Sales are the lifeline of any business. So it's crucial that your team has the right tools to be successful and that you have the right people in the right seats. Here are ten things to check for to gauge the health of your sales force, processes, and tools. If you recognize any of these, you need to figure out some solutions fast.
Your team isn't using their CRM platform
One of the worst things that a sales team can do is forget where they’re getting their information from. If they stop paying attention to your customer relationship management system, it probably means they’ve left whatever strategy your team has come up with behind. A CRM is an incredibly useful piece of programming. If you have one, you need to make sure that your people stick to it or you’ve already lost.
There's no insight into the performance of sales emails
If you don’t know how the emails your sales team sends out are performing, how can you determine what is working? You need to be able to see the content in action, otherwise you are left in uncertain territory.
Sales reps are focusing on the wrong prospects
It’s never good when you check in on your sales team and you find out that they’ve been targeting the completely wrong persona. If you want to target marketing executives but instead their emails and calls are going to administrative professionals, there has been a serious breakdown in communication that needs to be repaired. You need your sales team aware of who you are trying to do business with, so they don’t waste everyone's time.
The company isn't closing deals like it should
You’ve got to be angry if you have a strategy in play, know that a prospect is interested, have held their hand throughout their buyer’s journey, and then passed them to sales where the deal fails to close. How is that possible? Why can’t they close deals with perfect prospects? What is happening in your sales team that causes this? You need to know at least some of the reasons behind this so that you can fix the problem.
Communication is falling short
When you tell your team something important, you expect them to listen. When you can’t communicate with your team, there is clearly something wrong that needs to be addressed. There are dozens of ways that communication can fall short, but there are an equal number of ways that you can customize how you communicate in the first place. If you manage to fix the problem before it starts, that’s good, but sometimes that isn’t an option, so you need to figure out why your sales team can’t seem to understand what you tell them. What is it that they don’t understand? Where is the disconnect?
Results are inconsistent
One month the sales team closes 10 deals. One month they close 15. The month after that they close 4. If that is the case, then there might be a problem that needs to be addressed. You can’t let things rise and fall without any clue why it is happening. There may be good reasons that closing deals vary from month to month, but you need to know what those are.
There are complaints about poor lead quality
If your sales team starts making noise about poor leads that the marketing team sends their way, you need to figure out why that is. Is the problem that the marketing team has made good leads by their standards but the sales team disagrees? Is it that the sales team can’t seem to work with the content that the marketing team has made, so they don’t know how to interact with the leads? Where is the problem that makes the sales team think they don’t have the right kind of leads? You need to figure it out and fix the problem before you can move on.
Sales messaging and content are generic
How can you hope to sell anything if the content your sales team creates is just about the same as the competition's? If your messages are the same then all your company will do is feel like another iteration of the same old company. You want to make sure your message is put into a creative package so that people will actually be interested and your company will stand out to them.
Reps aren’t using the right content in the right situation
When your prospect downloads a video about a product that, for instance, cleans floors, they do not expect to get an email or a phone call detailing how to arrange a garage. If your sales team is trying to give leads content so far from their situation that it wasn’t even close to their radar, there is something wrong.
It takes way too long for a new salesperson to make quota
If you hire a salesperson, you expect them to be able to get sales. It’s the same with any other type of new employee. You’re even likely to give them some good training and a goal to reach. But if your salesperson takes three months to get one sale, when you were hoping for one in two weeks, then clearly there’s a problem.
If any of these are problems that affect your team, then you need to figure out how to solve them. The only person who can ultimately decide how best to fix your sales team is you. It is vitally important that you get your team back on track, or another company might come in and take your place.
Posted by Kevin Glancy
Kevin Glancy is an east coast transplant who has had a taste of the inbound Kool-Aid and is pumped to share how it can help your business grow. He loves video games, a good laugh, and enlightening conversations.