If you want to improve sales productivity and generate more revenue per rep, you need to be able to reinforce sales best practices. When we talk about sales transformation, we mean changing the behaviors of your salespeople in a way that drives results.
Scheduling a training event is not going to drive measurable impact. Rather, what you do after the event is where you need to put the majority of your focus.
Here are three areas where you can drive an impact:
1. Leading from the Front
Sales executives and managers play a fundamental role in driving success. They need to establish an environment that drives true transformation. It’s not just the Chief Sales Officer or even the President of the company, it’s peer-to-peer leadership in every component of the organization. What is your organization doing to reinforce the methodology across the organization?
Sales leadership has the opportunity to set up an environment in such a way that they drive great outcomes for the entire organization. To be successful, here are some questions to consider:
- How does leadership incorporate the language of the methodology?
- How do they communicate with peers and as they move down the chain of management down to the individual contributors?
- What are the habits of leadership that actually have a transformative effect in the rest of the organization?
- What will their indicators be that the methodology is being adopted?
2. Documenting Success
Documenting success is not just about capturing major wins. It’s also about measuring incremental progress. Perhaps a rep was able to uncover a major business problem by using a more effective discovery process. Or, a meeting was just booked with a high-level decision maker, who previously, wouldn’t take the rep’s calls. Our ultimate measure of success may be a larger average deal size. However, these other “wins” are certainly critical steps along the way. Promoting and recognizing those small benchmarks of success lead to great overall success metrics.
3. Meet Them Where They Are
Your sales reps are busy. You need them to spend as much time actually selling as possible. When reinforcing new concepts and practices, technology can be an important success tool. Your reps are on their phones. They’re driving. They’re on social networks. Find a way to meet them where they are, tapping into modalities they’re already using.
Sending repeated content – providing insights into situations they experience regularly – in small chunks in a variety of channels will help reinforce concepts at any time and any place. In our experience, this practice has been a fundamental component to our clients’ success.
