Things every Company needs to know about the sales team

Every successful salesperson knows that sales is a numbers game. They know the numbers needed to succeed, they know their numbers and they know where they are in relation to the numbers.

The same rules apply to Sales Managers. Successful Sales Managers know the numbers of the team but also know overall team numbers and statistics. This allows them train, coach and manage the team to achieve success by improving upon the numbers where they can be improved.

The problem with sales performance is that most small businesses do not know the numbers. What does that even mean? It means that most companies don’t even have benchmarks and truly know whether or not each salesperson is successful and they don’t know where or how each can improve in order to generate more business.

·       Quotas: If you don’t have benchmarks and definitions of success, you can’t evaluate success and target areas for improvement. Improvement, not turnover, is the goal.

o   According to Forbes in 2018 (and the number doesn’t change much each year), 57% of sales professionals do not attain quota.

o   Research by the TAS Group claims that 23% of companies don’t even know if their sales professionals achieved quota.

·       Closing percentages: Another benchmark. It’s important to know not only if quotas are achieved, but can the sales team close more of the deals they propose?

o   A well-known industry analyst firm reports that best-in-class companies close 30% of sales qualified leads while average companies close 20%.

o   Despite knowing the numbers, most small businesses don’t even utilize a lead scoring system in order to qualify leads and improve the numbers.

·       Understanding the pain: Everybody knows that the key to selling business is truly understanding customer pain points and demonstrating a solution. Sounds easy. Especially as a business owner, you just expect your sales team to be able to do this.

o   According to research by The TAS Group, only 61% of sales professionals feel they are good at this skill. This means that 40% of your sales team does not feel confident they are good at the basic premise of sales. How many think they are good but are not?

·       Pipeline: Another important metric for sales is the pipeline. Consistency. What are you working on that will generate revenue this quarter, next quarter and the quarter after that. Most sales are not transactional and require activities each week that impact every level of the pipeline.

o   Yet, again according to the TAS Group, only 46% of salespeople surveyed feel their pipeline is accurate. So even if they achieve quota this month, forecasting for the future is a complete guessing game for more than half of all salespeople.

·       Playbook: Every organization understands the importance of having a plan. The operations teams have detailed plans to implement a service or develop a product. But when it comes to sales, TAS Group’s study shows that almost half of all sales teams do not have a documented playbook. The same study demonstrated the success organizations experience from their sales teams when they have a playbook. They are 33% more likely to have high performers on their team and their closing percentages are higher than the companies that don’t have a plan.

·       Strategy: Many organizations have a sales team and they inform the sales team of the product and service, and expect the sales team to sell. The information goes from the organization to the sales team. Another way of viewing sales is that it is integrated into the organization and feedback from the sales team is incorporated into the organizations overall strategy and vision. The TAS Group study shows that there is a direct correlation between sales performance and sales’ involvement in strategy. When the sales team is involved in overall strategy:

a.       Quota attainment increases 15%

b.       53% of the time, the organization has sales personnel that are considered “High Achievers”

There is an obvious moral to the story. Many organizations, especially small businesses, have a product or service to offer and they hire sales professionals to grow the business and generate revenue. However, sales is no different than any other service. It requires a plan, benchmarks, analysis and of course, not every person is going to be successful despite past success due to products, culture, personality, etc. Organizations that take sales seriously and invest in their sales team are much more likely to reap the benefits of their investment.

Small businesses need to invest in sales management or fractional sales management because the results realized by the sales team can far outweigh the costs.