Odds are that your sales team is a rich amalgam of different types of personalities, backgrounds, and experiences. Yet, I’m betting that one thing most people on your team have in common is that they’re innately driven and always looking for new ways to continue to perform at the highest levels. One of the best things you can do to help them consistently achieve their goals is to teach them how to instill better habits.
There are several habits that can improve the performance of your team: learning from industry leaders through blogs and podcasts each week, taking eLearning courses, and working with a mentor regularly. While these are all important and can help sales professionals make huge strides in their careers, one of the biggest things your sales team likely focuses on is revenue.
While money is not always the largest motivator, what it represents is black and white data, proving the success or failure of their efforts. Many sales people are motivated by the competition of their peers or outside competitors within their industry. Some are motivated by the recognition they receive. No matter the reason, revenue building is important to companies and their sales departments. Let’s dive in to some important revenue building habits you can teach your own sales team.
Check Metrics Every Day
This is where incorporating the use of data into daily habits is so powerful. If your sales team is in the habit of checking their performance every day to assess what went well and where the opportunities are, it begins the process of immediate course correction. Using data provided through your CRM to measure performance on things like the number of calls made, the number of face-to-face meetings held, provides daily insights into each stage of the sales cycle, and helps you to better optimize your team’s sales time and strategy.
Track Competitors
Data has become an essential part of doing business. This doesn’t just mean in self-assessment and revenue tracking, but we use it to track our competition as well. We’ve always done this, but with the advent of big data, it’s a whole lot easier. You’ll sometimes hear it referred to as competitive intelligence. Most high performance sales team know how their competitors do their business.
Keep track of how your competitors are selling and performing against your own data metrics within a robust business intelligence software with industry benchmarking metrics. Display this competitor information on an easily-accessed dashboard where the whole team can watch your progress.
Qualify the Best Lead and Pursue the Best Opportunities
You already know that trying to close a deal with prospects who never reach a decision is a frustrating part of sales. One of the best ways to avoid this is to get your sales team in the habit of constantly checking their sales pipeline and to be selective about qualifying only the best sales opportunities. By focusing on quality, the team knows where it makes the most sense to prioritize their time and attention.
Upsell Immediately
One of the best ways to build revenue is by immediately upselling, and the best products to try to upsell are complementary products that pair well with the initial product just purchased. Think about the last pair of glasses you bought, did they let you leave the office without offering a second pair, sunglasses, lens cleaner and so on.
The use of CRM is invaluable to your team as it can help them present an upsell offer to the customer based on their purchase and their purchase history. Take the time to pre-segment your customers into types, and use automation tools within the CRM to suggest products that the current customer segments usually prefers.
Follow-Up
Perhaps one of the most important habits of all for your sales team to cultivate is follow-up. Admittedly, this can be overwhelming depending on the size of each sales person’s region, customer base, or book of business. It is, however, critical to the overall success of your team that prospects and customers feel valued and important. Remembering the last time your company touched base with them and what was discussed, or even personal dates like birthdays and anniversaries, are excellent ways to foster relationships. These are difficult to manage manually, which is why utilizing relationship intelligence and CRM together to organize these details can be a game changer.
While there are certainly several habits your sales team would benefit from incorporating, prioritize those that increase revenue. In order to successfully incorporate new habits, consider the use of software technology like a CRM to assist you and your team in optimizing your sales strategy and building revenue.
(Editor’s note: the following is a guest post from Jessica Barrett Halcom, a writer for TechnologyAdvice.com).
***Jessica Barrett Halcom is a writer for TechnologyAdvice, over the last 17 years she has written about topics related to human resources, marketing, healthcare, transportation, technology and leadership.
