Sales Team Work to Make Dreams Work!

Are you a lone wolf in your company, or are you the first to sign up to help with the 3-legged sack race at the company picnic?  

As sales teams spread out and collaborate across functions, you need help finding sales that only one person can see. You are more likely to see representatives call on experts’ other representatives, marketing, finance, pricing, or operations, for help and backup.

Selling is emotional. We have all found ourselves screaming and gnashing our teeth at the end of a big sale when the “customer” disagrees with the sale. 

For the same reason, when we close a big sale, another big sale often follows. It makes you wonder if success loves company. 

Success loves company, and sales are a team sport! 

Teamwork makes dreams come true. When we talk about teams, we do not mean a chain of command that runs up and down your sales organization. We are also not targeting cross-role production line operations. Build teams from all fundamental or problem-related knowledge and lead them to solve sales problems faster than the competition. This can include everyone in your organization or even potential customers. In other words, think big and short regarding team sales. 

Group selling has many advantages:

• Bringing together different perspectives

• Combining different experiences and knowledge

• Filling strength and knowledge gaps

• Holding agents and other players accountable for their actions

• Creating significant learning opportunities for less experienced agents

Buyers are better educated about the products and services they buy. They have researched and expect your sales team to be even more knowledgeable. It will take a village to meet these new expectations. Potential customers certainly need help to come to the table. B2B buyers bring an average of six to seven decision-makers or influencers. 

How much freedom should your rep have to go outside when they have a sales problem outside the process or trial? Colouring outside the lines is how we discover new tactics and best practices to share with the team later.  Individual Efforts Also Matter to the Team. Here is how: 

Ownership: Sales representatives who care about sales results have a sense of right and pride in their work. This does not mean that they should exclude others from the process. Instead, they are motivated to help the organization, not just themselves. 

Accountability: Agents must take personal responsibility – be responsible for the task at the end of the day – for timely deliveries. They also need to understand that their actions affect other team members. 

Trust: You must trust your teammates; your teammates must also trust you. Confidence comes from believing that you are working towards the same goal. You earn it by being reliable, professional, consistent and hardworking. Lose that, and you have a weak link – and a team is only as strong as its weakest Link. Help your agent do both. Collaboration is the secret sauce to building a great team and being great individual contributors to your team. 

Who is your sales team? 

The bigger question is, whose sales team are you on?

Every day we must make it our mission to reach out and talk to other team members. A salesperson who believes their people want to be left alone and never interrupted is simply not doing their job. Salespeople who say they want to work in complete solitude will never reach their full potential. 

Can you imagine sitting in a person’s corner and telling them their job is to design a car without input from others? 

Would this person succeed? No. 

Your job is to create a sales team and be part of it. It means dialogue, support, responsibility, learning, sharing and helping. If you are not part of a sales team that does this, you will need to create one by contacting others. Ask them to be part of the team. If you are in a group and this does not happen regularly, you need to find another team.

Sellers reading this, take note. This is your #1 job. The goal is to provide a quarterly number and ensure the timely submission of reports. If you build the right team, all other functions will be taken care of.