Guess what? You’ve just been given the chance to lead a sales team. You’re excited and ready to take on this new adventure. But how can you make sure you and your team do really well?
Maybe you’re here to help a sales team that’s not doing great, or you’ve joined because of changes in the company. Either way, you’ve got a chance to make a big difference.
You might be new to this company, new to being a sales leader, or you’ve come from a different part of the company. There’s a lot to learn, no matter what.
Here are seven easy tips to help you start strong, make your move smoother, and do a great job for your company.
Understanding Your Role
The first thing to do as the new sales leader or manager is to really understand what your job is all about. You probably heard about your main tasks before you started, but you need to be super clear on the sales goals and what the bosses expect from you.
What sales numbers does your team need to reach? What kind of changes do the company’s leaders want you to make? Are there any problems you need to fix or arguments you need to settle?
Meet with the big bosses, your own manager, and your team members, one by one and as a group, to learn about the goals and get more information. If you need to, try to understand what they mean even when they don’t say it directly. Then you can start making plans based on these goals.
Setting Clear Expectations
Right from the start, tell your new sales team what you expect from them and how they should behave. If you don’t do this early on, your team might just do things their own way or stick to what they’re used to, which might not be the best.
You’ll need to talk about how to follow the sales process, stay productive, use the customer relationship management (CRM) system, report on work, have meetings, and more.
Plan regular times to meet with your sales team and also one-on-one meetings with each salesperson. For example, maybe your team could meet every Monday at 1:30, and you could have separate meetings with each person on a regular schedule.
Organize your meetings well and have an agenda for each one to make sure you use the time wisely and keep your team focused and on the right track.
Learning from Your Sales Team
Your salespeople can teach you a lot as you start your new job. Ask them about the way things are done, the people, and the products. Here are some questions to consider:
Remember, some of the salespeople you’re leading might know more about the industry than you do. If you’re a new sales leader, they’ll be more open to your coaching if you show that you value their knowledge and experience.
Understanding Your Team
To help your team do better, you need to really get to know them. Find out about each person’s work style, what they like, what they don’t like, and what motivates them. This is more than just knowing what they enjoy doing on weekends.
If you’ve been a sales leader before, you know it’s important to understand how each team member behaves, what drives them, and how they like to communicate. If you’re new to this, you might want to learn about using sales assessments to see what makes each person in your team special.
This knowledge helps you coach each person in a way that they like, talk to them in a way that really connects, and get them to take action.
Setting Up a Sales Process
Your sales team might already follow a sales process, or maybe they have a way of doing things that could be better. A sales process is a set of steps that helps a team close deals by guiding a potential customer from just learning about something to actually buying it.
When you’re the new sales leader, it’s a good time to introduce a new sales process or improve the current one. This helps make everything clear for your team, gets everyone on the same page, makes talking to each other easier, and leads to better results.
Hiring and Training New Team Members
As you work with your new team, you might need to hire new people and make sure they start off well.
First, look at how the team hires and trains new people. Does it work the way you want? Before you hire anyone, make sure the training programs are set up so new people can do well quickly. Check out some tips for training new salespeople in 2024 to improve your process.
Next, think about what skills and qualities someone needs to do well in the jobs you have open. It’ll be easier to find the right people once you know exactly what you’re looking for in a candidate.
Job benchmarking helps you know what a job really needs so you can compare candidates to that. When you make a job benchmark, think about what the job needs now and what it might need in the future.
Using Your Experience
You were picked to lead your company’s sales team for a reason. Use everything you’ve learned in your career, like how to organize things, follow procedures, and connect with salespeople, and use those skills with your new team.
At the same time, be ready to keep learning and getting better at being a leader.
If you need help with the challenges of leading a sales team, The Brooks Group is here to support you. Learn more about our Sales Leadership Accelerator, a training program that gives you useful skills and ideas for being a great sales leader.
What makes the best sales teams different? We asked sales leaders from different businesses to find out.
In our research report, we share what the top sales teams do that sets them apart.
Did you miss our previous article…
https://pardonresearch.com/?p=37704