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Top 10 Revenue Driving Tips Salespeople can Learn from the Winter Games

Feb 2014/in , , , /by

This article by Penny Herscher was posted this morning on the salesforce.com blog. See the original here.

A recent David Williams Forbes article, Why You Should Fill Your Company With Athletes, highlighted seven traits to look for when hiring. David didn’t mean that you should hire only real athletes, but rather, try to hire employees that have “athlete traits that make any individual an exceptional hire.” With the winter games off to an exciting start, and many of our own fiscal years starting up, sales teams are looking to be fast out of the gate. There are many lessons sales teams learn from the best winter athletes in the world.

What traits do athletes have that can translate to sales? Quite a few, actually. Athletes, especially Olympic-caliber ones, are very driven. They know that they have to put in the work at practice to see results in the games—and sometimes that means practices every day, or twice a day. Moreover, they have a never-say-die attitude, and they know how to work through adversity to see results. Managers should try to find salespeople who put in the time and work to prepare for client meetings. Chances are, they’ll be more successful.

The best athletes focus on the smallest aspects of their sport. They know, for instance, that anything that isn’t streamlined during the ski jump can subtract precious tenths of a meter. They have impeccable timing, whether it’s changing positions mid-air, or releasing the puck. And world-class curlers know exactly how much force to put behind the stone. Salespeople have to show the same attention to detail in their accounts. To be truly successful, they should strive to be intimately acquainted with every aspect of their accounts. The smallest event, or hint of an emerging trend, can be the key to making or losing the sale.

Lastly, the best athletes have the best equipment available. In fact, they need the top-of-the-line gear so they don’t fall behind their competition. Even if one person is an inherently better athlete than another, a slight edge in aerodynamics can mean the difference between the gold medal and 10th place.

Of course, the same is true in sales. How can you expect your salespeople to be the best and achieve world-class results if you don’t equip them with good tools—or any tools at all? In order to succeed, they need to be able to have a deep view of their clients’ business and markets. They need to be given the opportunity to react to a management change, or a market shift, and if they have to sift through all of the noise that’s on the Web, there’s a good chance they’ll miss it, or never get to it at all.

As a hiring manager, you need to look for salespeople who are driven and dedicated, but are also creative, detail-oriented, and have finesse. Once you’ve assembled your team, you have a responsibility as a manager to give them the tools they need to be successful. The right people will use the right tools wisely and move the needle for your business.

What can each of the winter sports teach your sales team? Check out the infographic below to find out!

OlympicsInfograph4

team

How to keep your best salespeople

Dec 2013/in , , , /by

By Penny Herscher

Your sales team is the backbone of your company, but how do you get stellar sales reps to stick around? Turnover is an issue everywhere, but one of the secrets to sales success is finding a way to maintain rock star salespeople.

Costs of turnover
Aside from losing top talent, whenever a salesperson departs, it leaves human resources working overtime to find new talent. Recruitment can drain precious resources. In addition to onboarding and training, you will be paying significant salaries to employees who have yet to achieve full productivity. On the other hand, there are less obvious costs. When a valued team member leaves, it can cause ripples among other employees, according to Christina Gomez for Executive Board sales blog. Losing a trusted colleague can cause decreased morale and sales productivity. As a result, clients can receive gaps in continuity, and sales can be lost. Suffice it to say, you don’t want to lose salespeople, but how do you get them to stick around?

1. Hire right the first time
Do an impeccable job of hiring from the beginning. Hiring can be difficult process at the best of times, but putting in maximum effort will give you greater returns. Don’t be lazy about recruitment. Realize there are different types of salespeople and no one personality type creates the ideal salesperson. What kind of seller does your team need right now? Asking candidates to take a personality test can help to guide you in whether they’ll be a good fit, as Brittany Griffin suggests on Inside Sales. Even if a candidate seems like a winner, delve deeply into their background. Be sure to actually check references and ask follow up questions to find out if there’s anything they aren’t telling you.

2. Provide incentives for top sellers
A big problem with some companies is that they quickly advance salespeople out of vital roles. According to Griffin, a lot of businesses use appointment setters as sort of a training pool before salespeople move on to other more prestigious jobs. These valuable employees specialize in finding sales opportunities for closers and every month they remain, they become 40 percent more productive. Instead of making this an entry-level position, provide incentives for workers to remain there. Every time you advance someone from appointment setter position, you have to replace them, and you’re starting over at zero productivity. Make this a job to aim for, not just a rest stop on the way to something better.

3. Find the right climate
A good company culture can encourage salespeople to remain. According to Gomez, a judgment-oriented culture results in about 15 percent less turnover than other types of management systems. A judgment-oriented culture is defined by an organic environment that is geared more toward building relationships than a sales agenda. Such businesses are innovative and open, with guidelines but no strict rules. Give your employees space to be creative and develop their own methods and they will reward you by sticking around longer.

4. Build leadership and community
For businesses across the board, relationships among staff are the prime drivers of happiness in the workplace. Strong salespeople value good leadership and a staff that can work effectively as a team. According to a recent survey from TINYpulse, transparency is the No. 1 factor that influences employee happiness. Workers want managers to clearly outline their expectations and be open with them about what works and what doesn’t in the sales setting. Even more than that, employees value openness from supervisors, they want it from co-workers. In fact, co-workers were the single most-cited reason employees were happy in their jobs. To make sure sales teams are working together optimally, schedule frequent team-building activities.

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