What happens when your sales strategy hits your front line? Are your reps ready? Are they enabled? Will they produce?
These are the questions that weigh heavily on most sales leaders’ minds – especially this time of year. The sales kick-off is over and we’re back at work – the expectations are high, and so are the risks.
Despite rapid investment in demand gen, training, and tools, B2B sales remains a complex and challenging endeavor. So much so, that the average rep will stay in their role for less than two years. Fewer than half of forecasted deals will close. And the top 20% of performers will carry 60% of the load.
How can B2B sales organizations combat these issues and ensure consistent sales execution across their teams? Companies following best practices are demonstrating some key characteristics. Interestingly, these characteristics are determined less by the reps themselves and more by the teams that support them. So, what are they?
Your growth strategy is well communicated and understood: The starting point for high impact sales execution is understanding the unanimous path for growth. Your growth strategy needs to be communicated to the front line in a clear and simple fashion. A clearly communicated growth strategy should guide reps in pursuing deals of the greatest value, quality, and likelihood to close. The right communication framework and cadence should keep this strategy front and center for all key contributors so that it guides their daily priorities and actions.
Your sales process is formalized and trained: Companies with a formalized sales process will generate 18% more revenue. That’s a critical statistic when you consider the pressure for sales growth. Do you define and enable a consistent selling motion, where activities, roles, and metrics are clearly defined? Defined stages with agreed upon entry and exit criteria enable your reps to mobilize the right set of resources to execute in an expected way and enable managers to engage, inspect, and coach quality execution with a consistent approach.
Winning behaviors are recognized and reinforced: If you can’t recognize it, you can’t reinforce, reward, or scale the behavior. Examples and ingredients of best practice sales execution should be commonly understood and visible across your sales organization so that reps, peers, and managers can understand the impact their actions have on deal quality and close rates. Once quantified, that impact can be showcased, trained and reinforced as an expectation across your front-line team.
Reps are efficient and equipped: If your front line is expected to execute your formal sales process and adhere to best practices, then they need the right tools to do that both efficiently and effectively. Do they have ready access to the right content and coaching to lead great conversations? Are they always connected to technical and subject matter experts? Are they equipped to deliver high-impact presentations and customized proposals? Today’s reps need to be armed with the best content at the right time, and empowered on every device.
If you’d like to learn more about how these characteristics are enabling winning sales teams, please join DSG and SAVO for a joint webinar on March 3: Enabling High Impact Sales Growth – From Strategy to Reality.
To register for the webinar click here.
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