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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
When you’re ready to build a successful sales team, follow these steps.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.