What are the key factors in building a great sales team?
Sales teams selling fmcg-food products have different structures and compensation. Are their any available benchmarks to constitute a quality sales organisation?
Good Answers (2)
Paul G.
...improve your profitability in 60 days or your money back
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Hi Gurinder,
Not sure if this helps but...
A recent survey indicated that a poor salesperson spend their time as follows:
Active Selling 10%
Prospecting 10%
Problem Solving 14%
Downtime 17%
Travel Time 18%
Administration 31%
A good salesperson should ideally be allocating their time as per below:
Active Selling 35%
Prospecting 25%
Problem Solving 15%
Downtime 10%
Travel Time 10%
Administration 5%
In addition, the biggest barriers to sales people's effectiveness were found to be:
•Lack of manager feedback or help for sales teams
•Poor sales call quality and inadequate monitoring
•Weak or cumbersome sales reporting systems
•Training that was seldom reinforced or properly coached in the field
•Administrative duties
Best regards,
Paul.
Links:
Belal A.
Head of Marketing at Pakistan Accumolators (Pvt) Ltd. VOLTA Battery
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1 - a well defined sales process
Metaphor: The Three Little Pigs. "Then I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down!"
A poorly defined sales process always dilutes sales revenues. In other words:
A well-defined sales process increases sales revenues.
2 - sales people need to have the essential skills
Metaphor: Goldilocks and The Three Bears. "Who's been sitting in my chair - and broken it into pieces?"
Lack of skills, and disjointed and inappropriate selling techniques, lead to below-average performance and below-average sales results. In other words:
Good selling skills and appropriate sales techniques lead to good sales results.
3 - focus on sales people's selling activities
Metaphor: The Elves and The Shoemaker. "Although he worked hard, times were bad and he became very poor."
Failing to focus on sales people's activity reduces efficiency and results. In other words:
Focus sales people's priorities and time on core 'high-yield' selling activities
4 - encourage and expand sales people's belief in their own capabilities
Metaphor: The Ugly Duckling. "Why, I'm a swan!"
Allowing, and worse still, causing self-limiting beliefs among sales people, constrains sales people's performance and is a major reason for inferior results. In other words:
Use every means possible to expand and encourage self-belief among sales people.
5 - sales leadership that nurtures and develops sales people's potential
Metaphor: Rapunzel. "Immediately, the witch flew into a great rage and cut off Rapunzel's hair."
Failing to appoint and develop a sales leadership team that truly nurtures and develops the sales people is catastrophic for any sales organization. In other words:
Select and develop sales managers and leaders who can inspire, develop and truly lead the sales people.
More Answers (19)
Team building is huge for creating a great sales team. You want to create desire and excitement however be careful not to create a cut throat environment if you want long term success. Share goals and financial data with the team daily/weekly and monthly. Understanding the company's status will help the team (and individuals) stay focused and really support and know when to give that extra push when needed.
Kadri M.
Marketing Manager at Bista solutions
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Hello
I would like to start with :
Sales is the most important part of any organisation becoz for the following reason:
Sales is the only department where you recieve bread and butter of your organisation.
You should never think of making a great sales team because of the theory "Human wants are unlimited"
the first factor for a successful sales team is
Hard core ability to work in different conditions.
Motivation
Self motivation in sales people.
better salary and commission structure. and much more
Strict and good behaviour or team leaders.
and you can find many more onto the same.
Bhalchandra P.
Brand Advisor, Branding Consultant, Marketeer right till the bone. Now!!! Tempting Brand Owners by SCENT....
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High-performing salespeople should possess:
* a high sense of integrity,
* confidence and the ability to articulate,
* energy and enthusiasm, yet genuine sincerity in their interactions,
* organization skills and self-reliance,
* the ability to demonstrate patience and perseverance in working with each prospective customer, but have urgency and,
* good listening skills and the ability to balance the wants, needs and expectations of both the company and customers
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Hamish T.
Global Strategic Business Development
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It starts with getting your recruitment right - and assuming you are not dealing with a completely new sales organisation, that means ensuring that you understand exactly who and what you have in your team, what their capabilities and dependencies are (not drug dependencies!) and what motivates each and every individual.
Then you have to go through a right person - right job analysis and reallocate as necessary.
After that you can tackle the skills development and inter-dependent teamworking. Too many people rush to team building events as a universal panacea and they have not done the needs - resources evaluation properly.
Regards
Hamish.
Abhishek K.
at putttips consultancy
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experienced sales employee with good salary package,knowing the right approach & having experienced knowledge to closed the deal.Email : puttutips@gmail.com
John H.
CEO at Transformational Selling
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Yes Gurinder there are.
In particular there are 21 competencies which are indicators of success in individual organisations.
These competencies are proven in assessments across nearly 500,000 sales people, across 8,000 plus organisations and across multiple countries and cultures.
Once you understand the quality of the people you can determine the success or potential success of the organisation across 9 significant areas
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Goran K.
Entrepreneur, Project Management Enthusiast
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To make analogy with sports, it takes the best players and a great coach.
This means, you need to fulfill the positions with people that fit your Ideal Salesperson Profile. Here you need to make a clear distinction between Hunters and Farmers, both are needed to make the highest ROI on your selling efforts.
Then you need add a great CRM system, firstly to make the salespeople’s life easier with ease of information access.
Then you need to establish a High-Performance environment/culture, something like this:
“Revenue is Vanity, Profit is Sanity, Cash is Reality”
(I would by all means have the Hunters paid solely on revenue contribution, straight commission, while I’d have the farmers paid based on profits (not revenue), as their role is more of a Project Manager’s one)
Make sure you PAY your people well otherwise they will be gone soon. Great salespeople know exactly how valuable they are.
Last, but definitely not least – you need someone to run the show – a person who can manage, coach (and carry the bag if a situation calls for that) successfully, delivering the ROI.
John K.
President at Lysis International - Sales, Management, Business Development
Here is one key factor... leadership:
High-performance sales teams require high-performance leadership. At the core the sales leader should possess a clear vision for the sales organization and a concrete sales plan congruent with the company’s direction. The key objectives and performance standards required to materialize this vision, and the plans to implement them, must be clearly communicated to each of the team members.
These first few steps sound deceptively elementary and, as a result, are often missed. This makes accountability nearly impossible since expectations have neither been communicated nor agreed upon. This is a classic characteristic of non-performing sales teams.
What is it that this team should deliver? What specific activities are its members expected to perform? What type of accounts will they target, in which markets, at what level of the target organization, selling what type of product mix? Are they to focus mostly on new business, existing business, etc?
Answers to these types of questions are crucially important to developing a dynamic sales team because, in addition to defining the task (job duties and responsibilities), they also define the type of person that can best complete it (personal traits and professional competencies).
Md Sazzadul I.
Experienced Mobile Financial Services & Mobile Top-up Professional
Based on my experience it's not mandatory to recruit Experience people at every layer. It's necessary how you makes them to feel the sales number and objective. The main responsibility to built a great sales Team is depending on the Leader.
David G.
VP Sales and Marketing | VP Sales | VP Marketing | Business Leader | Transformation Leader
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Key factors in building a great sales team are
- great leadership to set direction
- salespeople with relevant experience
- an attractive market opportunity (brand, products, competition)
- an attractive compensation plan
- enough sales support, so direct sales people spend time selling
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Lance C.
President of SalesManage Solutions ... Recruiting the Best and Coaching People from Good to Great™
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Gurinder (Thanks for the question)
What are the key factors in building a great sales team? (assuming they are adequately compensated according to industry standards and well supported by their companies)
There are two important sales leader systems that contain the factors that build a great sales team. Those two systems are:
1. Recruiting System
2. Coaching System
[Key Factors - Recruiting System]
- Knowing the competencies required for the position.
- Knowing the top six personality and character traits that match the competencies
- Having enough sourcing strategies to find good candidates
- Following a best practice process for selecting the best new recruits for sales positions.
[Key Factors - Coaching System]
- Selecting sales leaders who are great coaches
- Designing customized coaching strategies for each rep
- Building individual and team sales plans
- Managing activity and sales plan progress
- Teaching a face-to-face sales process
- Holding high-performance sales meetings
- Encouraging teamwork
- Monitoring sales plan progress
Most important - great sales teams are built by sales leader coaches who believe in their people, care about their personal success, and strive to continually improve sales processes and tools.
Thanks again Gurinder. I hope this is of value.
Kindest regards,
Lance
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Jesse D.
Strategist | Adviser
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Before we build a sales team...
we have to be guided by a vision,
a creed on what an ideal sales department should be...
from that, you can assemble a great sales team.
Kindly follow the link for more...
Thanks, Gurinder.
Links:
You need to be able to inspire your team and not confuse this with motivation.
Behind every successful structure stands qualified team who have constituents to work and high scores! This is the main merit of the chief manager, who works with as scientific methods, and with extreme ingenuity, intuition and improvisation to lead his team successfuly. When talking about relationships between people can not work with templates and formulas, because of the complexity and peculiarity of human character. Experience shows that the most successful professionals are just different, especially in character and worldview of people!
Sahar A.
Diversity& Inclusion|Leadership training|Social Media Marketing|Social Media Training|Public Speaker|Culture Competence
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- Training
- Team building exercies
- Boosting self confidence
- Engage them in decisions and goals
- Incentives
- Transparency
Chuck B.
Producer For Wall Street Business Network Radio Affiliate Station (AM 760) 5:: PM - 6:00 PM Pacific Time
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Your focus should be on the needs of your sales staff. At your sales meetings, determine not only their strengths and weaknesses, but what factors are holding them back from becoming professional salespeople. I'm talking about attitude and any personal baggage which can detract from their sales ability.
Offer a structured setting where answers to their questions can be easily discerned, yet conducive to bring out their unique creativity necessary for explosive growth. http://www.cbalcher.wordpress.com/
Arnab S.
National Head - Modern Trade, B2B & Business Development at Emami Biotech Limited
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Very high level of goal-orientation (enterprise wide).
Deep sense of "belonging", to the organisation.
Complete understanding of customer needs (including channels etc.) and
Unquestionable levels of trust & transparency, across levels.
Probably Utopian....:)
Clarification added March 9, 2010:
Forgot the benchmarking part.
Get key people with qualities that satisfy the norms stated.
Poach from highly respected competitors!
If the front-line is even 40% efficient, these people can make miracles.
However, one must allow them to operate with high degree of freedom to be change-agents.
