A sales leader manages a group of sales representatives and increases the sales teams performance. It doesn’t matter if the product and/or services offered are the best in the world if there is not an effective sales leader to make sure that the sales process excels in performance. There are a few criteria that an effective sales leader must employ in order to create and maintain a productive and excellent sales team.

Hiring the Right Team

Before you can help your team succeed in sales you must hire and train the right candidates and know what to look for in a job applicant. When a person comes into an interview they must meet certain criteria in order for them to be considered a good candidate for the sales team you are creating. Previous sales experience is a plus, but is not always necessary if they meet all other mandatory requirements. They must present themselves professionally in everything from the way they dress to the manner they speak in. They must show an excellent speaking quality and be able to perform an example sales call on the spot. Additionally, try to make sure that they fit into your organization’s culture, this will ensure that they are comfortable and happy, thus they will stay with you for longer!

For More Information on Sales Recruiting Click Here.

Motivate and Reward

Part of your job as a sales leader and sales coach expert is to inspire, motivate and reward your team. Every day you will need to get your team motivated for the day and inspire them to perform at their optimum ability. There are many ways to do this and you may need to try a few different tactics such as morning meetings, business lunches or end of the day reviews. It has been proven that when employees are offered incentives they perform better at their job. Try engaging your team in one on one sales coaching or professional sales training. Additional incentives include allowing them to leave an hour early or providing them with a gift card for excellent performance. If they aren’t impressed with your first incentive you could experiment with a few other rewards until there is a reasonable balance of rewards, capability, and improvement.

Assign and Delegate

Every sales team has a quota or expectation they need to meet either made by you as the sales leader or by one of your supervisors. You will need to delegate certain tasks and assign work properly so that your team can meet these quotas efficiently and easily. As a sales leader, you should be reading articles and books on how to delegate tasks to ensure you have various effective methods of delegation to employ. This will help keep your great sales team on track during slow times or fast times. It will also keep you on track and help you come up with new ideas that will push the boundaries of your sales team and ultimately bring improvement and expansion.

Make Good Decisions

You as a sales coach and leader will need to be able to make decisions that are best for the entire team. You may be faced with tough choices and decision that you would rather not make, but you need to be able to perform the task at hand no matter how difficult it is, you are the leader! For instance, you may be told that your team needs to be reduced by two people based on budget cuts in the company and your supervisor needs your decision by the end of the week. You may be attached to your team and the choice will be one that is not easy to make. You will have to look inside yourself and at each individual team member’s performance and make the best decision you can for the company and remaining team members.

Confidence and Trust

You will need confidence in order to be a sales leader. You must show confidence in yourself and your team in order to succeed. You will also need to let go of your need to micromanage your subordinates and show them that you trust them to perform on their own. Once everyone on the team feels confident in themselves and that you trust them with responsibilities, the entire team will perform better. Have confidence in your decisions, your actions, and your team’s ability.

Filter Information Properly

As the sales leader you will be bombarded with information on a daily basis. You will need to sort through all of this information and categorize it from top priority to semi-important and least important information that can be put lower on the list. You will have information and request coming at you from all sides all the time. An effective sales leader has the ability to manage, sort and make decisions regarding all information and requests that come his/her way. Your supervisors are going to have requests anywhere from changing the arrangement of the team seating to laying people off. Your team will have requests for days off, schedule changes, or employee tensions. You need to be able to effectively and efficiently sort through everything and tackle the most important issues first.

 

4 Mistakes Sales Leaders Should Avoid Making

Businesses can’t function without employees, and if part of your company is about sales, you have to ensure you get “A Players” to help drive revenue for the team. Learning sales recruiting best practices allows you to hire “A Players”. It also teaches you how to retain your best sales people, which can be even more important. Once you get the best, you need to learn how to keep the best.

Ongoing

The recruitment strategy should be ongoing. You may not currently need any sales people, but you should have some options available for when you do need them. If you wait until you need them, you’ll rush through the interview process and may not get the best people on your new team.

Instead, focus on creating a system that attracts talent to you. Your marketing team can create pages for your website that will promote your values, rewards and culture. People looking for work will see that and want to be part of it.

You may also get the current employees involved in recruitment. Providing incentives in regards to recruiting rewards can boost your pool of potentials. A Players likely know others who are good at sales, which can help drive revenue.

Profiling

It is important to understand that not everyone can sell. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but if you have a group of non-selling salespeople on your team, you won’t make it. Creating a sales-assessment profiler can help you. It is a particular test that is used to measure sales behaviors and potential. You’ll get the best options for the team and can keep the ones who didn’t qualify for other areas, such as reception or management positions.

Training

Even if you have the best of the best, there is always room for improvement. You should continuously identify where progress could be made through sales training and testing. The salespeople may grumble, but they’ll be happy to find out their weaknesses and learn how to overcome them. While motivating your team to do better, you can also drive revenue.

Posting and Monitoring

Job boards could be your new best friend. Posting new jobs on these boards can spread the word and get you potentials. Job boards are a ready source of people who are eager to work. Many of them are already sales professionals, so you may get lucky and find one or two difference makers.

Learn more about sales recruiting here: https://salescoach.us/executive-sales-recruiting/

The nature of the word disruptive seems negative at first glance. However, you are certainly aware that sometimes you have to shake things up a bit to be more effective. One of the biggest challenges a sales team faces is finding a way to stand out in the crowd. Many advertisers have discovered that the best way to shake things up a bit is to rattle a few cages. Disruptive strategies are helping to do just that.

Rattling Cages

Let’s take a look at disruptive advertisements to best help you visualize what disruptive means. Most people have always viewed commercials on television as interruptive. They interfere and break away from their entertainment. Disruptive advertising tries to continue the entertainment to avoid interrupting and instead disrupting to create interest as opposed to resentment. This has lead advertisements for products/brands like Skittles, Old Spice and Geico commercials to be downright odd, but amusing. A myriad of choices seem counterintuitive to branding consistency but creating branding consistency by being inconsistent consistently is the new norm. A creative and amusing advertisement captures the interest of the audience while also getting your initial message across.

It’s a mouthful but it does make sense.

Going Rogue
Disruptive sales takes on the same premise in that you need to find a way to be less interruptive and more disruptive to stand out from the crowd. It’s going rogue, not like a crazed pirate, but like a Super Hero. You are going against the grain of crime fighting within the law by going outside the law while fighting to improve the lives of your fellow citizens.

Four Basic Disruptive Steps

There are four things needed for successful disruptive sales strategies:

1. Step away from the preconceived sales tactics.
2. Step away from small-scale efforts and set larger goals and with a more focused target.
3. Step away from your own industry and look for inspiration from more exciting industries to find ideas.
4. Step away from the seasonal drivers and carve out a niche time of year to rally your sales team and campaigns when no one else is out there.

Disruptive sales strategies go against the grain in order to draw attention. They draw people away from the noise of the competition. You have to fight the urge to take the path more travelled in order to get their faster. Disruptive sales may not be a short cut because it takes more effort, but in the end it will prove to be one of many paths to success.

Try Using Predetermined and Practiced Steps To Help Prospects Commit. Having a System in Place When It Comes Time To Get a Prospect To Commit Will Increase Your Chance of Closing The Deal!

Provide Simple Ideas That Solve Problems

People and prospects love ideas that are simple, to the point and solve the problem. Provide your solution to your prospects problem in the simplest and most obvious way possible. Sit down strategize and brainstorm on how you can provide your new prospect with a simple and easy view of your product or service that solves their problem.

Communicate Clearly

Once you provide a simple solution to a prospect’s problem, you need to communicate this to them in a simple manner. All questions must be prepared for and ready to be answered. If you do not know the answer to a question, let them know you will make it a point to get the answer and that you will get back to them as soon as possible.

Related Article: Effective Communication Skills for Sales Professionals

Build Trust Through Credibility

A great way to build trust and credibility is to go the extra distance and Do Your Research. You will also develop a better sense of confidence while speaking to your prospect if you know what you are talking about. This will in turn help you build trust and credibility with your new prospect. Make sure you take detailed notes during your initial meetings and remember key points and goals to have accomplished while coming back to your next meeting.

Figure out what steps help your prospects commit the most and use these vigorously to close more sales!

No matter how long your company has been in business, in order to maintain status quo or grow, you should consider investing in a sales team. Every industry is increasingly competitive and your sales force is an important aspect of keeping a competitive advantage. These are a few things to keep in mind when hiring and retaining a sales group for your company.

Job Description
Before you engage in any hiring, take the time to make a list of all the qualities you are looking for in a salesperson. What kind of background information should they have? How long have they been in sales? What are the types of responsibilities they will have and what are your expectations in how they fulfill them? Fleshing out all of the details will help guide the type of salespeople that you want to apply for the job. Furthermore, it will help flush out the sales people that you do not want on your sales force.

Be Selective
There might be a slew of people who appear qualified on paper, but will not fit in with your company’s culture. They could have a personality that does not mesh well with their co-workers. Conducting phone interviews before having them come in for a face to face will narrow down the field. A good salesperson should have a professional phone demeanor. When you have them come in, introduce them to the rest of the sales team to see how they interact.

Incentivize
Once you have created your sales force, it is never a good lose them to a competitor. Promote a welcoming atmosphere, one that lets them know they are a valuable member of the company. Let them know they have the ability to advance within the business. Create attainable goals for them to achieve. If they feel the environment is overbearing and has no direction, they will jump ship very quickly.

Motivate
Not only do the salespeople want to feel needed, they want to know they have been doing a good job along the way. Reward the small actions that lead up to the sale. Closing the sale is not always the end game. If they have improved in some aspect of their prospecting, recognize the advancements, too. You must be prepared to motivate your sales team with rewards, further education through seminars or workshops and constant positive thinking. If you are not prepared to provide motivation, do not expect as much from your sales force. Consider unique ways to motivate your team like hiring a motivational speaker or providing motivational materials to them on a regular basis.

Training
Every company has a different method to fostering referrals and converting leads into a sale. Even though they might have been a fantastic salesperson at their previous positions, their technique might not work in your environment. Keeping the sales team up to date on the latest methods and evaluating their usefulness will ensure a successful working climate. A sales coach or sales trainer can do wonders for your sales force.
It is scary to essentially put your company into someone else’s hands to increase business. Having a good backbone in place for hiring, retaining, motivating and training a sales team will make customer acquisition a smoother process and allow you to reap the benefits. Investing in a sales team should be an educated and thorough process that ensures you are hiring and retaining the correct force for YOUR organization.