Sales Techniques and Metrics

How to organize a sales team

The organization needs to outline a strategic plan that will organize the sales team.

The plan for organizing the sales team will involve a number of steps.The first step in the plan involves recruiting the right talent into the sales team. It is important for an organization to recruit, employee, and train the right talent in order to ensure that it is in a position to increase its sales. For the recruitment and selection process, the organization will select the right employees based on education, work experience, as well as, social skills. This is critical in the creation of a formidable sales team.

Once the team is in place the organization will require to develop aims and objectives for the sales team. Aims and objectives are critical since they provide guidelines to the team on what needs to be achieved within a specific period. Another step in the plan will involve the organization implementing leadership structures for the sales team. This is a critical step for organizing the sales team as sound leadership has the power to drive the team to optimal performance and ultimate success. Therefore, the organization will focus on good management because with great leadership and management; a sales team is able to focus and perform (Parmenter, 2015). The third step after implementing leadership structures involves selecting mission critical projects, which helps the sales team focus its energy into the relevant and vital project that would improve the organization’s performance and productivity.

This means that the organization deploys its best sales team to work on key projects such as product development or objective definition is critical. Smaller projects may not be worth the hassle or may not prove to be cost-effective (Parmenter, 2015). Star teams can perform extraordinary work, and this energy and talent should be use perform fundamental work that drives the organization towards achieving its strategic goals. Another step in the plan is carrying out a risk assessment and analysis based on the goals and objectives that the sales team is required to meet. This involves anticipating risks and challenges in order to avoid problems and prepare for any risks that may stem up while working on a project.

This way a team is well prepared for any incidences that do not support the success of a project. For a team to be able to anticipate any challenge, the project has to be well defined, which also helps improve performance. The last step in the plan involves developing a budget and allocating funds for the sales team. Ensuring funds availability for the sales team is critical in achieving the goals and objectives of the team. Appropriate funds allocation enables the team to carry out the outlined activities for their sales projects.

Sales team performance metrics

Establishing and understanding performance metrics enable the sales team overcome the many challenges experienced as well as improve on their overall performance. The first step in establishing a performance metrics is setting the optimum lead-response time. This is vital as it boosts the sales team performance. The performance boost results from the fact that the quicker the response to the lead or inquiry from a potential client, the higher the chances of making a sale. Therefore, it is crucial for organizations to invest into marketing especially on its online presence to expand its reach for lead as well as significantly decrease the lead response time. Any inefficiency may have an impact on the performance of the sales team.

 The second step is establishing a sales growth metric. The sales growth metric tool provides the organization’s management with a clear visual of the performance of the organization. Sales growth will show whether the organization’s revenue is increasing, more so even show each sales representatives contribution to the growth. The organization’s executives in strategic decision-making activities utilize this information (Carton & Hofer, 2006).

Information gained from the sales growth metric may help device realistic goals and expectation from all members of the sales team. Monitoring sales is, therefore, vital for studying, understanding, and improving the overall performance of sales and the sales team. The third step in which the organization will take to establish a performance metrics is evaluating the cost of sales against the total income revenue to show the overall performance of the sales team. The costs of sales include all expenses incurred to enable a sale such as salaries and commissions, as well as marketing and sales costs (Carton & Hofer, 2006). Therefore, this matric allows a comparison between what the organization makes against what the organization spends to make sales. The comparison is especially useful in gauging the required investment level to attain a given performance level.

The cost of sales to revenue ratio reflects the sales productivity and efficiency of the sales team. The fourth step the organization will take is to establish its online presence using social media. Although difficult to measure, effective and efficient use of this channel enhances sales performance. Close study of its social media presence and use, an organization can interact with its consumers directly. From this channel, the organization can focus its marketing to their specific target market, where complaints and feedback are direct. Direct interaction with the consumers, therefore, improves sales through this fast communication channel.

The fifth step is keeping track of the opportunities available against the number of sales will provide an overview of the opportunities that lead to sales. This way the organization is able to measure the performance of each sales representative through the number of opportunities that he/she successfully follows through to the end. Moreover, this information also gives insight to the sales representative’s ability to close a deal. As a manager, keeping track of the opportunity win rate offers guidance on where to place your sales representatives depending on their strengths or weaknesses.

 The final, yet important step the organization will take is observing employee satisfaction, which sometimes goes without being considered as a factor that influences sales performance. An indicator of a healthy sales team is the employee satisfaction factor. Employee satisfaction directly influences productivity, because sales representatives who get positive feedback are more likely to work harder towards making more sales to gain more feedback that is positive. Therefore measuring employee satisfaction may indicate gains or losses, which when mitigated can prevent further losses.