How to build a world-class sales team

Sales is the lifeblood of any business.

Regardless of whether you’re a startup or an established company, without a top-notch sales team in place, you won’t make it very far.

There is no simple template for the “perfect sales team”, as every company has its own unique needs and requirements.

However, certain characteristics are common to most high-performing teams.

So how do you go about building a world-class sales team?

In this blog post, we’ll outline the different components of a world-class sales team and provide tips on how you can assemble your own.

Let’s get started!

 

What does a top-notch sales team look like?

A world-class sales team is at the top of its game.

• They deeply understand their products and services and can communicate this to potential customers.
• They can quickly build rapport and trust with prospects and close deals confidently.
• They are always learning and growing.

Because they are constantly looking for new ways to improve their skills, and they are always on the lookout for new leads, they can outperform their competitors consistently.

Here are 6 steps to building a great sales team for your organization.

1. Hire the Right People for the Right Job

A world-class sales team is built on the foundation of hiring the right people for the right job.

The best salespeople have the natural ability to connect with others, build rapport, and influence buying decisions.

They’re also well-organized, articulate, and driven to succeed.

While it’s vital to find applicants with these qualities, it’s just as essential to ensure that they fit your organization’s culture.

After all, even the most talented salesperson will be unsuccessful if they’re not a good fit for your company.

2. Develop a Balanced and Diverse team

Top-performing sales teams are typically diverse. The team is made up of individuals with unique and complementary talents, skills, experience, and expertise.

Great teams are lean and efficient, comprised of just the right mix of specialists and generalists, “hunters” and “farmers,” outside and inside sales reps, all supported by a customer centric, customer service team.

In a balanced sales team, territories and workloads are balanced, but not necessarily evenly distributed. It is important to match the market potential and unique traits of the territory with the skill sets of the sales reps serving them.

3. Train your sales team members effectively

Once you’ve identified suitable candidates, you must provide extensive training on your products or services and your company’s unique selling proposition.

Your sales team is the heart of your company. Without them, you wouldn’t be able to make the revenue you need to keep your business afloat.

That’s why ensuring they have the skills they need to succeed is essential.

The best way to do that is to provide them with comprehensive training on your product or service and ongoing sales education. Investing in your sales team ensures that your company will continue to thrive for years to come.

With the right combination of people and training, you can build a sales team capable of achieving impressive results.

4. Create a scalable and predictable sales process

It is often said that sales is an “art” and art is neither scalable, nor predictable.

What IS scalable and repeatable is a sales process. Especially if you combine technology and data.

A well-defined sales process is critical to build a repeatable sales engine.

Map out each step of your sales process as a pipeline that mirrors the customer journey. Clearly define each stage and provide a checklist for your sales team to follow.

This ensures that the sales teams are driving the right set of activities needed to move the opportunity along to the next stage in the pipeline.

5. Use data to measure performance

Work with your team to develop metrics (KPIs – Key Performance Indicators) and dashboards – weekly vs. monthly vs. quarterly, reps vs. sales managers vs. sales executives, performance vs. activities etc.

Automate the data collection as much as possible – ideally, metrics should be measured through your customer relationship management system (CRM). Every hour a sales rep spends manually collecting key performance indicators is an hour they’re not spending with customers.

The right metrics will give you a clear view into the business so that you can get ahead of any issues.

Once you’ve set the targets, track and manage your team’s performance on a regular basis. This includes setting goals, providing feedback, and taking corrective action when necessary.

6. Be a world-class sales leader

If you want a world-class sales team, you need to be a world-class sales leader.

Consistently and frequently communicate with your team and share the vision.

Cultivate a culture that:

• Encourages and incentivizes teamwork
• Celebrates success
• Learns from each other’s failures

Great leaders are great coaches!

On a world-class sales team, all contributors know that a rising tide lifts all boats, so they maintain a collaborative mindset and find ways to help one another succeed.

You’ve done your job as a leader if everyone on the sales team embraces their role in executing on their individual goals that will roll up to the overarching goal for the team.