Taking a look at some of the top strategies and tips to help your team improve sales calls and sales numbers. How to get the most out of your sales team.
There’s always room for improvement when it comes to improving your team’s sales calls, but it can be hard to decide the best way to go about it. Taking into account everyone’s strengths, experiences, and weaknesses, one piece of advice is rarely a “fix all” for all areas of improvement you’re starting to encounter.
Even worse, some tips and strategies backfire and create a demoralizing environment that doesn’t motivate your team to continue improving their skills.
With this in mind, read on for our top tips and strategies to help your team improve sales calls while fostering a culture of growth!
1. No More Scripts
Scripts are great for people who are new to your team and need an adjustment period, but if you want your team to operate at a higher level, you need to rely less on scripts. This is because people can tell when you’re using a script versus when you’re having a genuine, engaging conversation.
Scripts also don’t promote flexibility and adaptability. Your sales team will be far less likely to adjust and make improvements in their interactions with customers if they feel bound by a script.
If there are certain key points that you want your sales team to establish in every call, simply create a brief, easy to read outline. This allows your team to inject their own personality and adaptations in each call without completely derailing.
2. Record Calls
You may be able to quickly discern what your team needs improvement on and what they excel at, but showing is more convincing than telling. If your team is comfortable with it, record a few of their calls and encourage them to listen to and evaluate their own calls.
Although nearly no one enjoys the sound of their own voice, your team will be able to clearly identify where they’re falling short. For instance, one person might realize they don’t sound as enthusiastic as they think they do when they’re describing the benefits of your product or service. Another might find they’re getting a little too long-winded.
3. Create Goals
The only way you know if your team is improving is with specific, realistic, and measurable goals. Small short-term goals are great to inspire your team and show that their work is paying off. Long term goals create purpose.
Although it may be tempting, avoid creating result-oriented sales goals. Not only can these kinds of goals feel frustrating and unachievable, but they can also demoralize your team.
Instead, create goals that are in your team’s control. For instance, instead of giving everyone a quota of closing 10 deals a week, change that to a goal of making 10 calls a week.
The numbers and timeframe will change depending on your situation, but you can see how one goal may or may not be accomplished no matter how hard your team tries, while the latter is definitely achievable.
4. Smart Product Positioning
The way you frame your offerings alters how prospective customers see them. This means identifying your customers’ problems, acknowledging them during the call, and then highlighting your offering’s benefits and how it can solve their problems.
You’ll need to do this while using succinct, easy to understand language. An effective way of developing your product positioning is to see how your best customers use your product or service. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself:
- Do our customers use the same terminology?
- Is the product or service meeting the expectations you built up during the call?
- How do your best customers use your product or service?
5. Education
Remember to regularly set aside time that’s focused on your team’s education, especially when you’re seeing shortcomings that need to be developed across the board.
Don’t become reliant on your top 20% sales reps to pull the most weight. Instead, you can ask them to help you develop training material or offer advice for other sales reps.
Really look at what they do well and how they’re able to do that consistently. Then, strive to replicate that in your training. This creates a healthy culture of growth instead of constant competition, which can lead to burnout.
6. Measure the Process
Improving your sales team is all about collecting and analyzing the relevant data, but don’t just focus on the final results. This creates tunnel vision – you’ll be unable to recognize what’s working in your sales process and what needs improvement.
Consider the full customer journey, from first contact, relationship building, to closing. Evaluate your reps based on how effective they are throughout the entire sales funnel.
For instance, your top performers may still be struggling with the initial contact or in following up. However, if you only care about how many sales they close a week, you won’t recognize those areas that can be improved.
Improve Sales Calls for the Longterm
A results-focused mindset may seem like the most efficient way to improve sales calls, but it’s not sustainable for the longterm. This is because it fails to help you realize what areas need improving and only rewards your top reps.
Longterm success and more successful closings come from a review of the entire sales funnel. Through measurable data and small, achievable goals, you can see continued improvement in your team and best of all less turnover.
Are you ready to improve your sales team? Contact us today at (402) 858-6246 – we’ll develop and run a comprehensive plan based on a complete analysis of your current weaknesses and potential!
