Sales is the lifeline of your business. Without sales, you do not have a business. It is really that easy. Keeping your sales team organized will help drive effectiveness, productivity, and help you hit your sales goals. Here are 5 ways to keep your sales team organized and moving forward.
Start With A Sales Plan
Developing a strong sales plan will help your team drive better results. Your sales plan should start by identifying the right prospects for your business. Once you are confident about the target prospect, it is your role as a sales leader or sales manager to ask the hard question. “Do we have the right sales tactics and sales cycles for our target customer?” If not, you might need to change your tactics. Organizing your sales team starts with a sold sales plan.
Develop Clear Goals
Does your sales team know if they are being successful? Developing clear sales goals will help your sales team aim for a common target. They say you can’t hit what you don’t aim for. We all needs to have clear goals in place in order to succeed. As the sales leader, write your team goal down and work backwards to set individual goals. Just make sure that your goals are specific, measurable, agreed upon, realistic, and timely.
Align Sales And Marketing
How many times have you heard, “the leads from marketing are not converting.” This is most likely your fault, not your sales team. The problem is simple, most companies work in silos and the sales leaders do not talk to the marketing leaders. Both departments are marching to different orders and focusing on different objectives, metrics, and goals. Magic happens when marketing and sales align on common objectives, metrics, and goals.
Use A CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
Is your sales organization still working on spreadsheets and sticky notes? Yikes, what happens when your top sales agent leaves the company and you can not find the “golden spreadsheet”? Well, you just lost your entire sales pipeline to the competition. A CRM system will help you understand your customer’s needs, identify the stage of the buyer’s journey, track conversations, and identify the source of the lead. Using this information will help your sales team stay organized and also learn what is working to close deals. This data will help your team become more successful.
Develop A Clear Communication Channel
Communication is key to a successful sales team. Conversations about your sales goals, sales pipeline discussions, and sales obstacles should discussed often. If there is no clear communication channel your sales team will become frustrated, less productive, and less effective. Communication is the key to your sales team. Transparency about problems, the environment, and the business will help keep your top talent, and increase the effectiveness of your team.
Conclusion
To be successful as a sales team, organization is vital. These 5 tips will help your sales team stay on the same page, driving bottom line revenue. Sales organization is no easy task, with practice and your team will align.