What does your sales team really need to learn?

Does your sales team need to improve their results?

In many cases the answer is Yes! But do you know which elements of their sales efforts actually need attention? Specifically what do they need to work on to achieve better outcomes?

They’re not always easy questions to answer.

You could ask your sales team

Ask your sales team what needs to be improved to help them make more sales and the answer is often:

• “We need to be cheaper”
• “Better information/support” or
• “More marketing so people know who we are”

You could ask your sales manager

Ask a sales manager or business owner what needs to be improved and often the answer is:

• “Make more calls/visits”
• “Close more sales” or
• “Better articulate our value proposition”

In many cases I’ve seen the situation where the Sales Manager (or whoever holds the role of managing the ‘sales team’, such as a General Manager) doesn’t ever, or only rarely, get out into the field with their individual sellers. So they don’t have first-hand experience of what their team are actually doing.

And because they don’t spend enough one-on-one time with team members they struggle to build a solid rapport and never get a deeper understanding of what drives each of their team.

I’ve also spoken with sales leaders who initially request ‘sales training’ when really what they’re thinking about is improving the ‘presentation skills’ of the team because giving a presentation is an important component of the sales process.

Providing training, coaching, or other skill development opportunities for your sales team is an important step in their professional development and can demonstrate the company is committed to supporting the team. However it’s important to understand professional development priorities and provide the right learning opportunity at the right time.

Is it skill, process or attitude?

When it comes to identifying what needs to be improved it can be helpful to have a framework that covers a wide variety of options. Then you can decide which specific areas of skill, process or attitude need to be improved.

The Sales Performance Improvement Framework (SPIF) was developed to help sales leaders (and business owners) better define what the problem is, and therefore where the focus for improvement should be.

Observed vs. Recorded

It must be recognised that many specific sales activities and traits of outside (or ‘in the field’) sellers can only be observed in the field during live interactions with clients. They are not recorded so you can’t monitor them after the fact.

However, even for field-based sellers it’s good practice to record the outcomes of sales calls and other sales communication so there is a reference for future contact with the customer, and possibly provide data for internal analysis.

For inside sales teams it’s often possible to observe these interactions either in real time or by reviewing recorded conversations or video meetings.

To cater for this difference the quadrant structure for the SPIF includes the axis of ‘Observed’ versus ‘Recorded’ actions.

Those factors that are recorded have been documented in some format, so they are more easily measured.

The factors which are observed usually occur in one-to-one settings during client interactions. So, if you’re not observing that particular sales interaction you wont be able to determine if a particular factor is being done/applied at that time.

Office vs. field

The other axis of the SPIF addresses whether the factor occurs ‘in the office’ or ‘in the field’. When combined with the concept of ‘observed’ versus ‘recorded’ this gives a clear picture of where the sales manager needs to be looking to determine which factors across the whole sales performance spectrum offer room for improvement.

Want to discuss options to improve the performance of your sales team?

For help to apply the Sales Performance Improvement Framework to your organisation, or to explore sales performance improvement and training options, you’re welcome to get in touch.