The Force Management team has had a productive and eventful few days at Outreach.io's Unleash Conference. There is power in a group of people who believe in elite sales organizations coming together to learn, mentor and develop plans to execute. I was happy to be a part of it and hope you are too!
There's no greater opportunity for your account executives or reps to differentiate themselves than to approach every interaction with the buyer prepared to create value. It's great when it happens on one deal. It's game changing when it happens with every rep in every opportunity. I hope you received some takeaways that you can execute in your own conversations and with your own teams. As a follow up, I wanted to share an additional three key things you can do as a sales leader that will help your sales reps earn the right to keep driving a great client-focused conversation.
1. Alignment
- What problems do you solve?
- How do you solve those problems?
- How do you do it differently or better than the competition?
- Where have you done it before?
Every executive in your company needs to be aligned on the answers to these questions. At the same time, every customer-facing person on your team needs to be able to articulate those answers in a way that has meaning to the buyer.
Want more resources to help you meet your number?
2. Definition of Who Does What When
We talked about owning the next step and managing the hand-off. In your organization, what is the mechanism you use to ensure that you are capturing the buyer information that is critically important to moving an opportunity forward?
- What are the positive business outcomes the customer is trying to achieve?
- How will the organization measure success with the initiative?
- What are the agreed upon required capabilities or requirements for success?
Elite sales organizations are crystal clear on who does what when. If this definition isn't clear in your organization, do what is needed to clarify these roles and the critical information hand-offs.
3. Make it Sales Consumable
There's nothing worse than rolling out a new process or new information and doing it in a way that burdens the sales team and takes them away from selling. No matter the initiative, no matter the process - you need to ask yourself how you are making it easy for the sales team to execute? Think one-sheets, not binders of information. Drafting your content, processes and tools into technology can be an effective way to make their use practical for the sales team. When we talk to sales leaders we often use the analogy of 10lbs of stuff in a 5lb bag. Too often, that's what sales leaders try to do with kick-offs, meetings or even with the sales process. If it's not sales consumable, it won't be adopted or followed. You'll waste time, money, effort and even worse, your sales numbers will fall flat.
Instead, earn the right to keep driving a great conversation by ensuring alignment, consistency and practicality for your sales team.
