By all means, keep searching for the best and brightest salespeople — the ones you know have the talent and desire to excel in your organization. But before you get too far in the process, take a step back and examine your sales readiness . Are you setting your salespeople up for success right off the bat? Are there things you know you could do better but haven’t had the time to fix? Are you doing everything you should be to create a sales culture that allows anyone you hire the opportunity to see success?

If you’ve found yourself in this position one too many times, the problem might not be the salespeople. Yes, poor performers are probably never going to work out. But some of the people that have come and gone might have done better if you optimized your strategy, structure, process, and people to set your whole team up for success.

Strategy

Getting a new salesperson off on the right foot starts with having a well-thought-out Strategic Sales Plan in place. Leaders need to develop a company-level plan to provide direction rather than counting on their salespeople to instinctively know the best course of action.

A robust strategy should equip salespeople with an understanding of the different types of buyers they’ll encounter, the challenges and objections they’ll face, and how your solution is different from the competition.

When done correctly, this becomes the guidance your salespeople establish their individual sales plans upon, which should tightly align with your desired end goal for the entire business.

Strategic

Sales Plan in place. Leaders need to develop a company-level plan to provide direction rather than counting on their salespeople to instinctively know the best course of action. A robust strategy should equip salespeople with an understanding of the different types of buyers they’ll encounter, the challenges and objections they’ll face, and how your solution is different from the competition. When done correctly, this becomes the guidance your salespeople establish their individual sales plans upon, which should tightly align with your desired end goal for the entire business.

Structure

Another pitfall that can derail even the best A-Player is when an organization does not have the proper infrastructure to support its sales efforts. This encompasses a wide range of elements from staff structure to the necessary systems to measure and manage performance. For example, creating clear lines of accountability for all roles and functions that interface with the customer will bring clarity to performance expectations. This prevents time consuming distractions and fosters a customer centric culture. Another area of structure involves the method in which your prospect and customer segments are designated and managed. This provides your customers with a consistent experience and enables your sales resources to be positioned in their areas of strength..

These best practices create a solid platform for your salespeople to work from. Then, layering on the appropriate systems to capture sales activity, report on key metrics, manage sales pipeline, etc., allows you and your leadership team the critical visibility needed to keep a pulse on how the business is progressing toward its goals.

Process

The heart of the sales organization is the sales process. When you effectively nail down your sales process, you have essentially bottled a scalable formula for success. This means if you drop a new member into your Sales Team and have them follow the roadmap you laid out, they can deliver the same consistent results as other team members.

Assess the effectiveness of your sales process by reviewing things like:

● Is my sales process documented with clarity?

● Is my sales pipeline showing good movement?

● Are my salespeople performing consistently?

● Does the Sales Team regularly achieve forecast accuracy?

People

Even with solid strategy, structure, and processes in place, hands-on sales leadership is the magnet that draws it all together. As you assess your performance in this area, consider the consistency of your weekly one-on-one sales meetings for individual planning and mutual accountability. Given the reliance of the salesperson on their sales manager, powerful outcomes are produced when both sides are willing to be accountable to the other.

Another important area to review is the level of value your sales meetings deliver to the team. Lastly, keep track of how often you participate in sales calls — both in-person and video calls, and how often you are creating powerful learning moments for your reps through these interactions.

Are you struggling to find the time to apply this level of focus? Do you recognize there are times when you aren’t sure how to confidently lead and develop your salespeople? This common need in the small to mid-sized business community was the driver for me packaging my extensive experience to help on a fractional or interim basis.