An original article by Mark Allen Roberts, Sales Consultant, Coach, and CEO of OTB Solutions
Many businesses are as busy or busier than they were pre-pandemic. My clients share they want to hire more salespeople to keep up with demand and give their current customers the best buying experience as possible.
What I often ask my clients often surprises them: Are you sure you need more salespeople?
Having led a number of sales teams over the past 36 years and now provide sales consulting, training and coaching I have experienced some interesting trends, data points if you will.
- In most sales teams I serve 20%-30% of the people in customer facing quota carrying sales roles should not be in sales.
- Another 34% of salespeople are in the wrong roles based on their skills, beliefs and motivations.
- Salespeople today are spending less than 20% of their sellable time selling.
- Over 50% of salespeople have not received any formal sales skills training.
- 25%-30% of sales teams have not updated their sales structure in over 12 months.
- Buyers shared in a recent survey in a typical one-hour meeting with a salesperson only 6 minutes were actually valuable to them, the buyer.
So, let me ask you again…Are you sure you need more salespeople?
Or do you need to improve the overall effectiveness of your current sales team?
Before you invest in more salespeople, I suggest the following to ensure your current sales team is as effective and efficient as they could be.
I.Assess sales skills
Conduct a sales skills assessment to determine the current state of your salespeople by sales role.
Do you have Hunters, Farmers and Fishermen?
Do you have the right people in the right roles?
Do your people have the right skills, motivations and beliefs for the role there are in?
II. Train and Coach
Prescribe training and coaching to fill any skills gaps discovered in the assessment.
III. Measure what Matters
Establish key performance indicators that drive the results you want and need. Far too many teams are tracking lagging indicators alone like sales and profit per sale.
The teams I work with track indicators like:
- New client contacts attempted
- New client conversations completed
- Future meetings booked
- Quotes presented
- Close rates on quotes
IV. Reinforce Accountability to goals
Develop and manage a sales accountability process.
So, one more time, let me ask you the question: Are you sure you need more salespeople?
Or would you first like to understand how effective your current sales team is and determine how effective they could be with training and coaching.
If you have done all of the above and determine you need more salespeople, I can help you find top sales performers to add to your organization.
If improving sales team effectiveness is something you would like to learn more about, get in touch with IMEC.
In the meanwhile, get started with these recorded webinars, presented in partnership with Mark Roberts of OTB Solutions.
BOOST SALES SKILLS: Building Virtual Relationships Training Series
In this three part series you and your team will understand the skills, mindset and process to sell virtually. You will be provided a framework for building virtual relationships and how to leverage social tools like LinkedIn to target your ideal customers and the right buyer persona at your targeted accounts. Your team will develop questioning skills that demonstrate competence , build trust and shorten sales cycles while increasing close rates. You will learn how to strategically update your value proposition to improve your prospecting results.
SALES DEEP DIVE: Improving Virtual Sales Skills Training Series
How do we improve the sales effectiveness of virtual sales calls? In this three-part series, you will learn rapport-building techniques, understand what a value proposition is, how to create one for your product or service and how to create buyer persona specific messaging that creates conversations that turn into revenue virtually. The final session focuses on the two sales skills that have the biggest impact on improving your close rates: Discovery and qualifying questions. We will share discover and qualifying best practices and share example questions to build business conversations that turn into revenue opportunities.
PROSPECT WITH PURPOSE: A Strategic Approach to New Customer Prospecting Webinar
In this data driven webinar sales consultant and coach Mark Roberts shares why today is the best time to prospect and what are the three considerations to make your business development prospecting efficient and effective in today’s market.
