Are You Building a High Performance Sales Team?

Is your company focused on the right areas, and producing the performance and outcomes you seek? 

Thinking of your current organization, its focus on sales, the culture, employee & management attitudes (mindset), along with sales performance, read the statements below and ask yourself: are these in place and are they optimized? 

If your answer is NO to two or more statements, then you would likely benefit from a shift in sales related focus in your organization.

• All employees have a positive view of sales and selling in our organization
• The sales leader meets regularly with the business owner /leadership to ensure alignment of sales and organizational strategy
• Strategic prospecting targets are defined and included in each salesperson’s territory plan
• All employees in the organization understand the importance of sales and the role they play in supporting and increasing both sales and customer satisfaction
• The organizational culture supports sales efforts and our goal of being easy to do business with for our customers
• Each salesperson has a dashboard or individual sales plan that is reviewed regularly
• The sales team is viewed by the organization as a high-performance team, much like a sports team

Read more about creating a sales-focused organization on our website.

Every sales-focused organization has room for improvement! If you aren’t implementing all the statements above, or only a few, you may need to adjust your thinking or priorities around your sales efforts and function… it may be time to get help.

Over the past few months, we’ve provided an in-depth look at key areas of a successful Sales Focused Organization including sales fundamentals, effective sales management, and a high-performance sales team. Please click here to request your copy of our comprehensive checklist outlining specific focus areas toward building a sales focused organization that succeeds and thrives.

Want to get the best out of your sales efforts?

We work with sales leaders, managers, teams, individual salespeople, and their organizations.  With both our standard offerings and our customized coaching and consulting engagements, we focus on the gap areas to drive better sales results.  Our work varies in length from just one quarter to multi-year engagements depending upon the size of the organization and needs. In some cases, we operate as a Fractional Sales Leader and other times we coach with an existing Sales Manager and sales team. We often work at all levels of the organization to help build a Sales Focused Organization - leadership, strategic direction, systems, management, departments, and individual contributors. We also assist in the recruiting and evaluation of “Qualified, New Business” Sales representatives.

Creating a Sales-Focused Organization

What goes into creating a Sales-Focused Organization? In our series, we have addressed elements that include sales process, messaging, the conversations salespeople have, sales management and a high-performance sales team. We now turn our attention to creating a sales-focused organization. 

Critical elements that must come together include leadership, strategic direction, clear targets (markets, differentiators, goals) and all the sales elements we’ve covered in our last 3 articles. For some organizations, evaluating the current team through a Sales Effectiveness and Improvement Analysis (SEIA) can be a game changer. For companies that have many salespeople, have had a sales manager in place for a while, this analysis can rapidly offer insight on gaps that once closed create for a great return on investment.

What is the view or mindset of your organization toward its sales team? The sales team should be viewed as a high performance team, no different than a professional sports team. The entire organization (employees / leadership) must get behind the sales team and be supportive, helpful, and passionate about winning, succeeding, and driving results. Something as simple as setting the mindset of ‘everyone sells’ can be a shift in the culture and attitudes embraced by the organization.

Has organizational leadership made clear its go-to-market strategy, along with high value targets? Is the sales manager and sales team equipped and armed with the needed information to carry to prospective customers? Too often sales teams are expected to function just like an owner or leader would, often relying on passion and inside knowledge the sales team doesn’t have access to. Is your sales team set up for success or failure? What information does the owner or leadership have that once shared becomes a game-changer?

Read the full article on our website.

Are you ready to begin your journey?

Have you struggled in the past to develop an effective sales focus, giving your business what it needs to thrive?

Whether you are satisfied with the effort, focus, and results of your sales team, many people we speak with have been hesitant to act – simply because they don’t know where to begin. If you’re open to a brief call, let us know and we can take the first step together.

Call us at 248-468-7400 or fill out our contact form to receive a download of our Sales-Focused Organizational Checklist! Together, we can assess how your company is doing from a sales, messaging, management, and performance standpoint, and determine the best way to help you achieve your goals.