No matter how good your technical, HR, and finance team is, it’s always your sales team that drives your business in getting more clients on board to improve the sales of your product. If your sales team is talented and hardworking, they can help your company go to the next level and if they are bad, it’s very hard for your organization to see any growth. That’s the kind of impact a sales team has on any organization. Every organization needs to invest in the development and growth of its sales team.

Growing a sales team isn’t about hiring a bunch of people with relevant degrees or job experience and expecting them to do the job. It’s much more than that. You need to scale your organization with the right intentions and strategic plans to build a great sales team. Only through this, you can foresee the growth of your company, upsell existing ones and get new clients on board. Thus, you need to provide your sales team with relevant training, provide tools, and give incentives and rewards and all these investments will show up in the future. This might sound a bit overwhelming, but don’t worry, we are here to provide you with a detailed plan on how you can build the best sales team. Keep reading to know more.

It should start with hiring

You can train an unfit candidate and expect him/her to be a master at sales, it just doesn’t happen. So, you need to start by hiring the right people. Find out what they are looking for in the job, their mindset and how they can add value to your existing team.

Many people look for only experienced people because they have a preconceived notion that only they can do the job. If you already have a bunch of experienced sales executives in your team, what more can another experienced sales employee add? Find out how the candidate can bring a new dimension and perspective to the team.

Thus, always select a person based on what you need and for what position. For instance, a young professional without any experience might be the right fit for your team if your team is currently filled with only experienced people. The young and new hire wants to prove a point and be enthusiastic and may try out new tactics that might work.

Set realistic goals

This goes for every department. There should be a realistic goal and plan to achieve what you want. You cannot just insist on your sales team telling you that you want the sales to go up. Ask them where they are facing trouble, what tools can help them achieve their goals and any other help they want. If your goals are too unrealistic, there will be no motivation and if the goals are very easy to achieve, the team will get complacent. So, as a manager only you can understand your business and set a realistic goal.

Goals can be short-term or long-term. For instance, you can set weekly, monthly or quarterly goals but ensure you have a proper action plan to achieve them. For instance, last year, you had a 5% increase in sales so ask your team whether they can make it 10% this year. Discuss it with all the concerned people and set a realistic goal.

Upskill your team

There is always something to learn in every department, likewise to become successful in sales requires lots of subject expertise, learning, and education. There are many new techniques to explore- think of location-based text marketing, CRM like Salesforce, and much more. For instance, with Salesforce LMS you can close more deals, understand how learning is contributing to your business revenue, and much more.

Along with these tools, you can bring sales experts for live webinars with your team or enroll in online training courses and other learning opportunities to ensure they perform well.

Invest in technology

Gone are those days when your sales team needs to dig through the yellow paper to contact the customers. Invest in tools to help your team avoid the mundane and less skilled jobs so that they focus on more important tasks. For instance, tools like “ Sales Automation” help to send automated emails to your contacts. Make use of many such tools to improve productivity and reduce redundancy in work. These days almost every company is investing in these tools and making the jobs easier for their sales teams, unlike in the past.

Give them a reason to work hard

Everyone has different motivation factors to perform well at their job. Of all the motivation factors, money could be a common factor that is a driving factor for everyone. As a sales manager, you need to provide incentives to your staff on a regular basis. Your sales team deserves incentives because sales are a tough nut to crack.

Some days, there would be rejections and hangups only. In such scenarios, what motivates your team? Why do they keep showing up for work? As a sales manager, it’s your responsibility to motivate your team to offer what they wish. You don’t need to offer incentives without any success, offer them when they achieve their goals. Along with monetary rewards, you can give them a day off, paid vacation time, or any other form of reward.

Track the progress

Setting up goals and providing all the tools to your sales team to achieve the goals is important, but you need to track the progress too. Only then you can find out whether your strategies are working or not. Don’t just count the calls made, count the conversion and how many of the existing customers are retained. Judge the progress by real and tangible numbers that will boost the revenue. If you feel anything going wrong, revisit the eLearning strategy and make a new plan. This cycle should continue until you reach your goals.

Building a successful sales team requires lots of hard work and patience in the form of trial and error, building new strategies and investing in various tools, etc. But it’s all worth it when you taste the success. We hope this article helps you to build an amazing sales team.

About the Author

Antonio Juan is an ed-tech enthusiast with a passion for writing on emerging technologies in the areas of corporate training and education. He is an expert in learning management systems & eLearning authoring tools.