What’s the difference between sales teams that consistently achieve sales goals and those that consistently don’t? There are many factors that must come together for sales success: get the right people on the sales bus. Have an effective sales leader driving the bus. Produce and deliver products and services that are still relevant to the customer. There are three other things that also make up high performance sales teams. They are:
- Defined sales activity plan. These sales teams are very clear on the number and types of activity needed to hit their sales goal. They don’t speak in vague words like, “I do some networking, some social media and some referrals.” The language is specific, “I attend eight networking events a month, I invest 30 minutes each day on LinkedIn, I make five client care calls each week and I set-up 15 new appointments each month.” These sales teams are disciplined and do not live in some-land.
- They are good at consultative selling skills. High performing sales teams have invested, yes, invested dollars in learning how to be a consultant versus a vendor. If you call any member of their sales team and ask them to deliver their value proposition, they do so with stumbling or mumbling. They don’t speak in “do” language. “We do technology. We do financial planning.” These sales teams understand the power of the message is equal to the number of qualified sales conversations. “We work with operations managers that are tired of getting lost in voice mail trees and never getting a live body on the phone to solve the problem.”
- Top performing sales teams are just that—a team. They are competitive and collaborative. Each salesperson is striving to be number one; however, he doesn’t do it at the expense of the team. He shares best practices, mentors the newbie and helps a veteran hitting a slump. These sales teams know that just one top sales gun can’t hit the overall sales goal for the company.
Start exceeding your sales goals. Define your sales activity plan, invest in sales skill training and promote teamwork.
