback to help them improve.
Should You Build from the Top Down or the Bottom Up?
Most experts would advise building a sales team from the top down with the idea that hiring the right sales leader will streamline hiring for other jobs. That can certainly be helpful for larger companies.
If you only have the resources to hire one sales person to start, we suggest beginning with a sales development representative who can qualify leads, nurture them, and move them through the pipeline. Business owners might want to be the ones closing on important sales, but the right development representative can take work off their plates and could eventually move into a sales management position as the company grows.
Get Financing to Help Build a Winning Sales Team
Building a strong sales team or scaling your existing team is an important step in growing your business. To do it, you’ll need the information in this post plus enough cash flow to pay to advertise sales jobs and acquire resources to help your team succeed.
Are you ready to build your sales team from the ground up? Select Funding is here to help! Click here to learn about our affordable business financing and start the application process now.
