How to Build a Sales Team That Can Really Sell

When it comes to any sales focused business, be it high-tech software, low-tech home appliances, or a no-tech lemonade stand, there’s one universal truth: your company will fail if your sales team fails. Fortunately, there are a couple of simple steps you can take to develop a sales team that will not just hit, but exceed your revenue goals. In this article, I’ll walk you through a couple of these strategies in a little more detail.

Whether you have a team of rookies or seasoned industry pros, the best place to start is with a win/loss analysis. Doing this will help you avoid the problems that doom most sales training efforts:

1. Traditional sales training doesn’t focus on evaluating your team's performance from the customer’s perspective, which is critical (because customers decide how they want to buy, what they want to buy, and from whom).

2. Not recognising that in the B2B world at least, every sales cycle, for every type of product, to every customer, is different.

A one-size-fits-all sales training approach simply misses these two essential aspects of successful selling.

When we gather data via a win/loss analysis exercise, it tells us exactly how your team could be performing better, and how your customers want to buy from you. This data provides an indication of where to focus your time and attention, which is crucial for most sales teams, who tend to be time-poor and overloaded with admin. The data gathered during win/loss analysis offers predictive insights into the likely future buying behavior of other customers and prospects. 

Once you understand why your customers bought - or didn’t buy - from you, how they want to buy, and whom they are buying from, the next step is to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your team.

Not every team member can or should be a top performer. It’s important that you get the right mix of skillsets and personalities, to ensure a well-balanced and viable sales team.

Strong sales leaders embody a combination of experience, passion, and the capacity to kick things into overdrive. It takes potent executors, who can also lead and inspire their team, to help make everything run smoothly. The calibre and skill-set of the sales leader at the helm will have a material impact on the success or failure of the entire team. Such leaders also function as lightning rods for more novice team members, by motivating and upping the ante for the rest of the team.

To hire the right people, you must have a clear understanding of the type of personality that would blend well with the existing team. Do they lift the energy or knowledge of the entire sales team? Do they possess specific attributes or experience that’s currently missing from the team? The candidate needs to have the right combination of experience, energy, cultural fit and personal motivation, to compliment your existing team.

As customers increasingly perceive salespeople as a direct extension or even personification of your business, it goes without saying that every member of your sales team requires a base level of professionalism, responsiveness, and can-do attitude, so customers view your company in a positive light. The converse is also true. Salespeople who fail to develop rapport, trust, or connection with a prospective customer will invariably tar your entire company with the same brush. The customer will think, “If the vendor feels that your level of service was good enough, especially when you’re trying to engage with me, that doesn’t say much about the leadership of this company.”

As the author of an Amazon #1 bestselling sales book and a 20-year veteran of the B2B sales industry, I’ve been privileged to meet and interview hundreds of C-suite decision makers over the years. In my company Trinity Perspectives, I’ve harnessed this knowledge and experience to ensure the B2B companies we work with are supported in their expansion efforts and equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to increase sales. Starting with win/loss analysis, we help remove the guesswork from the sales process and ensure your company tailors its sales approach to reflect the buying preferences of your target market.