What Do Sales Leaders Need To Do For Their Teams In 2021?
The future of salestech and even sales leadership is undergoing a drastic change and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic can partly be a reason. What can limit the future growth prospects for any company is not just a lack of strategic values and thinking in sales cadences and sales strategies but also a lack in good sales leadership. Being a good sales leader involves a lot more than just being good in sales. As today’s sales executives face a different set of challenges due to a lack of physical events and ability to meet prospects in-person, the onus lies on sales leaders to train, develop and drive their sales reps for better success using proactive leadership.
Setting Achievable and Comfortable Quotas, Together
Sales quotas are the key metrics used to assess any salesperson effort for a period of time, but given today’s dynamics, without understanding the personal level challenges your sales team member may be facing (Covid-19 related and otherwise) setting a quota without considering other aspects might not be a good idea, at least for a salesperson who has been successful and achieved targets in the past. If sales quotas can be set for smaller periods of time and put in place as a collaborative effort, it will help ensure that the sales executive in concern drives efforts to achieve results more proactively.
While setting quotas, being clear about other activities that will help make a difference to the team and urging the sales executive to contribute in other ways, like, enhancing his or her sales process at the discovery stage can also help build a better team bond while keeping the sales team actively chasing the right goals.
Redefining how Sales measurements are done
Sales processes are changing, the choice of sales tech is changing and now so should the way sales measurements are being made. A typical B2B sales cadence is usually a long cycle, in a time when abrupt economic changes can influence business buying decisions, it makes sense to change how sales measurements are done by trying to evaluate performance, sales input and output at most crucial stages of the sales cadence or journey: how are prospects reacting to sales emails, are prospects warming up to sales reps during discovery calls, should discovery calls be changed to include more videos, etc. Sales leaders who are more actively assessing results and measuring output or customer and prospect engagement at various stages of the sales cycle will not what to improve when and will also be in a better position to tell their sales reps and other sales executives what kind of improvements should be catered to, as a priority.
Keeping in mind that every Sales member is Important
Most sales people might have struggles with achieving quotas during the pandemic though there have been several cases of successful sales results in tech as well. However, sales people who have been high achievers before or those that have dropped results in the recent past, are not necessarily members that need to be overlooked by sales leaders. Understanding that each member of the sales team is important and crucial to future growth prospects will help mature sales leaders learn how to focus on developing skills, reinitiating success in previous members who achieved high results using the right training while implementing change in sales process (for example: replacing multiple cold calls with an automated dialer!) are also basic tricks to drive sales success.
Every team member will face challenges at any given point of time and this is where sales leadership needs to play a more crucial role in advancing the business while helping their sales team overcome challenges.
Read More : SalesTechStar Interview with Scott Lasica, Chief Sales Officer at Stream
In Conclusion
2021 will be another exciting year for salestech and sales leaders, this is the time for sales leaders to hone their skills and maintain the balance between being a star seller and leading their team to success as one unit. Most sales leaders start off as salespeople or sales reps after all and their own journey should be a driving force in lifting the team to greater heights!
